Two Women and Some Books
Because life happens…
Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.
Growing older is sometimes quite fun
When you look back on all that you’ve done
And can take a deep breath
At each shibboleth
You once suffered but have now overcome
Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV takes time from his immensely important life to proffer profound advice to those who still struggle on the aspirational slopes of authorhood…
Dear Reader Who Writes,
As ever it falls onto my shoulders to ensure you are aware whose words of wisdom you are imbibing from the breast of pedagogy. I am Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV. My claim to a seat at the high table of the literary elite is rooted in my credentials as author of the science fiction and fantasy neo-classic “Fatswhistle and Buchtooth”. At one point, this work of incredible creativity achieved the giddy heights of Amazon’s one millionth on the bestseller charts. As such, you can rest assured I am indeed over-qualified to dispense guidance on how you can best write your own delightful fantasia.
I may have mentioned in passing that my father has long since gone to a better place. In truth I do not recall too much about my father. He was seldom at home even when he was still with us. But I do recall one conversation. I was still in shorts being a mere lad of seventeen, he sat me on his knee and grunted a bit, then told me: “Moony boy – you have to learn the facts of life. Fact One – life is a shit heap and only those at the top get to smell the sweet clean air. Fact Two – you only get to the top if you use the heads of others like a ladder. You got that son?”
At the time I had no idea of his meaning. I had little idea of what his job was either I had always believed he was some form of landscape gardener. After all what else should one think a hedge fund manager did all day? Tragically, before I had any opportunity to ask him to elucidate in depth, he was gone forever.
So whilst Mummy and I share a suburban semi-detached residence, he has gone to paradise. I think it is the Bahamas although it may be Bermuda – the pictures on Facebook are always very vague as he has no wish to alert the tax authorities to his present whereabouts.
Which brings me neatly to my topic for today.
I can not express strongly enough how crucial it is to provide the precise and perfect backcloth against which to unfold your torpid little tale to transform it from mediocrity (or worse) to stella-luminescence in the literary sphere. Location. Location. Location.
Imagine for a moment if Robinson Crusoe had been set on an island near Tonbridge not Trinidad? Would ‘A Thousand and One Nights’ be as beguiling were the stories set in Swansea? These are things to ponder and as you do so, here is my list of questions to ask yourself when choosing the best locale for your literature.
Vital as it determines your character’s style of dress!
Vital as you need to know if the sea is nearby for a swim or if your characters will be hiking through mountains.
Best to avoid this location if not as you and your readers won’t understand anything.
One of the key advantages of writing science-fiction and fantasy, you can make up everything about the place to suit however you want it to be.
And that is pretty much it. Get those basics right and the rest will fall into place.
Until my next, oh disciples of Calliope!
Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV
You can find more of IVy’s profound advice in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.
Your truth is built on shifting sand
On words that move and drift
One day proffers a helping hand
The next, opinion shifts
Your truth is like a house of cards
As brittle as your smile
I’ve felt your scorn and take it hard
I may be gone a while
Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends. Life seems to be going well when…
It was early summer and the weather took it into its head to be idyllic, which meant the pub was heaving from opening time until we shoved the last customer out into the the starlit car park and locked the door. Between the office, care of my children, and pinch hitting in the kitchen, I had no time to think about disaffected Romany daughters or the possible ramifications of a feud between the Lovell and Proudly clans. The purchase of the orchard and the other bits of land went through more or less on the nod, with my only input being the transfer of twenty-five thousand pounds and my signature alongside Ben’s on a sheaf of documents our solicitor was kind enough to bring to us. Ben and I waved his expensively tailored figure farewell as he exited the car park in his shiny Volvo. I looked up at Ben’s face to see him wearing his confused look.
“What’s up love?”
“Larry the Law Wrangler. Dresses like a rabid Tory. Drives that exceedingly boring Swedish monstrosity like your maiden aunt if you had one. But…”
“But he’s further out on the political left than you or me could ever be, and spends his weekend thrashing a souped up Beamer up and down vertical slopes.”
“Something like that. I mean, how come?”
“Necessity Benny. He couldn’t be a successful solicitor in rural Hampshire if he looked, or acted like his true self. So Monday through Friday he puts on his work face and gets on with the job.”
“That makes so much sense. Like a uniform. Like me not wearing my favourite trackies with a hole in the arse, and your designer threads and carefully assembled image.”
“Pretty much.”
“Why have I never thought about it before?”
“Mostly because you rarely deal with him. It’s my job.”
“That’s a truth too. I think today is the longest conversation I’ve ever had with him. Wouldn’t have had that if he hadn’t brought the papers for us to sign.” He paused and scratched his chin. “Come to think of it, why’d he do that?”
I had to laugh. “Because he likes our food. And because he can pig out and still tell himself he only had tapas for lunch.”
Work called, but at least we went back to the grindstone laughing.
With the month of June drawing to a breathless end, the pub continued to be frantically busy, but our hard-worked ‘family’ at last achieved a bit of a break in the form of an influx of students from the local catering college. We have always taken youngsters on work placements and apprenticeships, and it has also been our practice to beef up the brigade with the best among them during the Easter, summer and Christmas breaks.
We originally decided on a dozen, six in the kitchens and six front of house, but the mad busyness encouraged me to add in three more in the tapas kitchen. To my relief, and that of all the pub staff, the kids bedded in well and everyone got a bit of breathing space. Within a week I was able to lift my head and look about me.
Once I had breathed for a couple of days I got a sinking feeling I was missing something. When it hit me I was ashamed to admit, even to myself, that I hadn’t given a thought to the Ice Cream Parlour/American Diner we had created in one of the barns to the side of the main building. It was currently only open weekends and Bank Holidays, and was under Morgan’s management. Although I had complete faith in her vision and her ability, I thought I should at least see show an interest.
It was Friday, and bidding fair to be another scorcher, so I stuck my head into the kitchen just to make sure there were no problems.
“Everything okay?”
Neil smiled happily and gave me a thumbs up.
“All present and correct, and we’ll even have time for breakfast before the starving hordes arrive.”
“Where Morgan?”
“Sorting the ice cream parlour for tomorrow.”
“I’ll pop along and see her. I’ve got my phone and the office won’t run away.”
Neil snorted and I went, laughing. The back door to the ice cream parlour leads onto the private garden and this morning it was wide open, letting in a warm wind from the forest.
Morgan was busily restocking the soft drinks bar. She grinned at me.
“Come to see how we’re doing?”
“I have. I’m feeling guilty that I haven’t been offering any support. Plus I just noticed that everywhere else has extra staff, but you haven’t.”
“No. But we don’t need anybody.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. Look Joss, we’re as busy as we can handle in this space and we manage just fine. Any more bodies back here and we’d just get in each other’s way.”
I looked around me and could see the justice in what she said. The diner had a dozen booths with seating, a dozen tall tables where people had to stand to eat, and a dozen stools at the bar. Even at full capacity, I could understand how two waitresses, a bar person, and two in the kitchen could perfectly manage. I nodded.
“Is there anything you need then?”
”Yes. Maybe. Perhaps. If it’s not running before we learn to walk, we’d like to take over the little storeroom beyond that door. Not to put any more tables in, but as a takeaway window for ice-creams and stuff.”
That seemed to me to be an eminently sensible idea and I nodded. “That’s a good notion. But you will need someone to staff it.”
“We will. And we’ll have to look at managing days off and stuff when we increase the opening hours for the summer holidays.”
“You will indeed.” I grinned into her eyes. “So tell me what you have in mind and I’ll see if it’s doable.”
She bent down to pick up her tablet from under the counter.
“Joss,” she whispered, “don’t look now but there’s a man outside the window staring in.”
There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.
Because life can be interesting when you are a non-player character in an online video game…
Milla spun on her heel and picked up the pace into the village, not stopping until she had reached One Eye’s shop. The old ryeshor rubbed at his eye patch as the elf’s armour lit up the rather dingy interior. Ruffkin was happily snarfing some fish guts from a bowl in the corner and Pew looked pleasingly surprised.
“You found a tank!”
“Better,” Milla told him I found a…”
“Blessedknight Gloryjammer,” the elf announced, then her eyes narrowed. “Don’t I know you? You an alt of Pewpowerpewpew? Used to be in Forgotten Order of Lost Souls before it had a drama fest and fell apart?”
Pew looked a little awkward.
“That was a while ago and it wasn’t me. I didn’t do what they said I’d…”
“You were the best Firecaster on the server in vanilla – everyone knew that.”
“Well, not really, I was one of the many good…”
But Glory wasn’t listening. There was a fervour of hero worship in her words. “You won’t remember me but you gave me my first decent weapon. Said I’d grow into it one day. I was just a newby, and you were one of the greats, but you took the time to group with me.”
Pew was looking increasingly as if he wanted to be somewhere else, but Milla was too intrigued by this glimpse into his history to stop it. In the end it was One Eye who came to Pew’s rescue.
“It’s what we all do, isn’t it? Pay it forward, they call it. Help the next ones in so they can help the ones as follow them.”
“Yes. What he said.” Pew snatched up the backpack he had been filling. “I’ll be outside.”
One Eye lifted an eye ridge at Milla and sniffed.
“I’ll be looking after your little Ruffkin, but you should know I don’t approve of this. Your a Local not a Visitor. Locals don’t go on ventures.”
“I already did,” she protested.
“Yes. You did. ‘An’ that were one too many in my view. But you’re as wild as a sandylion, young’un and there’s no point telling you what to not do. So have my blessing for what it’s worth and here…” he held out an old belt that seemed to be made from strips of plaited fabric. “You wear this and come home safe.”
Milla took the belt and felt a tingle as she buckled it around her waist, surprised that it seemed to fit perfectly. Then she hugged the old ryeshor impulsively and left him to find provisions for Glory, as she went to join Pew who was sitting on the seawall staring out to sea.
“You don’t have to come,” he said. “Thing is, it could be dangerous. I’m not sure what is going on. Someone could really get hurt.”
“If what you say about String is true, someone already is.”
“I know but…”
“So I’m coming.”
He gripped her hand tightly, looking into her eyes as if trying to read something there.
“I know. I don’t deserve you. And if anything happens to you I’ll never…”
She stopped his words with another kiss, then sat back quickly as she heard footsteps on the cobbled street.
“I’m not interrupting anything?” Glory was smirking again.
Pew pushed himself from the wall and stood up.
“Not a thing. We need to get a boat to the Barren Steppes.”
And that was the one thing that had been troubling Milla. Locals never went on the boats. She’d not known any to even try because, well, everyone knew you just couldn’t do it. But then, as One Eye had said, Locals didn’t go on ventures either. So she stiffened her crest frills and strode after Pew as he headed along the dock. He stopped by the mooring place where the ship would come in and looked at her with concern.
“Barren Steppes is in a different zone. I don’t know what it’d be like for you to move cross zones. I don’t even know if you can do it. I mean for us zoning is just something that happens, but for you… I can’t imagine what it might be like.”
“Neither can I,” Milla admitted, pushing out a brave smile, although inside her stomach was feeling queasy. More from the prospect of leaving Wrathburnt Sands, the only place she’d ever known than from any real worry about travelling. “I guess I’m going to find out.”
Log on to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook for the 17th Quest next week.
‘Wrathburnt Sands’ and ‘Return to Wrathburnt Sands’ were first published in Rise and Rescue: A GameLit Anthology and in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover.
Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…
It was council of war time. The nomes had very long, very bad memories of Big and the things he called fireworks.
“It isn’t even November,” Granny snapped.
“Neither it is, but I doesn’t see what us can do.”
“There must be summat.”
The brangling went on for a while, but to no avail. Even the foreman of moles couldn’t see her way clear to do anything.
Night fell, and the house was full to the brim with drunken biggers. Big strode out into the darkness clutching something to his fat belly. He plopped it into the ground and ran…
A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…
agroculture (noun) – the ethos of young men with assault weapons
beave (descriptive noun) – semi-shaven lady garden
cicksure (adjective) – bolshie and liable for fall over one’s own feet – often the result of the injudicious application of alcohol to the cakehole
denenter (noun) – word guaranteed to enrage a large man waving an axe.
emmory (adjective) – of men, having not shaved
endge (noun) – the bit of a car engine that whizzes round for no apparent reason
goid (noun) – swelling of the great toe caused by kicking the backside of an eejit
holarious (adjective) – so funny that you laugh until you all but get a prolapse
lierary (adverb) – of speech sounding as if it might be untrue
orgsam (noun – impolite) – self-generated sexual pleasure
sdie (noun) – bottle genie with a weird sense of humour
shre (adjective) – of yummy mummies to have special clothing for every activity
snutan (noun) – a peculiarly unappealing side of orange
touprt (noun) – ill-fitting hairpiece
Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.
Because life happens…
Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.
For life is a garden of flowers
With each bloom that you pick for your bowers
The right colour or scent
Just has to be meant
Then the finished display you empowers
Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV takes time from his immensely important life to proffer profound advice to those who still struggle on the aspirational slopes of authorhood…
Dear Reader Who Writes,
As you will doubtless now be aware you are being addressed here by none other that the most highly esteemed author of that now classic masterpiece of the speculative fiction genre “Fatswhistle and Buchtooth”, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV. To friends, one is known as ‘IVy’ (a hangover from one’s days at at exclusive boarding school when puns on names were all the rage). To the maternal parent, it is ‘Moons’ (her idea of an affectionate abbreviation – or so she has oft times declared). But you, dear Reader who Writes, can use ‘Sir’ as befits our relationship status as pupil and pedagogue and I will refer to you as ‘RWW’.
There, formalities concluded let me explain a little in advance of today’s lesson, not too much, of course as your eager, if limited, spongesque cranial contents must not be over-challenged. Today’s lesson took form in my mind after I shared lunch with Mummy in the area of the kitchen we refer to as ‘the dining room’. It is a table squeezed into the bijou space left where the Aga used to live, before Mumsie declaimed one morning: “Stuff that sodding status symbol – I’m getting a proper cooker!” And in the same sweeping change, reverted our previous refectory to become her personal boudoir – or as she calls it her ‘withdrawing room’ – whilst establishing our current dining arrangements.
But I digress. We had just partaken of the midday meal, when Mummy burped gently and leaned across the table towards me. I was about to comment on the interesting new cologne she was sporting, when I noticed the gin bottle beside her place setting.
“Moons,” she slurred, “Do you ever feel like you are a walk-on extra in someone else’s life and not a proper person at all?”
It was, of course, a trick question as the moisture in her eyes – no doubt from suppressed laughter – betrayed. I can’t recall my exact witty and dismissive response but I do remember Mumsie rapidly withdrawing from the room right after and locking herself in her withdrawing room, not to emerge for two days.
So yes, today’s lesson:
We have, you will recall, already considered the best way to create the main characters in your stories, but now it is time to contemplate the little people. Those characters who appear for a paragraph or maybe a chapter, or step onto the stage now and then but are most often to be found off-stage, in the green room flipping coins with their fellows.
Such characters, you are thinking are you not my predictable pupil, are hardly worth investing the time in. They are a face in the crowd, a name on a list, a mere mention in passing. Wrong, I respond in this hypothetical conversation. Wrong and wrong again! These are not the non-entities you assume. No, each is an individual striving for their own aims and deserves to be treated as such!
So do not stint on your duty to these characters, give them as much attention to detail as you do to your precious protagonist. Let each have a history and a place in your world. When a new supporting star or starlet walks into your prose, meet them and greet them, sit down and have a cup of tea with them, listen to their dreams and pay heed to their nightmares. Be as their recording angel and capture their souls with the written word. Let them live!
And with that thought, à bientôt mes élèves!
Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV
You can find more of IVy’s profound advice in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.
Forthcoming
Spring bounds
Leaping
Loping
Loving
Life returning
Spring sounds
Singing
Ringing
Bringing
Rain Falling
Spring pounds
Soaking
Blowing
Growing
Sun shining
Spring grounds
Bursting
Thrusting
Blooming
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