Dear Reader Who Writes,

It always behoves me to assume that there will be at least one new reader of my inspirational course on ‘How to Start Writing a Book’. So to that gentle reader I doff my hat and reveal that I am none other than Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV – author of the  brilliant and inventive novel, “Fatswhistle and Buchtooth”, a seminal work exploring the furthest conceptual reaches of science fiction and fantasy.

Today’s topic came to me a while ago and then I was distracted by my Muse offering other, more pressingly urgent dangleberries of wisdom and demanding that those took precedence. But then my focus was rehoned to the point by Mumsie walking into my writing cave, bearing her trademark pernod and ginger wine in a champagne flute with the inevitable green olive drifting in the murk. “Oh my god, Moons, this place stinks worse than a sumo wrestlers jock-strap!” I delicately pointed out that she was referring to my vetiver, bergamot and lemongrass aromatherapy oil, blended expressly to induce higher states of creativity.

Mummy was not, however, much impressed by this revelation. Instead she picked up my pristine first edition copy of Fatswhistle and Buchtooth and opened it, bending the spine and splattering droplets of her alcoholic creosote over it’s pages. Before I could recover from the horror of her deed, she had dropped the irreplaceably precious item back on my desk. “Don’t they say you can’t tell a book by the cover? Got it wrong with yours though. Shite inside and out.”

How to Start Writing a Book – The Write Cover.

A book cover needs to be a visual precis of your prose. It should capture and enrapture the roving eye as a reader runs through the rows of books either on a shelf in a shop or on a scrolling screen. Yours must be the cover that cries out as that putative reader sifts through stacks of books to find their next favourite fiction.

But how is this achieved? If you read the academic artists they will talk of proportions, the Golden Mean, of colour strengths and shades and other esoteric claptrap. It is actually stunningly simple – make it red.

Red is the most eye-catching colour as everyone knows. We are all primally preprogrammed to see red as a signal of something requiring our attention. Therefore, so long as your cover is red your book will be read.

A more sophisticated and subtle touch can be achieved by drawing on that other universal colour combination guaranteed to draw the eye – black and yellow. Our perceptions are precisely honed to hover our eyes on anything that resembles hornets or wasps. So, if red is not appropriate for your magnificent tome – black and yellow may well serve the same end.

Of course, to be sure, combine the two concepts.

Oh and put a naked lady on it, ideally headless.

Follow these infallible rules and you will create a cover that none will miss and your book will bound from shelves be those physical or metaphorical.

Until next time, au revoir mes petites poissons.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below. Starway Pathfinders is a science fiction show that entertains the better off and brings hope to the poor…

“We don’t have any real choice, do we?”
They were on the glides home and it was slowly sinking in. Joah had signed a dozen different contracts and now Starways Pathfinders had gone from being an entertainment to… What? A top class project or a political scam?
“No. None.” Zarshay sounded more speculative than upset.
Joah looked at her sharply.
“We are being roped in to con the entire population.”
Zarshay grinned at her and nodded. “That is what our President and his coterie intend, yes. There will be promises and claims. Probably even some attempt at designing a ship that could do the job, but we have nothing that could go fast enough. Everyone knows FTL is pure science-fiction — it breaks the laws of physics.”
“But?”
“But nothing. It won’t work. So, there will be a load of money raised for whatever the Strands’ private purpose might be.”
“And we are the bait — our show is the bait.” Joah could hear the bitterness in her own voice.
Zarshay squeezed her arm and said nothing, but she was smiling to herself as if at some private joke all the rest of the way home.

“Oh please, Dog, just for one event. You, me, dinner, dancing, the media. Is it too much to ask?”
Dog ran his fingers through his hair and looked down into the warm pools of Heila’s eyes. Her face was tilted at the perfect angle to display the soft expression of appeal. He felt his jaw grow tight and his lips compressed. This was not good. There was no escape either as they were waiting together in the changing room. Their basic costume was all they had to worry about, everything else would be added by Joah in the editing — makeup, effects, everything. Dog sometimes felt it didn’t even matter how well or badly he acted as even that could be put right in Joah’s magic post-production booth.
“Pu-leese, darling?” Heila must have thought his hesitation was doubt or indecision. It wasn’t. He just couldn’t think of how to say ‘no’ without sounding too rude.
“I said before; I wasn’t going to do that sort of stuff except for the show,” he told her.
“This is for the show, it’ll be a Captain Gervain and Sub-Commander Stude thing, not a Heila Camarthy and Hengast Gethick thing.”
“I’ve not had any word from Joah about it.”
The soft expression slipped a little, like the padding from a hard chair. He doubted anyone else would have seen it, except maybe Zarshay, but he’d spent too many days in the last three years staring into that face and watching it shift moods with plastic elasticity. He wondered if even Heila knew who she really was or what she really felt anymore.
“It’s not like it would cost you anything, Dog — and the chance to get your face and mine on the top of everyone’s newsfeed has to be worth it.”
Worth it for who?
Dog was spared having to say that or thinking of a better reply by Zarshay bundling into the changing room and dropping her hooded costume on a bench.
“Glad I grabbed you before you got changed,” she said, we have a team meeting with Joah whilst Wilf is setting up.

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 0111

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

Puppy dog, puppy dog
Where have you been?
I’ve been in the garden
To keep the house clean.

Puppy dog, puppy dog,
What did you there?
I pooped under the rose bush
Then peed up the chair

Puppy dog, puppy dog
Why did you do that?
I couldn’t quite make it
When chasing the cat.

Puppy dog, puppy dog
That is so bad!
I know I’ve been naughty
But please don’t be mad.

Puppy dog, puppy dog,
You know it’s forbidden
I know and I’m sorry,
So am I forgiven?

Puppy dog, puppy dog
Oh what can I do?
Just cuddle and love me
And I’ll love you too.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The day that a patronising little shit of a TV presenter told our heroine she had won a ‘life-changing’ amount of money was a good day. Firstly because she likes winning, and secondly because the aforementioned patronising bastard had his hand on her ass as he said it, thereby giving her the excuse to haul off and belt him one. It was a good punch, leaving him winded and retching. And the best of it was that the cameras were still rolling. But that’s at the end of the story. It would be better to start somewhere nearer the beginning

Messing around with the iPad can be injurious to your health and no more so than the day Jen Evans came across an advert for a new game show. ‘Little physical exertion’ it said ‘but contestants will need good general knowledge and nerves of steel.’ She passed the pad to her long-time partner Adam, who laughed.
“Nerves of titanium, more like” he grinned. “Whyn’t you apply?”
She did. On a whim. And promptly forgot about it.

An email asking for more details about her caused Jen and Adam great hilarity as they vied with each other to be more and more outrageous whilst remaining more or less within the boundaries of truth.
“They won’t” she said cheerfully “be wanting a forty-year-old woman with attitude.”
He grinned. “No. Maybe not. Most don’t. Ain’t you glad I do!”
“Ditto, smart arse.”

Surprise hardly comes close to their reaction – actually the pair of them giggled like schoolgirls – when a bulky envelope arrived in the post. It contained all sorts of information leaflets and an invitation to attend an elimination weekend somewhere in the Brecon Beacons. As most of the leaflets were about extreme sports, she declined the kind offer.
“Creepy bastards” she said brightly as they walked to the Post Office with her somewhat brisk letter of refusal.
It turned out that not only were the people behind the concept creepy, they were also convoluted, because refusing the offered weekend was the way to pass the first round of eliminations. Jen got a letter, a few days after her ‘stuff it’ missive, offering a place at the next round of eliminations in southern Spain. She gave the letter to Adam, who read it twice: once quickly and once carefully. He put the paper down.
“I dunno what to think. But you might be getting close to being chosen, so you’d better decide whether you want to do it or not.”
“No. Not specially. I think I’ll just duck out now.”
“Okay.”
She stuffed the letter back in its envelope with a post it note saying ‘thanks but no thanks’ and returned it from whence it came.
“Thank fuck that’s over.”

Nothing happened for a couple months, so it came as a complete surprise to get an email asking if some people from the production company could come visit.
“It’s your call.” Adam looked at her over his reading glasses.
“No then.”
But they came anyway.

It was a lovely May morning when Jen noticed the shiny new Range Rover parking opposite and wondered idly who had so far lost their way as to find themselves in the one-cat hamlet she called home. She didn’t have to wonder for long, as two people climbed out of the car and scurried across the road, knocking importantly on the front door of her house.
It was one of the cleaning lady’s days, so she opened the door. The uninvited visitors took a couple steps back at the sight of the mountain of muscle and tattoos that was Albany Brown. To do them justice they recovered fast, and the man surged forward with one hand outstretched. Mrs B ignored the hand and stared down at them.
“We’re from One Thick Monkey Productions” the man said in rather forced tones. “Here to see Jennifer Evans.”
Mrs B shut the door in their faces and came to find Jen.
“Will I let them in, ask what they want, or tell them to piss off?”
Leo was hugely amused. “Ask what they want.”
She rolled back to the door and opened it a crack.
“Ms Evans wants to know what you are here for.”
The man turned a smile of blinding whiteness on her.
“We’re here to persuade her to become a contestant in our newest venture. A global game show like nothing that has ever been before.”
He made to walk in, but the door was firmly slammed shut.
“You hear that?”
“Yes.”
“You want I should let them in?”
“No.”

A couple of hours later Adam found Jen weeding in the back garden. He wobbled his eyebrows.
“They aren’t going to go away, you know.”
“They have to go some time…”
He grinned wickedly. “Not unless you chase them away with the twelve bore.”
“What d’you suggest Clever Dick.”
“Let them in. Listen politely.”
She snarled at him and he just grinned wider.
“Okay. You win. Invite them in. But no offer of refreshment. And if they want the john it’s the one out back.”
“We’re agreed on that” he smirked evilly and sloped off to the Range Rover, returning a couple of minutes later with the dubious duo in tow.
Mrs B decided to join in the fun, and leaned against the kitchen wall with her arms folded across her impressively corseted chest.
Jen was brisk. “Sit. You have ten minutes.”
Mister Corporate started fiddling about in his briefcase.
“Nine minutes thirty seconds.”
He looked up with a hint of panic his eyes before he continued his frantic scrabbling. It was noticeable that his female companion was having trouble keeping a straight face.
“What you lost?” Mrs B showed her gold tooth in a grin.
“The contract Ms Evans needs to sign. It’s not here,” Mister Corporate declared dramatically “Caroline. Go and search the car.”
Jen looked at his hair gel and his revolting tie and felt her gorge rise.
“It must have been you left it behind,” she said. “Whyn’t you go fetch it?”
“Because she’s a girl,” he spluttered. Then he bethought himself and tried for a charming smile.
Jen sneered.
“Tell you what, you pop out and sit in the car and let us girls have a nice chat.”
He opened his mouth again and both Jen and Mrs B glared at him. For a moment there was an impasse then he shrugged his shoulders and left. Adam grinned at his departing back.
“You haven’t made a friend there.”
“That’s fine. I’m not running for election.”
The girl, Caroline, smiled.
“I’m not sure I should thank you for that. He’ll have his vengeance.”
“Not if you get him first.”
I could see her thinking about that one, then a slow, vicious grin spread across her rather plain face. She sat up straight.
“Okay. How long do I have to pitch this thing to you?”
“Not long. I bore easily.”
It was boring. Very boring. But Caroline stuck to her guns. In the end the flood of words wore Jen down sufficiently so that she agreed to read information pack, promising to let the production company know by the end of the week.
Caroline went out and climbed into the Range Rover. A stony faced corporate man started the engine and the car pulled away. Jen put the pack of paper on the table and grinned her three-cornered grin.
“You’re gonna do it aren’t you?” Adam asked.
“Very probably.”
“Because?”
“Two reasons. One. It starts just after you go to Saudi for six months and even if I get right to the end it finishes just as you get back. Two. The buggers see me as canon fodder. I’d kinda like to prove them wrong.”
“Three. You didn’t like Mister Corporate a bit. However you did quite like his sidekick.”
“True. What’d you think.”
“I think it might amuse you while I’m gainfully employed for the last time. So fine. But. No risks. I’ll have your promise.”
“Physical risks?”
“Yeah. I’d not expect you to get through a day without rocking somebody’s boat.”
He grinned and hugged her. She hugged back.
“Looks like I’m going to sign up for Mind Games then don’t it?”
“It does.”

Two months passed and Adam finished his secondment in England. Jen packed his bags for him, and took him to Heathrow, where he boarded a flight to his last ever assignment. In Saudi Arabia.

Jen went home and shut up the cottage before presenting herself at Bristol airport early one Sunday morning. She wore combats and carried a very small bag. The brainless bird who signed her in looked at her luggage with something akin to pity.
“That all you have?’
“No. But the rest is invisible.”

© Jane Jago

In spite of the rolling syllables of his name Marius Quintillus Sextus was a plain man, plain of features and plain-spoken, and perfectly aware that the Military Governorship of Kythera was a two-edged sword. On one hand, the climate was pleasant and the women had the reputation of being as friendly as they were beautiful. On the other side of the coin, the politics were murky, the religion beyond understanding, and the corruption all but defied belief.

However, he determined to do as good a job as circumstances would permit, and by the time the season of the Bull Dancing was upon them, he and his staff had begun to create order from the chaos left behind by an ineffectual predecessor and his unscrupulous staff.

As tradition demanded, the Governor took a break from his duties to attend the first Bull Dances of the season, alongside the great and the good of Kytheran society. 

First up were the littlest dancers who practised jumps and forward rolls and back flips with the aid of imitation bulls made of wood and leather and pushed around on wheels. Marius leaned forward in his seat and applauded the tiny tots’ remarkable athleticism. When their display was over the little ones ran to the side of the arena in front of the governor’s box and all bowed. Marius had done his homework, and was able to broadcast handfuls of wrapped sweetmeats to the row of children who scrambled for the largesse before running off. 

As the age of the participants rose, their bovine opponents grew fiercer, and the dances grew more and more complex and beautiful. Time and again, Marius found himself on the edge of his seat as the young men and women demonstrated levels of courage, skill, timing and athleticism that put anything else he had ever seen to shame, as they vied to snatch brightly coloured ribbon rosettes from the horns of the cattle. 

He thought he had seen all there was to see and was even becoming a little blasé when the arena gates opened to allow in a huge black bull with sharpened gilded horns and polished hooves. The stable hands whistled and banged pots and the bull careered around the arena working itself up into a state of absolute rage. When it was all but foaming at the mouth, a single bare-breasted girl ran onto the raked white sand – dancing over, under, and around the furious animal, which carried a white ribbon rosette between its horns.

“That is Pasiphea,” Marius’ secretarius murmured, “three seasons champion”.

The girl was like quicksilver, with a taut, athletic little body that had even the normally pragmatic Marius thinking distinctly erotic thoughts. He watched narrowly, coming to realise that she could have snatched the rosette many times and that she was putting on a show for the assembled company. In a final flourish she performed three forward flips along the enraged animal’s spine before plucking the rosette and jumping neatly to the ground. 

Then disaster struck. The raked white sand must have been poorly packed and the dancer landed with her foot in a hole. As she went down in a heap the bull was facing away from her, but it was only going to be a matter of time before it turned.

Excerpt from The Bull Dancer which can be found in Pulling the Rug Two by Jane Jago one of many books of poetry, short stories, and full-sized fictional adventures you can find in the Sweet Free Summertime Reads giveaway!

I am, in case you had failed to notice, of an age where suntanned skin resembles nothing more than a pair of worn out walking boots: wrinkled, crumbling and deeply unattractive. Which is just one of the many reasons I don’t sit in the sun….

For more reasons I don’t indulge read on.

It’s boring. You can’t read because the sun gets in your eyes. You can’t hold a conversation because your brain is too hot to be arsed. And even Gyp won’t entertain you because he has sufficient sense to have sought shade.

It’s sweaty. Your undertit area will be sticky. Your armpits will be miniature waterfalls. And even your hair will be sweating.

It’s bad for you. If the spectre of melanoma doesn’t scare you, fine. Me? I’m in enough trouble with the ciggies.

So then. The advice on the sunbathing front is – don’t do it.

If the sun is hot take yourself somewhere shady and equip yourself with an ice-cold beer. 

But. But. Do I hear you say?

A suntan looks healthy. It doesn’t. It just looks like a suntan.

Being tanned is slimming. It just isn’t. 

Need I say more?

However. If you really must feck with your skin colour there are options that don’t involve self-barbecuing.

Sunbeds. Just as boring as ordinary sunbathing, and arguably not any better for your health.

Spray tan. Almost always weirdly orange.

Self-tanning lotions. Streaky and stinky and orange.

Moisturiser with a hint of self tan. Probably the least obscene option if still a tad satsuma in colour. 

To conclude. Do. Not. Sunbathe. And think carefully before you apply any sort of fake tan. There are horrible warnings out there. Look at them and think.

You can now have a collection of Granny’s inimitable insights of your very own in Granny Knows Best.

The water in the crumbling wells is sweet, and in the time of our mothers’ mothers, women of incomparable grace fetched that water in the dawn light, balancing the ewers on their slender shoulders. But the world changes, and as time went on, water was piped to the village, after which the two-mile hike to the wells rather went out of fashion, with only a few of the older women clinging to the belief that well water tastes better than that from a pump in an a tap house at the centre of the village.

Nobody thought too much about the wells until one Sulieman, son of Sulieman, a handsome smooth-skinned, well-to-do young man of little conscience but some local importance, bought the field next to the wells from old Ibrahim. This young man had some entrepreneurial ambitions, and declared the wells his property too. He informed the village that from now on water would cost one Lek per ewer, and that he was going to build a bottling plant and sell crumbling wells water in the city. Even this would have bothered nobody much, had not one of the old women who still regularly collected the cold sweet water been the mother of the village headman.
To say she was furious was to understate the case enormously, and she berated her son as a coward for allowing such a thing to happen. He shrugged and did nothing, as men will. His mother carried on going to the wells every morning, until the day a crowd of hired bravos blocked her way and beat her with bamboo staves until her face was running with blood. For the first time in sixty years, Fatima returned to the village without her water. The whole village was in immediate uproar that such a venerable lady should be so mistreated. They forgot how spiteful Fatima could be in their anger at her bleeding face and limbs. She allowed herself to be fussed over and fed the villagers’ indignation with a show of uncomplaining bravery. It wasn’t until after dark that she gathered certain things together and began to work her malice.
The elders sent for Sulieman. He appeared in front of them with a somewhat truculent expression on his smooth, round face. To his surprise, no mention was made of Fatima’s injuries, instead he was told that as the owner of the wells he was responsible for repairing their crumbling brickwork. Until such time as the repair work was carried out to the satisfaction of the whole village no charge for water could be made. The young entrepreneur bridled, but the elders stood firm. They would fetch in a law writer from the city to enforce their ruling if they were ignored. Sulieman knew himself outmanoeuvred, but determined that he would not be beaten.
That night Fatima, and a lush-bodied young girl Sulieman had used and discarded, made their way to the place of the wells. They were there for some time.
Sulieman called in a family of well diggers from a neighbouring village. They looked at the wells and promptly declined the job. Three more groups declined the contract, before a family from many days’ walk away accepted the job unseen. They arrived at the wells and were obviously shocked by what they saw. They sat together on the dusty ground and pondered. In the end, they packed up their tools and left. Sulieman stood in the middle of the road and tried to stop them leaving.
‘You cannot go. You agreed.’
‘You didn’t tell us about the curse.’ Then the oldest of the well builders shut his mouth firmly and led the way back through the forest to his own village.
While all this was happening, many, many people decided they now wanted to drink well water and a steady stream of containers was filled every day. It started in the pearlescent light of dawn with the old women and their pottery ewers, and carried on all day as the more modern ladies fetched water in plastic containers balanced precariously on the seats of foul-smelling mopeds. Sulieman watched helplessly as his dreamed of profits slipped through his smooth, oiled fingers.
Greatly discomposed, he dipped deeply into his pockets and called on the services of a professional curse-lifter from a town many miles away. The old man arrived in a battered minivan, accompanied by two of his wives and a live chicken. He strode into the place of the wells with confidence writ large in every inch of his scrawny frame. He was back within two minutes with a white face and shaking limbs. He got back into the minivan and drove away. Sulieman never saw the man again, or his money.
After spending ten days alternately ranting and sulking, Sulieman did what he should probably have done in the first place, and made a visit to the holy man who inhabited a modest cave in the foothills of the great mountain two days’ walk from the wells. Of course, Sulieman didn’t walk, indeed the two-hour climb from the road to the hermit’s cave was almost too much for him and he reached the holy man on his hands and knees. He wasn’t there long, returning to his waiting jeep at great speed, slipping and sliding and snarling. His driver and guard both kept closed mouths and Sulieman sat biting his nails as the jeep sped back along the dirt road. Nobody cared to ask him what the hermit had said. Whatever it was it had dire consequences.
Sulieman’s luck went bad. His goats sickened, his fields bore no crops, his fiancé found somebody she liked more, and even his hair started to fall out. He stood this for one half of one year before calling a meeting with the village elders at which he apologised for any misunderstanding in the matter of the crumbling wells and withdrew all claim to the wells and their water. Then he packed a small bag and left the district never to return. Fatima burned the doll with his hair and fingernails in its belly, and life in the village returned to normal.

The water in the crumbling wells is sweet, and women of incomparable grace still fetch that water in the dawn light.

©️ Jane Jago

Buenos dias mis hijos,

It is one, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, author, pedagogue, genius, and all-round good egg. Out of the kindness of my heart, and the largeness of my soul, and the sharpness of my intellect, I have elected to brighten your darkness, educate your ignorance, and lift your aspirations. By following my simple guides to literate and effective script, you too may aspire to the success – both in the annals of Mamon and in the estimation of the intelligentsia – of my own seminal novel ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’.

My intention to write this piece crystalised in my mind just yesterday morning when Mumsie threw open the door to my bijou writing sanctuary, her face an interesting shade of puce and mouthed some words at me, which I could not quite discern as I had the climax of the 1812 Overture playing in the background at the volume such an impressive piece deserves.

Without so much as a warning, Mumsie pulled the plug and deafening silence ensued. In the polite and restrained conversation which followed, I learned that apparently, the cannon fire had been loud enough to disturb the neighbours and even waken dear Mummy from her post libatious slumber. But, as I kept repeating, very reasonably if to no avail, how was I to know? It was not as if I could read her thoughts.

Ah, but the world of fiction is so much more amenable to such things, as I shall reveal to you my dear Reader Who Writes. And thus, having established both my bona fides and my intentions, we can move on to this week’s lesson. Pay attention…

How To Start Writing A Book: The Write Point of View

There is a great deal of advice out there on the vexed topic of point of view. Should one write in first person? Or perhaps close third person? Or omniscient third person? Or? The arguments rage long and bitterly. Devotees of each and every style consider their own personal favourite the only possible option and bitterly denigrate anyone with the temerity to disagree.

I am here to demystify the process in my usual and inimitable style. My dear little bunnies… It doesn’t matter.

Set yourself a scene and write it however it feels most fitting.

Write as if you sat above your protagonists on a pink and champagne-laden cloud. Write as though your prose was dragged screaming and turgid from the entrails of your damaged hero. Write from the careless and unfeeling head of your beautiful female antagonist. Write all three at the same time – one’s own preferred method of procedure – at least then your millions of fans will miss none of the nuances of meaning and intention.

All I will say is that the head hop, so despised by the horde of amateur lectors out there in ‘gosh I’m a published writer’ land, is the finest tool in the hand of those with true talent and exquisite sensibility. How will one’s readers know the texture of a lover’s skin, but also appreciate the blackness at beauty’s heart? Or how shall the simple folk following the journey of your broken crusader understand both his magnificence and his utter bleakness?

No, my students, hop from head to head as the muse wills. It will result in a tapestry of textures and emotions, both beautiful to the eye and instructive to the soul. This is the only way to allow your reader to immerse deeply into the bubbling cauldron of relationships and experiences that you are crafting for their delight.

And what of those philistines who would decry when you choose to write some sections in the first person and some in the third? Or when you write successive characters in the first person? These deluded individuals would have it that such stylistic magnificence is both confusing to the reader and hard to follow. Or they berate it for breaking their reading immersion. Poor precious darlings, say I! They should learn to engage with the author’s carefully chosen blend of points of view. They are lazy readers and not worthy of your literary outpourings. Shake the dust of their denouncements from your metaphorical feet with disdain.

So be bold and brazen, ignore the ignorant self-proclaimed ‘masters’ of the literary art. Whilst their poor prose may only allow scant glimpses of the inner processes of their characters, except perchance their chosen hero, yours will be as sunlight through the thickets of thought and feeling for every character who steps upon the stage of your story.

Until next. Escribe bien…

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below. Starway Pathfinders is a science fiction show that entertains the better off and brings hope to the poor…

The sleek, gleaming corridors and brilliant fake sunlight had Joah half convinced the very air was sweeter here than her home. They were on the floor below the Presidential Suite. She had never climbed so high before; even the most prestigious of the celebrity glitterfest awards she had been to were held in a posh venue several floors down. Zarshay, in her neat, fashion-conscious outfit and without the tight hood suppressing her hair, looked nothing like the ultra-rational Xexe Chay she played in the show. Instead she was transformed into the perfect appearance of a PA, radiating an aura of efficiency. It was on such occasions as this that Joah wished she was as good an actress.
The meeting room projected from the side of the tower with a solid but transparent strip running across the floor, offering a vertiginous vista of the city below. But in this room, you were not encouraged to look down. The ceiling gave the appearance of being intangible, and somewhere above them an illusory sky seemed close enough to touch, soft blue, the colour of Heila’s eyes, with fluffy clouds. Joah wondered what the trick of it was.
They were served by silent figures who could have been people or not, it was hard to tell these days. Drinks and nibbles. Zarshay nibbled. Joah didn’t. Her guts were too tight even to let her sip at the drink in front of her on the dark oval table.
The door opened several times as they waited, and each time Joah was half out of her seat before she realised it was not the president’s aide, just a lowly admin or security person doing a check. After the third false start, she felt Zarshay’s hand squeeze her own, reassuring and calming. Glancing at her, Joah saw she was wearing her best “we can do this” smile.
She knew when Dain Strand finally arrived. There was a sudden flotilla of fussing humanity filling the room and then he appeared. He shook Joah’s hand with a warm grip. She found herself thinking there was not too much family resemblance, but it did not surprise her to be dealing with a Strand. The president was renowned for liking to keep his extended family gainfully employed at a high level.
“Glad you could make it,” he said, as if they were friends and he had asked her over for a social event. He moved past her before she could reply, and settled into a chair on the other side of the table, flanked by two of his staff who Joah assumed were bodyguards.
“Look, let’s get down to business right away — I’m sure you have places you need to be, Ms. Meer, and so do I. Your show — the one about that spaceship. It’s a good show. Great show, in fact, I’ve not missed an episode since it started airing. The president loves it. He loves it a lot.” He stopped speaking as if that was all he had to say, and there was a moment of awkward silence.
“Uh — well, thank you for saying so. We do try to pack in as much fun and excitement as we can. I am happy you both enjoy it so much.” Joah bit her tongue to stop herself gushing.
“I do. A lot. And it has given the president an idea — something the whole of the City can get behind.” Dain Strand paused and suddenly Joah could see the family resemblance in the way he managed the moment. “The president wants to build The Golden Strand and he wants you and your crew to be a part of it.”
Joah closed her mouth, which had fallen open on the word “Strand”. Not for the first time, she wished she had even a fraction of Zarshay’s ability to act.
“I — I —”
“I know what you are thinking, and I promise you that you’ll get full royalties for use of the name and theme, and we’ll be packaging out some media prompts with your people getting to share a platform with the president for the launch of the project as well. But I’ll need you to make over all the blueprints, designs, everything, to my engineers.”
His expression was serious, but it had to be a joke.
“We don’t run to blueprints. It’s only some virtual modelling artwork,” she explained, hearing the edge of desperation in her own voice. “It’s not like it’s a real spaceship or anything.”
Dain Strand smiled and she felt the full force of his predatory charisma.
“I know that,” he said, lifting a hand as if waving away her protests. “But building it would be a project everyone in the city would get behind.”
Zarshay had been silent until then, but now she spoke.
“What I am hearing, Mr. Strand, is that you want to get the city to support this project, not that you want to build a ship to explore the galaxy.”
For a moment there was a cold silence, and Dain looked at Zarshay in a way that made Joah’s flesh creep. Then he laughed, a short, mirthless bark of sound, and leaned towards Joah.
“She’s good. If she’s on your business team, I can see why you do well.” He winked, and Joah suppressed a shudder. Then Dain was pushing himself to his feet. “Well, as we are on the same node here, I guess my work is done. I’ll leave the details to the legal team.”
Everyone rose and Joah had her hand pressed once more, then the president’s emollient hatchet man was gone.

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 0110