Bonjour mes estudas

It is I, bestselling author and all-round excellent human being, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV. Here to pass on the fruits of my intellect to those lesser beings – such as yourselves – who struggle through the dilemmas of life, love and literature.

Today we have a question from Ian (is it only I who has noticed what a plain and boring cognomen is Ian?).

Dear Ivy,

Is there a reason I struggle to feel immersed in present tense writing? What, if any, are the pros to writing the seldom appreciated tense when past is available and most prefer it?

Your Adoring Fan,

Ian.

My very dear Ian,

This is the sort of question that exposes the ignorance of one’s little students to the glare of the public eye. One does not, silly boy, write in tense. One writes intensely. When the Muse sits on one’s shoulder and whispers his seduction into one’s shell-like ear one does not allow the constraints of grammar to befoul the flow of beautiful prose from one’s metaphorical pen. One cares not whether one’s protagonist speaks pastly, presently, or futuristically. It matters not. The outpouring of one’s artistic sensibilities will carry the reader of taste along on the flood tide of emotion and adoration.

Good writing, has it not been often said, is timeless. So do not concern yourself with whether the events written are here and now, now and then or soon to be. Ignore the trite distinctions that are mere verb forms and peer more deeply into the flowering blossom of prose. The present is the immortal now and as such is a fitting medium for the more discerning artistes of the literary world. Those who prefer the most opulent and rare of words to cluster in their paragraphs and for whom the tawdry details most lesser authors need to observe are become merely optional as they have grown beyond them.

Oh no, my dear little Ian, immersion in writings should not be a function of tense, person, or voice. Should you fail in your endeavours to understand the writing you are drawn to, there are but two possible reasons for this miserable failure. The first possibility is that you are in the hands of a writer who cannot handle their chosen means of communication. The second, sadly, is that there is a lack in you.

I hope, whilst yet fearing it likely, the latter is not the case, and that you will eventually find an author whose sensibilities march alongside your own. One who will fully immerse you in the embracing sensuality of their prose regardless of tense, gender, sexuality, or language.

Yours with gently reproving affection,

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

If you have a problem you may avail yourself of one's wisdom by posting your problem HERE or contacting me through my Facebook presence. Adoring Fans can join my Facebook Group.

It is not yet winter,
and the race is not yet run,
The bone is yet to splinter,
while there’s still thread to be spun.
The sky is still above us,
below the earth is sweet,
As yet the gods still love us,
though we walk a crooked street.
All is not yet over,
there are still days to be had,
There are still some hours in clover,
and some moments to be sad.
It is not yet winter,
though the days grow shorter now,
We are walkers now, not sprinters,
and we’ve white hairs at our brow.
I will love you in the winter,
as I loved you in the spring,
With a love that bends not splinters,
and a love song still to sing

©️jane jago 2018

Idria, the Dragon Slayer was sitting in a comfortable tavern with her booted feet on the bench opposite, enjoying the most excellent malted ale which the landlord assured her was his own brew.

The sun was shining and through the window, she could see a family of ducks trailing over the millpond.

Life was good and she had not been summoned to slay a dragon for almost a decade now. Which was just as well as she was not sure she could fit in that armour anymore.

It was a hard decision to make. Idria frowned in concentration.

Did she had another ale or maybe ask for another portion of the landlord’s excellent apple pie? The landlord waited, a little impatiently, for her reply. It would be on the house, of course, after all she was The Dragon Slayer.

“Ah tefts! Why not both?”

Decision made Idria relaxed back in her chair and looked out at the peaceful scene beyond the window. Such a perfect day, nothing could spoil it.

Nothing except that small black dot in the sky which she could see getting closer and closer.

Tefts no! Surely not? Not today when she had just ordered –

The magical sound filled her head even before the bird was in clear sight. Around her, the chimes rang out, akin to that of someone dropping a series of metal plates of different sizes onto a bell. A moment later the chiming stopped and Idria was clad in her Dragon Slayer armour.

The good news was that the magic armour fitted. The bad news was – it fitted.

“Tefts! Does my bum look big in this?”

The landlord had just returned with her ale and nearly dropped it in surprise.

“Um – no,” he said colouring. He was not to know the armour gave her the ability to hear his thoughts: No bigger than the rest of you anyway.

Originally written by E.M. Swift-Hook as part of a LiveWrite for the SciFi Roundtable.

If your writing is turgidly lagging
There is no point in you lollygagging
You should furgle with pride
Till it’s dimpsy outside
Then play spillikins with a dragon

©️ Jane Jago 2018

An extract from "The Last Apple," by Devorah Fox, one of the stories in Chosen, A Fantasy Genre Sampler.

Chosen, A Fantasy Genre Sampler  - A bard with the power to bring his tales to life. A Victorian-era protectoress of the Lost Ways to Faerieland. A Korean War vet who becomes Mallworld Gatekeeper after dragons attack. A vision walker who is forced into a portal to another world to save her queen. 
Four new stories. Four chances to escape to another world by Devorah Fox, Kylie Quillinan,‎ Alesha Escobar and Bokerah Brumley 

As it turned out, they both liked savage. A lot. They lay face-to-face and grinned at each other.

“Anna Marshall, you are a constant surprise and delight to me.”

“Ditto.”

She ran her hands up and down his muscular chest.

“I’m impressed. You really must have to put in some work to get a body like this.”

“Oh, I do. I’ve seen too many health professionals who are in crap physical condition. I vowed it wouldn’t be me. And you? How’d you get a body to die for?”

“Oh. I work at it too. Possibly from a different angle. My problem is keeping weight on. I’m naturally as thin as a lath, but if I walk plenty and make sure I eat enough I can be lean rather than thin.”

“I’d say lucky you, but I’m guessing that it all has something to do with the knife throwing incident.”

“Yeah. It was a very dirty knife. I lost some feet of intestines, an ovary, and some other bits.”

Then she looked at him shyly.

“The ovary I lost turned out to have been the only one I had. That’s why I’m infertile.”

He kissed her affectionately.

“I don’t have an excuse. I just fire blanks. And in the end it gave my ex a watertight excuse to divorce me.”

Anna heard the raw pain in his voice.

“Oh Sam,” she said gently. “What a silly girl.”

“Thank you for that, but she had no intention of contemplating a life without children. She had it all planned, you see.”

“Oh, I see, but you can’t plan life. It will get up and bite you if you try. I’m sorry for you Sam, but I think I’m even sorrier for her.”

He thought for a minute.

“Me too. Thanks Anna, I’d never thought of it like that, but you do have a point.”

“I know I do. Life has proved it to me many, many times.”

“So now you know about my marriage. Do you feel like telling me about your love life?”

“I don’t see why not. His name is Ted, and I met him at the home where my mother spent the last years of her life. I used to go every weekend to see Mum and take the dog along for her to cuddle. Ted’s wife is there. She’s only thirty-five, but her mind is completely gone. She is still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, but that’s about it. She doesn’t recognise him, or remember anything about their life together. Ted and I became friends, then lovers. And that’s about all there is to it. It’s a sad little story, but we never hurt anybody – except maybe ourselves.”

“God, Anna. That is sad. I can see how it must have been.”

She looked at his face for a long moment.

“I believe you do understand. That’s a bit of a miracle in itself.”

She smiled and kissed both his cheeks.

“Now Bonnie needs to go out before it gets too dark. After which, I’ve got chocolate brownies that I need help to eat.”

He grinned like a little boy and jumped out of bed.

“Get on with it, woman. You just promised me cake.”

Leaping into his clothes he jumped out of the camper and dashed off with Bonnie at his heels. Anna found shorts and a tee shirt, picked up her own discarded clothing, and put the wrapped brownies in a low oven to warm through. Sam and Bonnie were down by the stream. He grinned at her then trotted back to the camper, after jumping inside for a minute he walked back over to them with his hands behind his back and an oddly shy expression on his face.

“What’s up Sam?”

“Brought you a present each. Dunno if you’ll like them.”

He brought his right hand out from behind his back and offered Bonnie a paper bag. She put her nose inside and emerged holding a brightly coloured ball, which she promptly dropped at his feet. He picked it up and threw it for the waiting dog, who raced after it happily.

“I know she likes to play ball. It’s a proper dog one, so it won’t burst or anything. And I got this for you.”

He proffered a small, badly-wrapped parcel.

“I’m shit at wrapping.”

Anna smiled, and tore off the paper as eagerly as a child. “Oh Sam,” her voice was a bit tremulous as she held the tiny porcelain Belgian Shepherd in careful hands.

“Saw it in a shop window. Couldn’t resist. Hoped you’d like it.”

“Oh I do like it. Nearly as much as I like you. I don’t have a present for you, but maybe you’d like warm chocolate brownies with vanilla ice cream.”

He laughed.

“I would indeed. Then maybe Anna for afters.”

“I think that could be arranged.”

They whistled up Bonnie, who returned with a face full of ball, and went back to the camper in a mood of happy anticipation.

Jane Jago

The perversity of verse is that it sings inside your head
Inside your mind the words take wing, outside they’re flat and dead
Inside your head the music spirals higher ever higher
Singing point and counterpoint to set the world on fire
The thread of melody teases as you try to bid it linger
It dances, always out of reach. Evades your groping fingers
The irony of poetry is how we try to clasp
Our hands around a lullaby too delicate to grasp
The perversity of verse may not be what it seems to be
Perhaps the fault is ours who try to capture what is free
The irony of poetry and life the way we know it
May only be that poetry has no love for the poet

©️ Jane Jago 2018

We rocked up at the Fair Maid and Falcon at about four in the afternoon of a filthy early October day. Two humans and two dogs, in a big American motorhome, come to run the business while the owners went on holiday. The rain was streaming, it was blowing a gale, and the pub certainly wasn’t appearing to its best advantage.

‘You and the dogs stop in the dry’ Ben said. ‘I’ll go find out where they want us to park.’
I did as he suggested, and he came back about fifteen minutes later looking cross.
‘What?’
‘Oh, the stupid buggers want us to park on the other side of the road in a very muddy field with no water and no lekky hook-up. They don’t want their customers to see the Winnie. He says they have a select clientele who might think the New Age Travellers had moved in.’
‘And what did you say to him, love of my life?’
He grinned. ‘The second word was ‘off’. I’ve left them having a bit of a think.’
I looked at the long, low, flint-walled building squatting moodily at the edge of its sodden beer garden and found myself shivering. ‘I don’t much care for this place’ I said slowly ‘so if the incumbents aren’t prepared to be reasonable I vote for giving them back their deposit and going home. Let them find somebody else to run their fucking gastro pub while they piss off the the Caribbean.’
Ben laughed. ‘Do you think there is anybody else?’
I laughed ruefully. ‘No. I guess not. And I find I don’t much care.’
He patted me companionably ‘Got the willies have you?’
‘Yup. And that’s normally your job…’
‘Yeah. It is. I’ve actually got a few myself. The atmosphere has changed greatly since I came here in June.’
‘How?’
‘I can’t put my finger on precisely what it is, but they seem to be losing it. He’s chain-smoking and his skin is hanging on him. And her? She looks like something the cat brought in and didn’t want. They are also extremely edgy. When I was inside, a door banged somewhere and she jumped about ten feet in the air.’
‘Odd. Marital problems do you think?’
His forehead creased as he considered that idea. ‘No. Doesn’t feel like that. I mean they aren’t exactly playing happy families, but they weren’t in June. This feels new… and nasty.’

Our conversation was interrupted by a timid knock on the door of the camper. Stan and Ollie growled softly and Ben got up to open the door. A skinny young girl in a waitress uniform stood out in the rain.
‘Come in.’
She did as she was told and stood dripping on the floor. ‘They want you to go back in’ she almost whispered. ‘He’s in a terrible temper and threatening all sorts if you don’t. She’s crying. Again.’
Ben looked at the girl from under his blonde eyebrows. ‘Would you go back in there if you were me?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s them two. They’ve gone mad. They used to be OK to work for. Hard. But fair. But now they are both completely nuts. He shouts all the time and drinks, and she drinks and cries. This is my last shift. Got a job in Lymington. It’s a drop in pay. But. Told myself it was because its nearer to home. It isn’t though. It’s this place. It has started to give me the serious creeps.’
‘Okay. Thanks. I’ll now go see the charm twins.’

He got up and pulled on his parka. I watched them splashing their way across the car park, with Ben holding our huge red umbrella over the shivering girl, then sat on the rug with the dogs. ‘Well’ I said. ‘What do you two reckon? Stay? Or go?’
They looked solemn, then lay one either side of me and promptly fell asleep.

Ben was gone ages, and I was almost asleep myself when he returned. He looked a bit grim.
‘Problem, love?’
‘I dunno. When I went back inside all was sweetness and light. But I have the willies now. The volte face was too complete. We get to park wherever suits us. Would we like a meal with them in the restaurant tonight? The dogs can use the private garden. There was even the offer of more money.’
‘Shit Ben. They must be desperate. We’re overcharging them now, because you didn’t really want to take the job.’
‘True. But that was different. I just thought he was an asshole. Now he’s a worried asshole.’
‘So? What do we do? We probably have to stay, don’t we?’
‘Yup. Or have the asshole mouthing off all over Facebook and Twitter if we don’t.’
‘Okay then. We do it. But I want it on record that I have the willies.’

Extracted from Who Put Her In? ©️ jane jago

Χαίρετε,

It is I, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, author extraordinaire of the bestseller science fiction and fantasy novel, ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’, lightsome spirit, and all-round good egg. I come to you today all aflutter with excitement, and with a spring in my delicate heels. Mumsie and I have come into money. Well, Mumsie has, but as she so playfully puts it: “One can’t leave the fruits of one’s fanny out of the treat, even if he is a disappointing plonker, with no charm and less humour.”

And guess what the treat is…?  We are going away on holiday to the sun. To the Greek isles in general and to Mykonos in particular. To the place of dreams, to the wine-dark sea and the retsina. Sadly this visit, which will no doubt refresh my creativity in the home of Calliope herself, is not to occur for some months yet. But even now I am feeling ever more uplifted towards my Muse.

Mumsie says she intends to spend two weeks ‘on the lash’ (whatever vulgarisms that portends) whilst I ‘sort my freaking head out’. As if my beauteous little noddle was in need of ‘sorting’. Be that as it may, one is so excited that one’s breath comes in short pants and one finds oneself almost as excited as an eight-year-old on tuck-box day…

But such delights cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the programme of authorly improvement upon which we have set our feet. En avant ο φίλος μου.

Lesson 24: The Write way to court your Muse

It has been suggested to one that writer’s block is a condition that exists only in the mind of the writer. One would counter that claim with the irrefutable fact that one’s writing emanates from one’s mind. Ergo writer’s block is as real as one’s fingers or toeses. And if it is a real condition of the true literary giant, which it is, it behoves one to search for the remedy which must, as surely as the sun rises, be somewhere in the shining ionosphere

Researching the words the literary glitterati, one hears of stratagems varying from long walks in the countryside, to excessive sexual activity, to the consumption of hallucinogenic substances, to just giving up and going to bed.

In one’s own small experience of the stubbornness of the Muse of literature, one has found that capricious semi-deity can best be summoned by providing an atmosphere conducive to the comfort and delight of a creature accustomed to the finest things this world – and any other – has to offer.

Summon Calliope with soft music. With the scent of burning incense. With the delicate petals of rosebuds. With the richest of fabrics and the softest of cushions. Lay aside the vulgarity of the pad electronic in favour of the smoothest of papers, the blackest of inks and the most beautiful of fountain pens. Gaze upon only the fairest of nature’s creations. Bring yourself into that meditational state advocated by the most practiced of yogis. Do all this and you shall see the return of your faithless mistress to her perch at your shoulder. You shall once again smell the sweetness of her breath, and her inspiration shall once again enter your writing like a soft breath of breeze from the summer sea.

Above all do not despair my student. Apply yourself with humility and love and your Muse will love you once more.

Until next καλή τύχη. And ecrit bon.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

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