Listen to Granny because Granny always knows best!

Ladies of a certain age/type get right on my norks. You know the ones I mean, those whose sneezes sound like a tiny cricket chirping, and who would die of embarrassment if they farted alone in an empty room.
I know I scare the snot out of these mimsy little ladies and doing so is a source of constant delight.
If you don’t believe what fun it can be, sneak up behind a maiden lady in a queue and announce that your arse itches.
Cruel. But deserved for every uncharitable thought she will have hidden behind her lace hanky…

A Field Guide to Saturn by John Meszaros an illustrated fictional natural history book on the alien life of the ringed planet and its moons. It is written as a series of personal letters between Hyacinth- a young woman from Earth who is training to be a pilot for a kingdom on Saturn’s moon, Titan- and her girlfriend Jess, a science illustrator exploring the icy rings.

John has always loved speculative biology books like Wayne Barlowe’s Expedition and Dougal Dixon’s After Man, and this is his own contribution to the genre. It’s still very much a work-in-progress project, though he is hoping to have all the writing an illustrations done by the end of 2021.

A little bit to whet your appetite :

My dearest Hyacinth,

The rings! I still can’t believe I’m actually seeing the rings of Saturn! When our ship first approached, they looked like flat razor-edge roads curving off to the horizon. I saw Enceladus and another moon- I think it was Mimas- floating against the stars.
And then we dove down into them and it was- well, do you remember that ice storm when we were kids? When the power went out all night? Remember how we sat at the window and tried to heat our cocoa over candles while we listened to the frozen rain go tink-tink-tink on the glass? And how the drops glowed like gems in the moonlight? That’s what I thought of when the ship dove into the rings and I heard the ice particles tinkling on the hull.
I hope the piloting experiments are going well. And I hope connecting with the ship isn’t wearing you out. What’s it like linking with a bio-ship? I’ve watched Ayum piloting our exploration ship, but it doesn’t seem nearly as complicated as that big thing you’re training with.
I’m sorry, love. It’s not fair that I get to see the rings before you do. I wish Titan’s atmosphere didn’t blot them out. I want to dive them with you in our own bio-ship, just you and me, once you’re done with training. You think the queen would let us take a ship out by ourselves for a few days? Do pilots get vacations?
I’ve taken lots of notes and made drawings of the ring life. I’m still not totally fluent in the Titanian language, though Ayum has been a big help. He’s handling the local translations of the field guide while I do the version for Earth. I mean, I’m really writing and drawing all this for you. But might as well share my work with the folks back home, right?
Anyway, let me tell you about the ring plankton! They’re the foundation of the ecosystems out here in, on, and between the ice particles. Hya, I just can’t believe the diversity. Every time we haul in the sample scoop, we find at least five new species. I could spend the rest of my life cataloging and drawing them.
I recognize some of the groups from the library on Titan. There are triskelions and pseudichthyians. And even some ice-elephants form Enceladus. I wonder- could they have ridden into the rings on debris blasted out by meteorite impacts? Maybe the ice-elephants were flung into space in Enceladus’ geysers?
Many of the plankton are photosynthetic, though we’ve found a few that seem to feed directly off the radiation of Saturn’s magnetosphere. I even found an organism that was powered by Saturn’s radio waves which it collected with a tiny galena crystal. Where did it even obtain that mineral? From space dust? The rocky core of one of the moons? A centaur comet that got caught in Saturn’s gravity? So many mysteries. I’ll solve them all for you, I promise.

Your intrepid explorer,
Jess

A Bite of… John Meszaros

Do you see writing as an escape from the sorrows of existence, an exercise in futility, or an excuse to tell lies and get paid for it? Or is there another option…

 I don’t view writing as an escape from sorrow and life’s difficulties so much as a method for processing, understanding, and coming to terms with all of it. Many times yes, I relieve stress and depression by writing, but I think of it as a method to calm my mind and organize my thoughts so I can find a path through the difficulties I’m facing. Also, I put a lot of my anxieties into my characters and by exploring the way they struggle and overcome these issues, I gain insight into how these same difficulties are affecting me.

Have you ever written somebody you know into a book? A lover? A friend? An enemy?

Most of my characters are loosely based on people that I know- if they aren’t based on some aspect of myself. I think it’s difficult not to put a little bit of the people you know into your characters, consciously or unconsciously, since writing is all about taking your knowledge and experiences and weaving them into a new tapestry. The personality, quirks, and struggles of the protagonist in one of my current works in progress- not A Field Guide to Saturn, though- was inspired by a former romantic partner, though I made the character different enough that she’s not an obvious fictionalization of a real person.

If you could meet one person (alive or dead) who would you choose? And what would you talk about? And what do you bring as a gift?

I would really like to meet Dr. Joseph Barratt, a polymath and geologist from Connecticut who studied fossil dinosaur trackways in the 1800s. He’s not a very well-known historical figure. I only stumbled on him by chance through an entry in a book about New England paleontology. But I find his life story fascinating. I even wrote about him for ConnecticutHistory.org
He had a wide variety of scientific interests that he tended to bounce between, to the point that he had trouble following many projects through to completion. He allegedly had an apartment that was like a mad scientist’s laboratory, filled with bones, minerals, plant specimens, books, papers, preserved brains, taxidermied creatures, etc. As a curious person with ADD, and a collector of books and oddities, I relate hard to Dr. Barratt.
I’ve actually got a story outline that features the ghost of Dr. Barratt meeting Kate and Maggie Fox, the founders of the 19^th century Spiritualism movement.
If I hopped in a time machine and went back to meet Dr. Barratt, I’d really just like to listen to him talk about all of his discoveries. I love hearing people talk about scientific things that drive their passions. I’d especially like to hear his thoughts on the prehistory of New England. I think we could talk late into the night about a lot of ideas. As a gift, I’d bring him casts of the few fossil bones that have been found in Connecticut in the 20^th century. I think he’d like them for his collection. 

John Meszaros says: Like a lot of creative folks, I’ve been a writer since I was old enough to hold one of those big, Sharpie-sized Kindergarten pencils. When I’m not writing, I’m usually exploring and gathering inspiration for more writing, be it through books or through life experiences. Museums have been a huge influence on my work, particularly old natural history museums packed with cases of fossils, dioramas, and maybe a Mastodon skeleton or two (every natural history museum needs a Mastodon, in my opinion). I’d absolutely live in a natural history museum if I could. Or a library. Or a botanical garden. Heck, I’m already halfway there with all the bookshelves, fossils, and plants filling up my house.
I’m an artist in addition to being a writer and I often like to weave these two aspects of my creativity together in my works. Sometimes I’ll create illustrations to accompany my writing. Sometimes I’ll write long explanatory texts to accompany my illustrations.
I grew up in Michigan with occasional trips to Hawai’i and Florida. After getting a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Creative Writing from the University of Michigan, I moved to Connecticut and haven’t stopped traveling since. My biology background has greatly influenced my writing and art- as have those old natural history museums mentioned earlier.

You can follow John Meszaros on Twitter and Instagram, find him on his personal Website or on his Author/Artist Blog or his State Cryptids Blog.

OK.
I admit it.
I could have been a bit more tactful.
Telling her to her face.
But someone had to.
All this time lying when she asked: ‘My bum look big in this?”
Course it bloody does!
But I never said.
Today though, it was too much.
Three jam doughnuts.
Then. “You think I should lose a bit of weight?”
A bit?
All I said was, “You could do with it.”
And now?
She’s not spoken a word to me since.
All afternoon.
Guess there’s only one thing for it.
“You fancy fish and chips for tea?”
“Ooo. Yes!”

E.M. Swift-Hook

Because life can be interesting when you are a character in a video game…

It had been a quiet few days in Wrathburnt Sands. The months since the Expansion had been very busy for Milla in her new role as a quest giver so she appreciated the break. It gave her more time to go beachcombing with Ruffkin, her little dog, and chat with Pew whilst she strung the shells she had gathered into necklace charms to give out as quest rewards to those Visitors who returned from the pyramid dungeon to claim one.
Pew – or more correctly Firecaster Pewpowerpwnsyou – was, she supposed, her boyfriend. At least he seemed to think he was and Milla was not entirely unhappy with the idea, even if there were times she wanted to shake him. But the other residents of Wrathburnt Sands made no secret of their feelings.
“He’s not a proper ryeshor. He’s not even a Local.”
“He don’t belong here.”
“Folk like him drag trouble with them. They’re cursed with it.”
“You be careful young’un, he’s a Visitor. He’ll only break your heart.”
Those last words were still ringing in Milla’s head as she walked along the beach in the morning sun, Ruffkin bounding ahead of her. One Eye Rye had said that yesterday, when she went to buy some fish for Ruffkin from his shop by the pier. He was her truest friend amongst the villagers. He even liked Pew. She knew he did because he sold Pew provisions from his shop at a discount those times when Pew was down on his luck and One Eye never did that for any other Visitor.
“Visitors never stay for long,” One Eye added, “and they always have other lives.”
“Not Pew,” she had told him stoutly, “He promised me he’s maining on his ryeshor toon and has stopped playing all his other alts.”
One Eye’s snout wrinkled at that.
“I start to worry about you, young’un. You’re even talking like a Visitor now – ‘toons’, ‘alts’ and whatever the bluesky and ocean that all means.”
Milla shrugged and had left quickly after that. The truth was she didn’t entirely know what any of it meant. But Pew had said it with such fervour that she knew it was something that mattered to him for her to know. She understood at least that it was his way of saying he wasn’t going to go away like the other Visitors always did. That made Milla happy as when she tried to imagine not having Pew around, life began to feel very flat and empty.
Walking along the beach in the early morning, she paused to pick up a shell. The pendant she always wore around her neck, swung forward, glowing with its hidden magic. She tucked it away in her simple tunic and was disturbed by voices on the pier. She couldn’t see them as the pier was above her, but she knew from what they were saying that it was Visitors.
“I hate this fragging fishing quest. Must have done it a million times.”
“You and me both, bud. You remember when we were in Epic Legends with that crazy guy, what was he called? The one who loved crafting and spent all his time harvesting?”
“You mean Buffalott?”
“That’s the one. I heard his wife left him for their guild leader in the end. She always just wanted to raid. Best MT on the server she was too.”
“Yeah? I thought that was Aggrowhore?”
“Just because We Rulz is the top raiding guild, doesn’t mean they have the best MT.”
“S’ppose. Anyway, I’m done fishing, have to go turn it in and then I can do the pyramid questline.”
Milla sighed and made an effort to keep the frills on her crest from flattening. Not for the first time she wished she didn’t have to be a quest giver. Life had been so much simpler before she became one.

We will return to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook next Sunday.

Return to Wrathburnt Sands was first published in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover.

Crisping in her sweaty fingers
How the smell of money lingers
How the aroma of wealth entices
Making possible prayers, and vices
Crisping in her sweaty palm
Money. Reparation. Balm

©jj 2021

When a dame whose everyday walk is as smooth and studiedly sexy as a big jungle cat, and whose make-up is as immaculate as a well-pressed designer suit, arrives in your office at a shambling run with her face all over tears and snot it’s a safe bet that something pretty bad is wrong.
I was lost in thought, with my feet propped on my desk and my hat tipped way down over my eyes, when my office door was thrown open in a dramatic fashion. I barely had long enough to wonder why in the hell my holographic door was now making an eldritch shriek, when Katie Scarlett O’Halleran and her exceptional bosom landed almost in my lap. She was crying, and her face was a mess.

She grabbed me by the lapels and tried to shake me.
“Sam. Sam. You have to come. Somebody has taken Daddy.”
I sat bolt upright and squared my shoulders. Anybody brave enough to mess with Mister Aitch was certainly a big fish, and I guessed I was about to go shark fishing. I grasped the sobbing girl by her slender shoulders.
“Calm down Katie Scarlett, and tell me what happened.”
“I already told you,” she all but screamed, “somebody has taken Daddy.”
“Details Katie, details.”

I gently compelled her to sit down, and held onto her until her chest stopped heaving and she took two steadying breaths. Then I got the bottle out of my drawer and poured her a stiff one. Her teeth chattered against the side of the glass, but the act of drinking calmed her almost as much as the bourbon.
“Daddy’s personal alarm sounded about an hour back. Me and the twins ran, but his office door was locked. When we broke the door down he was gone, and there was blood all over.”
“Okay,” I said, although I didn’t think anything was okay. “Where are the twins now?”
“Flirting with your holographic floozie. We set droids to watch on the office and came straight here.”
I decided now was not the time to react to the slur on Sugar’s character. Instead, I reached into the locked drawer of my desk and pulled out two extra weapons, a mini blaster that I stuck in my sock, and a weighted sap that slipped into my pocket.
“Let’s go then.”

The twins and Sugar were in animated sign language conversation.
“Sugar,” I said, “if anybody comes looking…”
“I don’t know where you are, and I certainly never saw these folks.” She flashed me that empty-headed smile that I knew hid a mind like a steel trap and wiggled her assets. I gave her the raised eyebrow and we left.

The trip down the glides was tense and silent. Katie had herself together but she was only holding by a thread, while the twins obviously looked to me for a lead. I’ll admit it. I was worried. So much so that I didn’t even bother to exchange words with the young chancer who thought it would be a good idea to put his hands on Katie Scarlett; I just broke his wrist before I threw him off the glide. Myk gave me the thumb, and Zig grinned a tight grin.

At Hood’s Bar, everything looked smooth on the surface, the booths were full, the bar droids were just about run off their feet, and the holographic pianist was playing that damned song. Again. The undertones of worry were there if you had the eyes to see them, though. The droids were jittery, and every security guy had a hand on his weapon. Oh yeah. It was tense and they were all looking to Sam Nero for a lead.

“Office,” I said and followed Katie Scarlett’s long legs down the familiar corridor. She signalled to a guard droid, who opened the door.
“You all wait here.”
I strode into the office then stopped in my tracks. The blood was wrong, it smelled wrong. I rolled back the plastic ‘skin’ from my fingertip and bent to touch the red fluid. It was blood all right, but not human blood. It was rat blood. Somebody had recently killed one of the rats that inhabit the tunnels that honeycomb The City. So why was that blood artistically splattered all over O’Halleran’s office?

I turned and closed the office door. I spoke softly.
“Okay Mister O’Halleran, what gives?”
A panel behind the desk opened and the big shark himself stepped out. He was a little dusty, but unharmed, and he held a blaster in one big fist. Seeing it was me, and I was alone, he pocketed the weapon. His flat, killer’s eyes regarded me unblinkingly for a second.
“You have just presented me with a problem, Nero.”
“How so?” I leaned one shoulder against a bit of door that wasn’t smeared with rat blood and lifted a brow at the hulking killer.
“I got information that you had taken money to kill me. And that Katie Scarlett was in on the deal.”
“So you decided to disappear?”
“I did. And I heard my little girl screaming. And now you come in here quiet, with your hands empty. And I don’t know what to think.”
I shrugged.
“Try thinking that you’ve been had.”
He regarded me for a long moment.
“Maybe I have. But what to do about it.”
I examined my fingernails for a long minute before giving him my blandest stare.
“Go back in that cubbyhole and await developments. Or…”
“Or what?”
“Or find out who set this up.”
“And how do you suggest I go about that?”
“Think for a start. Think about who would benefit if you thought Katie Scarlett had betrayed you.”
O’Halleran stared at me. His eyes were lightless and unreadable. Then he nodded.
“I’ve thought. And now we have to catch the bastard.”
“You narrowed it down to one?”
He shook his big head ruefully.
“Not that simple. Gotta be family. Nobody else benefits. Nearest is my sister and her slimy bastard of a husband. But it don’t quite fit.”
I waited as something came across his countenance, something he didn’t like too much by the looks of him. When he said nothing I pulled my brave together and spoke up.
“Okay, Mister Aitch, what does fit?”
He looked at me with something akin to loathing, but I gave him back stare for stare and in the end he dropped his eyes.
“I got a cousin, his mammy died when he was just a button and my ma and pa brung him up as their own. We was like brothers. He has a son, a smooth handsome son…”
He stopped speaking, and I kept my mouth shut too, knowing that this glimpse of O’Halleran’s humanity was a dangerous thing to have seen. He was quiet for a while, but when he did speak his voice was as coldly unemotional as it always was unless he was talking to Katie Scarlett.
“All right, Nero. You are supposed to be the best. Catch the bastard for me. I’ll pay whatever.”
“I’m working for Katie Scarlett right now.”
His face worked for a moment.
“I suppose you are. So now what?”
“That depends on you. Can you get out of here unseen?”
“I can.”
“Once you are out, where can you get to?”
“My private apartment, upstairs. You will need a key card to get in,”
“Doesn’t Katie Scarlett have one?”
“No. She has her own apartment and I don’t have a key to that.”
I thought he probably did have a key, but deemed it prudent not to voice that thought. He handed me a card and turned to go back through the panel.
“One hour,” I said to his retreating back, and he nodded.

From Sam Nero PI by Jane Jago

I’m in my happy place
The world is all rosy
I’m feeling good today
All safe and cosy.

I’m in my happy place
Outside the storm rages
I’m letting it go by
Lost in a books pages.

I’m in my happy place
Though troubles are many
I’m chilling with TV
And don’t give a penny.

I’m in my happy place
The door closed on worry
I’m letting woes roll by
Not feeling sorry.

I’m in my happy place
Today I can borrow
Time to forget it all
Until it’s tomorrow…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Mes Chers Readers Who Write,

I am sure I do not need to remind you of who I am at this point in our relationship, but I will acknowledge there may be a handful of benighted individuals who have yet to make my acquaintance. So for their benefit, I will again mention that my name is Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV and I am the renowned author of both the speculative fiction classic ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’ and of this ‘The Thinking Quill’ which offers insight into the mysteries of the authorial craft.

Indeed it was only yesterday Mummy observed: ‘You spend too much time in that coal cellar. You should get out more.” But I assured her the reason I was committing so much of my life to my literary sanctum, was both to progress my own literary offerings and to selflessly share of my copious pearls of wisdom with you, oh Reader Who Writes.

So, without further hesitation or procrastination on either side, let us undress the goddess of literature and peer beneath the skirts of her most intimate places. In brief, dear RWW, let us consider the very building-blocks of her DNA – the tools with which one has wrought such wonders – words.

How to Start Writing a Book – The Write Words

It is a truth universally acknowledged that paucity of vocabulary is the fence at which a multiplicity of putative novelists fail. Gird up your loins my children and do battle with the twin dragons of over-simplification and ugly language. Let that duo of decrepitude be downtrodden under the heels of linguistic loveliness. Let your Muse speak to you in honeyed prose. Let the thesaurus be your Bible and let not the commonplace leave your fingertips. Never say that your grass is green, rather enchant your readers with the verdant viridian vegetation. Let them inhale the aroma of the recumbent emerald as it is crushed beneath the bare toes of powerful simile.

Let your doting following bask in the sunlight of your fertile poesy. Let your words be as sunlight to the face of the damask rose. Let your adjectival imagery lift your readers from the commonplace to the heights of quasi-sexual ecstasy. Let your voice be as the zephyr of a southern breeze carrying the redolence of olive groves and lemon trees and the salt tang of mare nostrum.

Lead your interlocutors along primrose paths of erudition and titillation, and do not cease in your endeavours until your mind’s ear can hear their sighs of replete completion. Only then have you begun to understand the manifest prognostications of your craft.

To encapsulate this vital educational epistle:

1. Never use a simple word where a periphrastic locution can be set.
2.  Never use a sole descriptor – a lonely adjective should be a contumely maxim! Instead, allow the perihelion swirl of elucidatory and expressive ornament to embrace each noun and verb.
3. Seek always the etymological road least travelled and endow your audience with rare gems mined from deep archaisms and seek the perfect bon mots from languages few speak. Thus you will both educate and impress.

Consider my words with care.

Until next mes enfants, adieu and may Erato and Calliope attend your dreams.

Bon Ecrit!

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.

Maisey, at two and half years of age, looked up at the sky, saw something wonderful and smiled.

“Look!” she said excitedly.

“Yes dear, birds.” Her mother didn’t pay attention. Maisey wasn’t pointing to the birds. Scowling she tried again.

“Look. Wanna eat.”

“We have lunch after the playpark,” her mother said, still not really paying attention.

Maisey looked up to where the soft white fluffy stuff was floating against the blue. Not even her friends at the playpark could see it. Maisey sighed. She couldn’t understand why nobody else could see that the sky was full of cotton candy.

E.M. Swift-Hook

On the big day, all the bits of furniture I had been quietly buying were liberated from my big orange storage unit in a park full of big orange storage units. While that was happening, my dad collected the neat pile of stuff from my bedsit in his Tranny, and me and my stepmum supervised. I think she was surprised by how much I had accumulated, and I grinned at her.
“I’ve been nesting for a while. I just couldn’t find the right tree.”
By teatime we had everything ready, and Mum had even hung my curtains for me. She stood and looked about her.
“It’s a funny house, but it suits you Aly.”
“It does. And it’s convenient too. Just across the road from work. Ten minutes from the gym. And the same to the Wounded Soldier – where we are going for our tea. My treat.”
We got our coats and ambled off to the pub for a huge meal from the carvery. When we were so stuffed we could barely stand, my parents went one way and I went the other to my new home.
If some of those who moved in after me are to be believed, there was an inimical atmosphere in the luxury apartments from day one, but I felt nothing. I just fell into my king sized bed and slept like a baby.
The next day was Sunday, so I got to lay in bed reading until long after nine. Then I thought about food. As far as I knew there was bugger all in my shiny new kitchen, not even the wherewithal for coffee. I groaned and groped my way into the shower.
When I finally made it upstairs I found a note in my stepmum’s neat round hand on the worktop.

Bet you forgot food. There’s basics in the fridge and the tall cupboard next to it. Coffee machine is charged.

“Bless the woman” I said out loud. Once I had coffee in my belly and a bacon sandwich in front of me, I sent her a text. She called me right back and we had a very giggly, girly sort of conversation. The upshot of that was her getting in her battered Nissan Micra and coming to pick me up for a proper grocery shop. We lunched together, on fresh bread, cheese, and deli ham before she set off home to cook a big roast tea for Dad who had been at work all day. I declined the offer to eat with them, and she smiled and stroked my cheek.

From Jackdaw Court by Jane Jago.