When the last thing you remember is something that feels like a bee sting on the side of your neck, and you open your eyes to see a skeleton sitting in a wing-backed chair, apparently reading what looks like a very dog-eared copy of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ by the light of a hissing Tilley lamp, the temptation has to be to close your eyes and wait for it to go away. So I tried that. But it was no manner of use. All that happened was that I heard a dry bone-ish sort of chuckle inside my head.
I opened my eyes again and regarded the ossified one with some dissatisfaction. Then I noticed the spectacles – and that was the moment when hysteria almost overtook me. In order to wear spectacles the frames have to rest on your nose and your ears. Of course, a skeleton has neither but, nevertheless, these horn-rimmed spectacles hovered in approximately the correct position and hideously magnified a pair of bloodshot eyeballs, which seemed to be studying me in much the way a schoolboy studies a bug on a pin.
In an effort at nonchalance I snorted indelicately and sat up.
Bones averted its gaze, which alerted me to the fact I was completely naked.
“Can you cover yourself please?” The voice in my head was almost plaintive. “Normally I wouldn’t care, but I’ve been reading this…”
I laughed and pulled the bedclothes up to my armpits.
Bedclothes? At this point, my hair all but stood on end and it was only iron self-control, and the discipline of years, that enabled me to pull myself together.
I looked around me to discover I was in an enormous barrel-vaulted chamber – windowless except for one narrow slit high on the ceiling which threw a line of light on a clock face equally high on the opposite wall. This would seem to be suggesting that it was three o’clock in the afternoon. I registered that piece of information and filed it in my brain for future reference, before carrying on with the catalogue of my situation. I was sitting on what was possibly a tomb or, more likely, some sort of an altar, on a thick soft mattress and I had a downy coverlet pulled over me. At the side of my ‘bed’ there was a small pile of clothing: not mine. There was also a leather satchel – which was mine, and which I was very pleased to behold.
A deep, cool voice from behind me all but had me snapping my head around in surprise.
“Is there aught you require, lady?”
I turned around with calculated slowness to find myself looking into the eyes of an obviously female stone sphinx.
“My own clothes” I said coolly “and food”.
The creature met my stare head on for a moment before inclining her cranium ironically. She whistled shrilly, and a troupe of fauns clattered into view, bearing various items of clothing and a basket from which the scent of new bread oozed its enchantment. I inclined my own head as the little males disposed their burdens on the coverlet at my feet.
“Right boys” I said briskly “everyone turn away so I can dress in peace.”
They all turned, except the sphinx.
“You too sister. I have no desire to wring your little marble heart with my beauty.”
She snarled, but turned to face outward.
Once I was dressed in leather trousers and a form-fitting multi-pocketed weskit I opened the basket to find bread, bacon, honey, and a flask of wine.
“You can turn back now thank you” I remarked “and can somebody please take the bacon. I don’t eat flesh.”
One of the fauns trotted over and showed me its sharp little teeth in a feral grin as it took the lump of fat bacon out of the basket….

This is an extract from ‘The Nature of the Beast’. Just one of the stories in ‘Pulling the Rug 2’ by Jane Jago.

Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

You are old and that can’t be much fun
You should sit home and live like a nun
But you’ve pierced both your nipples
And you rode a Speed Triple
Round the Nurburgring clocking a ton

© jane jago

The Prefect had an office at the top of the Vigiles building with a panoramic view over Londinium. The Augusta Arena, Constantius Column, the Temple of the Divine Diocletian set in beautiful parkland running down to the river, the sub aquila housing, the Forum and the new baths. Dai presumed the Prefect’s view would be even better than the one he had from the small waiting area outside the office. He was on his fourth cup of water from the cooler and wondering if he should risk a quick trip to the snack dispenser he had seen by the lifts to curtail his stomach’s noisy ambition to digest itself, when the door opened and he was shown in to the Prefect’s sanctum.
The Prefect was a stiff-backed old-school Vigiles, clearly not too many years from his – presumably – well-earned retirement back to the warmth and civilisation of Rome. He was standing, not sitting when Dai walked in and responded to his salute with little more than an upwards nod of his head. Dai, standing in his best parade-ground stance, said nothing.
“Llewellyn,” the Prefect was behind his desk and reached down to tap a folder on it – old-school – with the photo of Dai pinned to the front they had taken when he signed up for the course. “Good things. It says very good things.”
There was a pause and the prefect stared at him as if expecting some response.
“Thank you, dominus, I am glad I have been meeting expectations.”
“Meeting. Exceeding. Top of the class, Llewellyn. Highest score we’ve had in years.”
This time Dai said nothing in the silence. They were not told their mark on the Investigator’s exam, only that they had passed it.
“Yes,” the Prefect went on as if answering a question, “Impressive for a Briton. Direct graduate too. Master’s degree. What was that in again?”
“British History,” Dai provided, painfully aware how that sounded every time he said it. “I did do sub-units on the Early Empire and the reign of the Divine Diocletian as well,” he added hurriedly. But for all the reaction he got, he could have said it was Celebrity Studies or Creative Cartwheeling. Dai felt the usual sensation of being invisible, even though on this occasion at least, he was the supposed focus of a Roman’s attention.
“Vacancy here,” the Prefect was saying. “Lost the last man. Tragedy. He was promising too. Very bright. Shame. But have to have someone and you’ll do. Be wasted in the sticks anyway.”
Dai blinked and tried to make sense of what he was hearing. He opened his mouth to ask if he could ask something, but the prefect was speaking again.
“Accommodation provided for the first month, after that on your own – but you’ll be paid by then and can find something in one of the estates.” Then the Prefect stepped away from the desk and glowered at Dai. “I don’t like appointing one of you people, but this role needs it. You will be dealing more with your sort than with Citizens.”
Your sort. The sting of made Dai’s guts tighten.
“I’m not sure I understand, dominus. I am going home tom-”
The Prefect made that odd upward nod, like a wild animal scenting blood.
“No. Not happening. We need you here. Starting now.”

From Dying to be Friends one of the novellas in ‘The First Dai and Julia Omnibus‘ by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

Wankel watched the biggers as they kicked an inflated bladder around the grass. One group was intent on getting the bladder between the two piles of flowerpots. The second was intent on stoping them.
He thought this might be a game for those summer nights when nobody can sleep for the buzzing of the blood in their veins.
But.
Of course it went wrong.
The stone they used instead of a bladder sailed through the conservatory window with a loud crack.
By the time the biggers got up there was nothing to be seen except a hole in the glass.

©️jj 2021

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.
Sure, enough she had barely got home, given Ruffkin his breakfast and made a fresh pot of fruit tea, before the Visitor she had overheard on the pier was banging on her door. She didn’t bother to welcome them, focusing instead on pouring some of the fruit tea into a pottery bottle and sealing it up.
“Come in. It’s not locked.”
The figure who entered might have stepped out of an ancient tale. She was clearly an elf, the pointed ears, elaborate hair and lofty expression of superiority spoke to that. She wore golden armour that gleamed with its own radiance and even lit up the room more brightly. One hand rested on the pommel of a sword, shaped to resemble the skull of a dragon with hollow socket eyes that gleamed darkly and a jagged blade representing flames coming out of its mouth. On her back was a bow, Milla could see it over the elf’s shoulder, which looked like it was made of a milky white wood, set with tiny gemstones.
This was clearly the kind of Visitor Pew called a poser.
“Hail fair lady. I, Blessedknight Gloryjammer, have need of your wisdom.” The elf managed to make it sound as if she were doing Milla a favour by allowing her to help, instead of it being the other way around. 
Putting her hands on her hips, she wrinkled up her snout and glared at the elf, and Ruffkin gave a low growl from his bed by the hearth. 
“Really?”
The elf looked a bit puzzled and cleared her throat.
“Hail fair lady. I, Blessedknight Gloryjammer, have need of your wisdom.”
“Yes. You said.”
“Uh…?”
“I don’t know how things are in the Melifulous Glades where you elves all come from, but here in Wrathburnt Sands we have these things called ‘manners’. You might even have heard of them?”
The elf had changed colour and looked a little grey.
“I…Uh… B-but this isn’t in the walkthrough.”
“Please,” Milla told her helpfully. “You say please.”
The elf swallowed.
“But it isn’t…”
“In the walkthrough?”
The elf shook her head.
“I don’t think that’s my problem,” Milla said and tapped her foot impatiently.
The elf looked close to tears.
“Alright. Please. Please will you give me the fragging pyramid quest?”
Milla sighed and picked up the bottle of tea and held it out to the unhappy-looking elf.
“You’ll need to get some flyberry cookies from One Eye Rye as well, so save yourself the time and get some flyberries before you go to see him.”
The elf took the bottle and stared at it uncomprehending.
“I already got some berries, but what’s this?”
“Fruit tea. The drakonettes who guard the pyramid love it.”
“But that’s not…”
“In the walkthrough?”
The elf shook her head again.
Milla resisted the temptation to shake hers and instead managed a fake smile. Not that the elf would think it fake. Visitor’s never noticed such things. Except for Pew.

From ‘Return to Wrathburnt Sands’ by E.M. Swift-Hook

Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

I am old, and today I lunched well
As my squiffy legged progress might tell
For the bottle of wine
That looked really fine
Is gone – nothing left but the smell

© jane jago

The Augmented Man by Joseph Carrabis is based on Joseph’s research into helping traumatized children and combat PTSD sufferers to heal. It’s a sci-fi military thriller set in the near future. 

1 April 2053

Surface

Trailer closed his eyes and sat at the end of the bar where the cigarette-burned, cheap black Formica countertop met the wall. He eased himself onto the last stool, tucking into the corner in the dim light, a spider hiding out of sight at the edge of its web. His fingers hovered over the cigarette burns closest to him as if divining their cause, sensing them like small, unhealed wounds, seeing the people involved, learning if each burn was an accident or intentional.
The door opened and he smelled the cool April evening on his skin. It was followed by the alcoholic breath and sweat of two men and a woman they supported between them.
Trailer brought his attention back into the bar, collating the activity immediately around him.
The barkeeper, a heavy smelling man gnawing a toothpick, his face somewhere between needing a shave and growing a beard, walked over to Trailer. “Yeah?”
“A beer. Whatever you got.”
The man grunted and walked to the other end of the bar. When he left, Trailer opened his eyes. A river of tattoos flowed up the man’s left arm. An old style claw prosthetic served as his right, its hinges and catches polished like silver and glinting in the mirrored bar light. He wore black jeans and a tie-dyed t-shirt over powerful shoulders and an ample gut. Trailer closed his eyes again as the man returned. It seemed to Trailer that the man swam upstream in a river of his own sweat.
He placed a bottle of Coors in front of Trailer. “Six.”
“Huh?”
“Six. Six dollars.”
“Can I run up a tab? I’ll probably stay a while.”
The man shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
Trailer handed him the money and nodded at the prosthetic. “Amazonas?”
The man eyed him and shook his head cautiously. “Loreto.”
“I was there, too.”
The man eyed him a moment longer then nodded as he walked away. “Uh-huh.”
A five-man band walked onto a stage surrounded by a plexiglass cage reinforced with steel fencing, closed the cage door, set up and tested their instruments.
A woman screamed from a room hidden by a beaded curtain.
Trailer stood up. The barman caught Trailer’s shirt in his claw. “You gonna drink your beer or what?”
Trailer stood a head and a half taller than the barman. He said nothing, closing his eyes when the woman screamed again.
“Eddie, Bill?” the barman called out. “We got ourselves a pretty boy here.”
Two scar-faced men got up from a table near the door and walked towards Trailer. He shook his head slowly, searching with his ears as a blind man might search out a strange sound. He moved his head from side to side and made a sound, quiet and deep in his chest, a great cat purring. His head snapped back and shook. He whispered, “No…no,” as if tasting something tart, bitter, something he wanted to spit out.

A Bite of… Joseph Carrabis

Is it important to include all shades of belief and sexual orientation in a book?

Excellent question.
The first and necessary response is “Of course not! Only if some aspect of a belief or sexual orientation is necessary to the plot and moves the story forward.”
I recently took a course about writing characters with beliefs and such different from your own. A major problem with the course was the unrecognized bigotry and prejudice of the instructors. I kept listening to the language they used and asked questions (based on my experiences in psycholinguistics, anthrolinguistics, and cultural anthropology). It seemed the instructors were more going from their gut than any research about minimizing and subjugating language.
This gets into the question of sensitivity readers, as well. Some authors I know have had their manuscripts gutted by sensitivity readers who had no concept of a story or its setting.
Example: A reader thought my use of “motorcycle momma” demeaning. That phrase is used in a scene taking place in a biker bar with the protagonist surrounded by bikers. I had to question if the reader ever entered a biker bar, hung out with biker gangs, et cetera. A reader thought a military scene homosexual in nature because one male appreciated the fit of another male’s dress blues.
I cancelled my contract with that publisher because their readers left much to be desired.
That noted, do a sensitivity read and make suggestions that makes a book stronger, increases the power of the story, et cetera, and I’m there with pen in hand and please tell me more.

What is worse? Ignorance or stupidity?

Ignorance because, to me, true ignorance is an unwillingness to learn. Ever since my teens I’ve loathed people who refused to learn and those who refused to do something (which I define as “incompetence”). To clarify, I define “ignorance” as an unwillingness to learn and “incompetence” as an unwillingness to act.
Do something. You may succeed, you may fail, you may do it and decide it’s not for you, and at least you’ve learned you can do it. You’re no longer incompetent. You may suck at it, but at least you know how to do it.
I know how to paint a house. I suck at it. But if I have to do it, I can do it.
People unwilling to learn are also at the bottom of my list. This stems from my teens and I found it repeatedly in the business world; people who’d rather stick their heads in the ground than learn a new methodology which would save their jobs, company, or industry.
But stupidity? True stupidity? Meaning someone who doesn’t have the cognitive horsepower to understand or do something? Those people I can work with, and gladly. They are a gift. They teach us so much about ourselves and our ability to understand the “other.”
Which brings us back to the first question, essentially about writing from a foreign (to yourself) viewpoint or orientation. An amazing example of this is Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon. If you can read that book without your soul being ripped from you, there’s something wrong with your heart.

Do you have any marketing tips for fellow writers?

First, figure out why you’re writing. Do you just want to say you wrote a book and got it published? Excellent! Use any of the online, free publishing tools and you’re done. Good job!
Are you writing because you have something to say? To whom? Decide that, you’re into marketing.
Do you want people to read your book? How many? A few? Friends, family and fools? Publish through LuLu or something similar and give your book out as gifts.
A lot of people? Again, you’re talking marketing. Do you have a background in marketing? Were you any good at it? If you were, then why are you writing books? A successful marketer makes far more money in a month than most authors do in a year (lots more). But most successful marketers burn out and never want to go near marketing again (seeing myself in a mirror, there). Again, if you were a successful marketer you know what’s involved in marketing anything. Do you want to do that again? For yourself? Really? I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
Are you (un)lucky enough to find a publisher? Big Caveat there, folks. Find other authors with that same publisher and ask how much marketing that publisher does for them. Does the publisher continually push marketing schemes which end up draining the authors’ budgets without bringing in sales? WARNING, WILL ROBINSON! WARNING! WARNING! That publisher isn’t publishing books, they’re selling authors marketing schemes. Stay away.
Find a publisher who’ll handle all aspects of your product (your book is your product); interior design, cover design, blurb, promotional materials, keyword buys, et cetera, and charge you nothing. Someone or some group calling themself a “publisher” knows how to take a book from manuscript to available digitally and physically and won’t charge you to do any of it because that’s what a true publisher is. Everybody else is a book producer who provides a finished product and then relies on you to do much if not all the sales work.
Book producers are fine, just know the difference before signing a contract. There are lots of sharks in the water looking for fish who are thrilled someone wants to “publish” their book, and I’ve talked with many authors who’ve spent hundreds to thousands of dollars on “publisher” suggested marketing schemes that returned zero profit.
Again, check with other authors under the same publisher. Did they contribute anything beyond a finished and accepted manuscript? Then stay away from that publisher.
Along the same lines, ask to see a sample marketing plan. What does the publisher do? How long will they promote a book before giving up on it?

Joseph Carrabis has been everything from a long-haul trucker to a Chief Research Scientist. He’s taught internationally at the university level, holds patents in a base, disruptive technology, created a company that grew from his basement to offices in four countries, helped companies varying in size from mom&pops for F500s develop their marketing, and most of this bored him. But give him a pen and paper or a keyboard and he’s off writing, which is what he does full-time now.
His most recent novel, The Augmented Man, was published in March 2021 by Sixth Element.
You can find most of his published work on Amazon (and he wishes you would. He wants to know your opinion of his work, specifically how he can do it better). You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Goodreads, Pinterest, Instagram, BookBub, YouTube and his blog.

He was dawg sick when we found ‘un. Didn’t know the mountains breeds fevers at this time o’year. But we made a sled of pine branches and took ‘un home to Maw.
She fixed ‘un up good, and the next time we went back to the cabin, he were splitting’ logs by day and teachin’ the little ‘uns their letters by night.
Come spring he was gone, and if’n Maw looked kinda sad we minded our own.
Summer was just colourin’ the woods when a burro toiled up the track.
He brung his stuff, and come back to Maw’s fireside.

©️jj 2021

The adventures of Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson.

As the little train rattled busily through the countryside, the sun made its lazy way over the horizon and by the time they reached Ashbaconton it was well on its way to being fully dark.
The engine huffed importantly as it bustled into the station, before whistling once and subsiding into steamy hissy stillness.
“What do we do with the hamper, old chap?”
“Leave it here. I will be transported back from whence it came. But by all means remove the linen bag you will perceive beneath the scone crumbs and the empty jam and cream pots. It contains a little light supper for later.”
Bearson did as his small friend recommended, although even he thought the bag heavy for a light supper. Being wise to Homes, he made no comment merely lifting the bag by its convenient handles.
Outside the station, a uniformed constable awaited them, beside a high-wheeled gig. The gig was shining in the yellow light that streamed out of the station, and the horse in the shafts was equally well turned out. But neither of those things were what had Bearson’s jaw drop until it bounced against his cravat. No. It was the person who sat at ease on the driver’s seat, with the reins held in sensibly gloved hands. It was a woman. A woman dressed in male clothing and obviously intending to drive three male creatures across Dartymuir in the darkness. Yore stopped in his tracks.
“What is this?”
“Your conveyance,” the constable spoke woodenly.
“But. But.”
The female woman laughed, it was a soft musical sound oddly at variance with her sturdily masculine appearance. Her voice when she spoke was educated, and lacked the strangely rounded vowels of the local patois.
“If you want to get to the Fan of Feathers tonight, myself and Artos here are your only option.”
Homes strode over the the carriage and looked up at the driver. Something passed between the pig and the human woman, and he smiled. He bowed in the grand manner.
“Very well, madam. We are in your hands.”
Bearson decided that now was not the time for argumentification. He gently placed the linen bag in the footwell before climbing aboard. He too bowed to the driver.
“Aloysius Bearson at your service ma’am.”
The woman laughed again. “Pleased to meet you, Doctor Bearson.”
While he was trying to figure out how she knew he was a doctor, Bearson busied himself stowing away the bag and hauling Homes up into the high carriage.
Yore still stood as if transfixed and Holmes leaned over the side of the gig.
“Come along, Yore. We don’t have all night. We need to be out on the muir when the sun rises.”
Yore literally shook himself so hard that spume flew from his lips. He fixed the constable with a glare.
“You need not think you’ve heard the last of this.”
“Leave the poor man alone. I doubt that candidates to drive across the high muir in darkness are in abundance.”
Yore made a very rude noise with his bottom before climbing aboard, still grumbling beneath his breath. When he was settled in his seat, the woman looked around and the yellow light from the station lanterns illuminated her face Bearson was struck by her beauty and the refinement of her features.
“By gad,” he muttered. “I wonder who you are my proud beauty.”
Homes put a trotter to his lips and Bearson subsided.
“I think we are ready to proceed.” Homes was scrupulously polite.
The woman chucked to her horse and the gig moved steadily away from the lights of the station up the darkening hill that led to the heather-clad soughing uplands of Dartymuir.

Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson will continue their investigation into The Affair of the Dartymuir Dog next week…

Jane Jago

Our feet release the singing
Embedded in the clay
We hear the song in rosy dawn
Or at the end of day
The singers are no longer
This place is not their home
But their praiseful chanting
Echoes from the stones
We climb among the ruins
Sleeping in the sun
Where their voices echo
Whose race is long since run
Our feet explore the old path
To pass what was their home
Where ghostly voices sing in praise
From bones beneath the loam

©️jj 2021