The gnomes were fascinated. They had no idea what the biggers would be about.

First they moved all the gnomes to the shrubbery. Putting planks of wood over the lawn, a crowd of strange biggers in heavy boots made a big house from flapping sheets.

Big Norma shook her head. “Got me beat”.

The strange house was furnished with chairs and flowers, before it filled with biggers of every sort.

To the sound of loud music the bigger they called ‘father’ escorted a small female, dressed fine, to where a man in a long dress waited.

“Dearly beloved,” he said.

©️jj 2019

She was seventeen when she married him, and twenty-two when she divorced his lying ass.

Between the ages of twenty-three and twenty-four she became accustomed to seeing compromising photographs of herself on every internet platform.

People wondered at her apparent lack of embarrassment, and how little rancour she seemed to feel. 

She smiled and, at twenty-five accepted his dinner invitation. 

Those who wondered why she would do such a thing had their answer when photographs of his famously handsome figure, complete with bonnet, diaper and pacifier, appeared on social media, with the legend.

‘Revenge eaten cold.’

©️jj 2019

From Three Howls in the Evening by Nils Ödlund the seventh book in his Lost Dogs series.

When she came to again, the beast was gone, and she lay on her side in the mud. The wolf was nearby, and when she raised her head to look she saw it standing with it’s paws on the fallen tree she’d sat on earlier.
“Oh, hey,” she said, and a stupid little smile tugged at her lips.
The wolf just looked at her.
Huge, and completely black. About the size of a small pony, or so it felt from where she lay on the ground looking up at it. Jaws that’d crack her arms like biscuits.
Alene swallowed and pushed herself up to sitting. The wolf wouldn’t attack her, but that didn’t mean she had to grovel in the dirt before it. She made to pick some dried leaves from her t-shirt, but stopped herself, sighed, and cursed under her breath. Her entire right side was covered in mud, from her feet and up to her shoulder. As if it wasn’t enough that she hadn’t had a shower for two days, she had to go rolling around in the mud as well. Stupid.
The wolf snorted and hopped down from the fallen tree, away from her on the other side.
“Yeah, whatever.” She got to her feet, brushed her hands off on her hips and got even more mud on her right hand. “It’s fine. I’m okay. Off with you.”
Her cheeks warmed, and she pressed her lips together. Even after two years of being a terry, talking to someone in their animal aspect still felt weird to her. She knew Roy was in there, and she knew he could understand her. Only, her eyes still saw a big wolf, and wolves didn’t speak.
“I’m sorry…” She blushed again. “I mean… I’ve got this. You can be on your way now.”
Alene raised her hand and pointed east, or somewhere like it. If he’d just be on his way she’d get the rest sorted. He probably had a towel in his backpack she could use to clean herself up a little before she went back into town, but she wouldn’t go rummaging through his things when he was still there.
The wolf looked at her for another moment, and then it turned around and headed off in the direction she’d pointed.
In the back of her mind, the beast began to growl.

A Bite of... Nils Ödlund

Q1: How much of you is in the hero/villain?

There’s no distinct villain in my stories, but I think all of the main characters show various sides of me.
Roy is probably the one who’s most like me as a person, while Alene is more like someone I’d wish to be like – minus the Beast. I’d like to think that neither of them is a carbon copy of myself though. But there’s probably more of me in them than I’d like to admit.
I get quite close to my characters, so it’s hard to avoid completely.

Q2: Is it important to include all shades of belief and sexual orientation in a book?

There are a lot of shades, and I don’t think you can reasonably include all of them. Diversity is important though, and it makes for a richer and more interesting world if there’s a varied cast of characters in it.
I try and include characters with different skin colours and sexual orientations, but so far, neither has been a major issue in any of my stories, so it’s not very prominent. It’s part of the backdrop against which the stories play out though.

Q3: Chocolate cake or coffee cake?

I’m a big fan of coffee, but I’ll have coffee with the cake, not in it – although, in a pinch, I don’t mind coffee cake. I just prefer chocolate cake if it’s an option.

Nils Ödlund is originally Swedish, but lives these days in Cork, Ireland. He took up writing as a hobby at some point in 2010 (or maybe ’11), and it quickly grew from an idle pastime to a minor obsession.
Since the beginning of 2019, Ödlund writes full time, and tries his best to reduce the amount of time spent writing in cafes and pubs. Writing in the company of a good coffee, or a pint of Guinness, is pleasant and enjoyable, but there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing. Also, it gets expensive.
Unlike every single other author ever, Ödlund does not have a cat.

You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and his blog.

Let’s get one thing straight. When a human child stops believing a fairy does not die. We can’t die. We can be killed – with difficulty – but we can’t die.

We can, however, get threadbare. But fairies are adaptable and when the new opportunity came along we grabbed it with both hands. It was so simple. We flowed gleefully into this magic new world and took it for our own.

Now every time a human being logs on to the Internet it’s an act of faith and we fae are as fat as marmalade cats.

Fairy dos: formerly known as Peaseblossom.

©️jj 2019

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.

Chu was blind, but as the daughter of wealth she was permitted to live. By the fifth year of her life her talent as musician and singer became evident, and her father congratulated himself on having the foresight not to kill the child.

When she was twenty, her songs brought her to the attention of the emperor, who brought her to court and had her play to him every night before he slept.

His fifteenth son courted Chu with politics in his eyes.

She refused him

Instead she married a humble scribe, who described for her the colours of peonies.

©️jj 2019

You won’t shut me out
Even when sunk behind your walls
You won’t push me away
Even when walking those dark halls
You won’t make me shout
Even by hiding beneath your shell
I’m here. Here I stay
A wobbly lantern lighting Hell

©jj 2019

Having featured as our Sunday Serial over the last two years, The Cracksman Code by Jane Jago is now available as an ebook.

When Jim Cracksman received a ‘get your ass home now’ text, he grinned good-naturedly and climbed into his beloved muscle truck. As it turned out, that was to be the last time he smiled for many hours.
When he strolled into the house, it was to find his wife and his oldest son awaiting him with white, strained faces. He pulled Patsy into a one-armed hug and looked a question at Jamie.
“It’s Will. He ain’t in France with the school party. Mum got the heebie jeebies because he hadn’t called and got me to do some checking. He never got on the plane. I activated the locators on his stuff and it’s in a locker at the airport. Then I did a naughty and activated his personal locators. He is in Scotland. Stopped moving about an hour ago at some place called Castle Ellan. Which actually is a castle. It’s let furnished, but I can’t find out who to.”
Jim held out his other arm and the boy came and buried his face in his father’s chest.
“He’s only seven years old Dad. We mustn’t let anyone hurt him.”
“We won’t. And you did good work. Now. Who do we know in Scotland? It’s time to call in some favours.”
Patsy lifted a tear-stained face to look at him.
“Rod’s in Scotland. Him and his buddy Sam are doing a distillery tour. And Anna and her motorhome are at some place called Garlieston.”
“Right. You call Ma and tell her somebody has got at Will. Ask her to look after Charlie and the twins while we sort it. Say she can tell the twins if she must, but not little Charlie. Jamie can stop here with us, as he’s already in it up to his neck. But I want the others out of harm’s way.”
She sniffed.
“Yes. I should’ve thought. I’ll get right on it. And I’ll make tea while I’m at it.”
She picked up her phone and headed to the kitchen.

Jamie looked at his father with haunted eyes.
“They are going to start hurting him soon, aren’t they?”
“Not if Rod gets there first they aren’t. And he will get there first. We have to believe that. Now. Quiet. I need to make some calls.”

The conversations were all brief, but Jim looked a little less grim when he finished the last call. As he did so, Patsy came back into the room carrying a big tray with a brown teapot and milk jug, three mugs, and a plate of biscuits.
“Pete is fetching the kids from their schools, and Ma will keep them for as long as it takes. Pa said not to forget Geordie Jackson, plus he knows a guy in Edinburgh who makes boomers if we need.”
“I already talked to Geordie. He has a couple of boomer boys, and they are on their way to a field where they’re going to be picked up by a helicopter what is already on its way to collect Rod and his pal, who I forgot is a doctor, and who insists on going along to take care of Will when they get him out. Anna is packing up the camper and moving to a place Geordie owns on the outskirts of Glasgow. It’ll take her about three hours to do the drive, she says. So she’ll be in position when they bring Will out. Geordie knows who is at the castle, and he says they are not nice people. He also tells me the main man is currently away from home. Expected back tomorrow. Which’ll be why we’ve heard nothing yet. With only average luck, we’ll get the wee man out before the end of today.”
Patsy looked him in the eyes.
“Now what aren’t you telling me?”
“Actually. Nothing. But I’ll admit to being very, very worried.”
“Fair enough. Me too. But the three of us will support each other through it. Now. Tea?”
Jim swallowed a huge lump in his throat, and Jamie just buried his head in his mother’s breast. She patted one and smiled at the other before pouring mugs of tea so strong it would have fought its way out of a delicate cup.
“Sit down and drink your tea. It’ll help.”
They sat, and there was silence for a while before Jamie spoke.
“Has Anna got enough stuff with her to pick up Will’s locator?”
“Yes. She already called it up. She says good work Jamie. She and I think Will is probably drugged, because he isn’t moving. So it’s good there’s a doctor in the rescue party.”
“But. Isn’t he a surgeon?” Patsy asked in worried tones.
“He is, which is all to the good, apparently, as he knows lots about unconscious people. He says William will be fine with him.”
Jamie spoke up.
“Is there any more we can do Dad?”
“Nope. Now is the hard bit. We sit tight. Man the phones. And wait.”
They waited.

Five hundred miles north, things were moving at an altogether faster pace. Two men, a couple of small suitcases, and a black leather holdall, waited by the helipad at the Gleneagles hotel. The larger of the two looked at his companion.
“You sure about this, Sam? It’s going to get nasty, and some people will get hurt, or worse.”
“Yes. I’m sure. They have kidnapped a seven-year-old boy. If they have kept him drugged for thirty-six hours, he could be in a bad way. He might need me, and I might need the stuff I asked for.”
“It’s on the chopper. And how bad?”
“I honestly don’t know, Rod. Worst case scenario is brain damage, but at best he is going to be confused, feeling sick, and dehydrated.”
“Right. So we do need you.”
“And we need to hope.”
They fell silent as the sound of a big helicopter engine came closer.
“Why a Sikorsky?” Sam bawled in Rod’s ear as it came in to land.
They picked up their stuff, ran across the helipad and leapt aboard. A big man in a jumpsuit pushed them into a pair of seats and handed them headsets.
“Welcome aboard Rescue One,” he said.
“Thanks,” Rod grunted. “My friend here wondered why a Sky Crane?”
“Easy. These bastards fly in and out of the target area all the time. Nobody will think twice about another. Has anybody thought about what sort of condition the kid will be in when we get him out?”
“Yes,” Sam said tersely. “I’ve given the matter a lot of thought. Is the stuff I asked for on board?”
“Yeah. You know how to use it?”
“I do. But let’s hope I don’t have to.”
“What don’t you want to have to use?”
“Mostly: tracheotomy kit. I’ve had to do it in Thailand to kids that were sedated for too long on the underground sex trade routes. It ain’t pleasant, but it can be the only way to get air into the poor little sods’ lungs.”
“Fuck. Will it really be that bad?”
“Probably not, but I wanted to be sure I had all the bases covered. But the poor little bugger is going to be confused and frightened, and that’s why going home in his friend’s motorhome, where he can rest and feel secure will be better for him than a plane flight where he is surrounded by strangers, or the noise and smells of a chopper.”
“Yeah. I get that. And we can take it in turns to drive. So we’ll get him back to his mum pretty soon. Now I find I’m feeling murderous. Nobody should get between me and anyone I’m beating up.”
The man in the jumpsuit grinned.
“Fine. We’re all fathers here, and nobody is feeling particularly gentlemanly right now. About half an hour till we collect Geordie’s boomer boys. Then an hour from there to this fucking castle. Any orders?”
“Apart from getting my nephew out and demonstrating the family’s annoyance? No. Just do what needs doing.”
“Will do. By the way. This one’s a freebie. Geordie is providing the hardware and the fuel, we’re giving our time. Nobody liked having the Russian Mafia on our turf. But as long as they kept their noses clean we could tolerate them. Taking people’s kids is a big no-no, so we are handing down a lesson.”
“How many are we?” Sam asked.
“You two. Geordie’s boomer boys. Twelve fighters. Pilot, co-pilot and radio guy. Why?”
“Because I have a bad feeling about what they might do to the kid when we tip up. I want to get to him fast.”
“Good thinking. Six of us will escort you right to him. We have his location on screen.”
“Right. Good.”
The two men bumped fists.
They seemed to have covered all the bases, and the men sat in silence until the helicopter dropped down to land briefly. Three men jumped in carrying obviously heavy bags. Once they were seated the chopper took off and headed north. The men put on their headphones and their leader gave Rod a grim wink.
“Got enough stuff to flatten this fecking castle. Geordie says you have to agree, though.”
“Oh yeah. Let’s show them our fist! But we have to get little Bill out first. And if they’ve hurt him…”
The smallest of the boomer boys spat eloquently.
“Aye. There’s examples to be made.”

To keep reading snag yourself a copy of The Cracksman Code by Jane Jago!

They called him the Artist Nouveau, and Eleanora was his muse. He painted her as Ophelia, as Juliet, as the Queen of Faerie, in flowing draperies, naked save for her titian curls.

Everyone who was anyone wanted a portrait of her serene beauty to decorate their homes, and those who were nobody bought prints in tacky frames.

The couple was feted and lionised wherever they chose to go. In the eyes of the world they were perfect, but they hid secrets. 

Eleanora had her husband and chubby babies, while the Artist was the plaything of a sarcastic Dom called Brian. 

©️jj 2019

This is the way that the Marathon’s run
Run away, this away, run away, run.
There is the sound of the starting gun
Run all you people, line up and run!

Off we all go for the race has begun
Run away, this away, run away, run.
Out on the streets, the crowd’s having fun
Run all you people, line up and run!

Dressing as brides who have away run
Run away, this away, run away, run.
Or pantomime horses, bay, grey or dun.
Run all you people, line up and run!

People of all shapes some old and some young
Run away, this away, run away, run.
Sweating and panting all out in the sun
Run all you people, line up and run!

The miles are eaten up now one by one
Run away, this away, run away, run.
By the halfway point some runners are done
Run all you people, line up and run!

Grabbing at water or going with none
Run away, this away, run away, run.
The end is in sight as your legs weigh a ton
Run all you people, line up and run!

But at the finish where is everyone?
Run away, this away, run away, run.
All went the wrong way, so the race is rerun.
Run all you people, line up and run!

E.M. Swift-Hook