I am old as you rightly suggest
And often I don’t look at my best
But I just think sod that
And shove on a hat
And stick out my oversized chest

© jane jago 2017

Alex is a time-traveler from the 23rd Century.  Sean Kelly is his Great-great-great-great-great Grandfather (plucked from 1997 in this story), Jane Carmichael was rescued from certain death in 1969, and Steffi is the time-ship’s computer (recently sentient).  The time-ship is in the cargo hold of a stolen freighter plummeting to Earth.  Sean has run out of oxygen getting from the helm of the freighter to the cargo bay.

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

 Alex and Jane quickly pushed and pulled Sean’s limp, weightless form into the front seat.  Alex had barely gotten himself into the back as the door slid shut and sealed.

“I’ve re-pressurized with almost 50% oxygen, so no sparks, people.”

Jane found the two buttons on Sean’s collar and pushed them.  The seal to the bubble-helmet released and she pulled it off his head.  “Is he breathing?” she cried.  “I don’t think he’s breathing!”  She pinched his nose shut and put her mouth over his and blew.  She pushed on his diaphragm, took a deep breath and repeated.  She put her ear next to Sean’s mouth to listen, then put her mouth over his again.  To her surprise, he started kissing her.

“That was not necessary,” Alex commented.  “Sean’s nanites can stimulate cardiopulmonary resuscitation from within.”

“Sometimes the old-fashioned way is better medicine,” Steffi said, the image on the screen smiling broadly.

Jane pulled back a few inches.  “Are you OK?” she asked.  Tears pooled in her eyes.

“I think so,” Sean replied.  He put both his hands to his temples.  “Major headache.”

“I’ll get to that after we jump,” Steffi said.  “The outer hull is over three thousand degrees centigrade.  It can’t hold together much longer.”

“Then why have you not shifted dimensions?” Alex demanded.

“This crate’s too big to completely burn up.  I’m calculating a new trajectory to make sure it hits the Pacific.  Firing rockets for new heading.”  The face on the screen grew solemn.  “Lex, there might be another problem.”

“With the course correction?”

“No.  That’s fine.  I fixed that.  I’m worried about the dimensional shift.  We have no idea what effect altering dimensions at this speed will have.  It might sling us clear into the Stone Age, or even further.”

“Have you calculated any other possible solutions to our current predicament?”

“I’m afraid there aren’t any.”

“Then execute the only available option.”

“I will,” Steffi assured him.  “I just wanted to say… in case everything goes completely wrong… I just wanted to tell you guys how much I love you.”

Alex’s jaw dropped.  “You are suggesting we risk annihilation?”

“I really don’t know,” Steffi replied.  “Maybe.”

Sean instinctively pulled Jane closer.  She responded by crushing her lips against his.  At the end of a long and torrid kiss, she slid her lips close to his ear.  “I love you,” she whispered as tears dripped on his shoulder.

He squeezed her even tighter.  “I love you, Jane.”  He glanced back at Alex and gave him a smile.  “I love you, too, Future-Boy.”

Alex blinked fiercely to control the tears welling in his eyes.  “That is most gratifying,” he said with a slight waver.  “I have also become emotionally attached to both of you.”

The image on the screen held both hands near her face, fingers crossed.  “Here’s hoping we’ll have a chance to laugh about this someday,” Steffi said.  “Gotta go.  The ship’s breaking up.”

As they shifted out of the fireball that was plummeting to Earth and into another dimension, Jane said, “Far out!”

From ‘…In One Basket‘ by Les Lynam.

We caught up with Les Lynam and asked him some profound and probing questions…

Q1: Puppies or kittens and why?

I am probably the world’s worst person to ask a simple two-variable either/or question.  I can rarely see the black and white of anything and tend to immediately demand clarifications to make a decision more palatable.  Puppies or kittens?  Do I have to live with them or just spend an hour playing with and/or watching them?  Assuming some type of short-term relationship, I would pick kittens because they are so lively and fun and play interesting games with each other and can easily be engaged by dangling a feather from a string.  I feel I must at this point quote Ogdan Nash: “The trouble with a kitten is that.  Eventually it becomes a cat”.  Therefore, in a long-term relationship, I choose the puppy as it will grow up to be man’s best friend, the dog.

Q2: Who would you prefer to be eaten by Godzilla or Cthulu and why?

Aha!  Another either/or question.  While the first one was figuring out which one might be more pleasant, this one is a ‘which one is the least offensive’.  Instead of questions, I fear I’d have to toss out a possible disqualifier.  Though I’ve certainly not seen EVERY Godzilla movie, I’ve seen quite a few and it strikes me that Godzilla (and other kaiju, for that matter) isn’t really a chomp-on-people kind of monster.  He’s more of a stomp-on-things kind of guy.  Examining my other choice, the first thing that comes to mind is how much I detest pretention. “High Priest of the Great Old Ones”… well la tee day.  Think you’re all that, do ya, Cthulhu?  I suppose one advantage of picking Cthulhu is that it’s been sleeping for eons.  Probably nap right through a meal and wouldn’t get around to eating me at all.  Rather than a coin toss on this one, I’ll go with a commonality I have with Gojira.  The first movie came out in 1954, the year I was born.

Q3 If you woke up tomorrow to find yourself living in a work of fiction which book/series would you least want to be living in and why?

Even more paralyzing than selecting from a binary choice is having a plethora of terrible living spaces to choose from.  An easy off-the-top-of-my-head choice is any of G. R. R. Martin’s GoT novels.  Whether a minor character or lead, it’s a good bet I wouldn’t make it through an entire thousand pages alive.  Closer to home (as an author) would be getting trapped in Stephen King’s Misery as the Paul Sheldon character (not only by a crazy lady, but also trapped psychologically by his publisher and readership).  Alexander Dumas’ Three Musketeers would be another bad fit for me.  I’m a little too old to be swashing any buckles and I’d hate to live in a time that was sans hot and cold running water and indoor bathrooms.  Though there are dozens of other ghastly places, I’m going to choose Hugh Howie’s Wool.  I’m a bit too claustrophobic to live my entire life in an underground silo and the cardio from all the stair climbing would probably do me in.

What fun… dog, Godzilla, and Wool.  Final answer.

You can find Les across the spectrum of social media Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram and Pinterest.

The Seagull

Once upon a picnic beery, whilst I guzzled, drunk and cheery,
Over the tartan blanket spurious, spoke words which could only bore –
While I waffled, sometimes rapping, suddenly there came a flapping
As of some bird quickly crapping, crapping on my fresh coleslaw.
“Tis a bloody gull!” I shouted “Crapping in my fresh coleslaw
“Shoot the bugger!” I did roar.

And the seagull, never flitting, still is shitting, STILL IS SHITTING!
All across the tartan blanket and the bowl of my coleslaw!
Soon his evil squawk brings streaming every seagull near, it’s seeming
And the flock of flockers teeming do devour my picnic more,
Thus, my cup of fine Prosecco now is spilt upon the floor.
I shall picnic – nevermore!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

Join Ivy’s Fan Club!

Elron and his sister wife Elanda dallied in the dappled shade of the forest. They walked hand in hand, stopping every few steps to kiss and caress. Elanda slipped away and ran a few steps, for the sheer joy of him catching her in his strong arms and bearing her down into the sweet loam to ravish her with tender savagery.

They strayed closer to the homes of the human creatures than was their habit, standing for a while to watch as the white-clad and silent women of the sanctuary bore a wrapped bundle to the flat rock of sacrifice, leaving it there before scuttling away on silent feet.
“I wonder what gift they spare to the old ones,” Elanda spoke idly, even as her beloved’s clever hands worked their magic. He bent her over a convenient tree branch and they began their unending game yet again.

This time the little mewing cries did not come only from Elanda’s throat as they continued even after she drooped like a spent lily.
“It’s a child. The old one will dine on child tonight.”

Elanda walked on soft feet to where the babe lay and pulled back the blanket from his fair features. She gazed enraptured.
“Look Elron. Is he not beautiful?”
Elron looked, without too much interest, but found to his surprise that the child was indeed of surpassing beauty. Gold of hair, blue of eye, and possessed of skin so thin and white that the blue veins could clearly be discerned beneath their fragile coverlet.
“He is indeed beautiful. Shall we keep him?”
“We could. But what of the old one?”
“I will call him up a fat boar. He will like that better anyway.”

Elanda’s smile was a thing of witchery, so the deed was done. They retraced their steps, only this time The beautiful fae had a beautiful child in her arms. Once away from the grove of the old ones, she stopped and seated herself on a sweetly scented bank of wild flowers.
“The child must feed,” she declared opening her garment.
Elron expected to feel jealousy at the sight of another mouth at his beloved’s breast, and he was surprised to find that all he felt was excitement as the child’s perfect lips encircled Elanda’s long pink nipple.

He watched for some while, until, impelled by some appetite he didn’t know he possessed, he bent his handsome head to suckle the other breast.

As quickly as a bolt of summer lightning, the child stirred in Elanda’s arms and struck like a viper sinking sharp and yellowish teeth into the pulse that beat in the big male’s neck.

Elron was paralysed and could only groan in agony as the creature drunk his life force. The eyes that had looked so blue in the sacred grove now glowed red as the succubus fed.

Seemingly unknowing, Elanda crooned a lullaby and stroked the baby’s milk white skin…

You are old, when I ask what you say
To lovers of Fifty Shades of Grey
You are coldly dismissive
Of Doms and Submissives
Declaring that stuff’s had its day

© jane jago 2017

Gaston

But now as he leaned over the basin, he realized he had become his father. Clutching his chest, he breathed in and staggered to the edge of the bed. Sweat poured from every pore in his body as he swung his legs onto the well-worn softness of the mattress. He clenched his teeth and let out a hiss as another surge of pain assailed his heart and he told himself – I don’t want to die. I’ll change, I’ll make things better. Pain sprung like a cleaver in the center of his chest, and he gasped loudly and choked before his body slackened.

“I’m telling you Daisy, something is wrong. I can feel it,” Beatrix’s husky voice said as she turned to look at her sister. “Fine! I can’t rest with you nagging every five minutes. Let’s go and see then.” The two women rolled to the edge of the bed and struggled to a sitting position. They were bound by flesh from the shoulder to the hip. One had to be aware of the other’s intentions to prevent harm by tripping hazards and the like, but over their twenty years they had come to know one another intimately and now had the ability to know what the other was thinking before she even thought it.

The girls were born as conjoined twins and with an innate ability to conjure and perform spells of witchcraft, which made living in one place extremely difficult. Townsfolk always kept their distance, worried that the sisters would pass on their ‘disease’, or curse them to an eternity of hell if they said the wrong thing.

Beatrix lowered her head and furrowing her brow said quietly, “I had a vision. A vision of death and manifestation. I can feel the darkness surrounding us now.”

Her eye lids fluttered as she turned to her sister.

“I feel it too. Let the spirits guide us.”

The two women stood and rolled their necks in a clockwise circle, cracking the tension, as long strands of flame-red curls swayed with the motion. Without another word, they left their wagon and walked towards the small blue and white one a few hundred yards away.

Beatrice and Daisy approached the wagon and began mumbling incomprehensible words to themselves; a gusty wind responded. It burst forth, increasing in velocity as the long dry grass flung backwards.

Raising their heads and arms they said in unison, “I am a witch, a shepherd of this world. I am here to claim the soul of the stricken.” The wind howled around the wagon then eased and stilled, allowing the twins to enter.

Gaston lay on the bed motionless, his mouth slightly ajar and his eyes open. His eyes were like a dead fish, lacking shine, and his skin already cold to the touch. The women each placed a palm on his forehead and mumbled a chant.
Do not dwell in the past

Do not dream of the future

Your work on earth is not done

In spirit please help find the one

Our savior, then you may rest

Save Cirque Monter en Flèche

A loud rumbling noise made the bed shudder violently and it continued as the women’s voices grew louder and stronger. Their conviction was unyielding as the noise lessened and the shuddering stopped.

A white mist lazily began to swirl from Gaston’s mouth, and as it left his body it formed into a likeness of him. Soon it was half the height of the dead man and the same shape, except the spirit faded at the edges, and having no feet, it hovered in the air.

“Oh, thank God, I thought I’d kicked the proverbial!”

“You have. Geez, you were a ninny in life and you still bloody are when you’re dead!”

Beatrix’s anger blazed momentarily before she added, “You are a spirit.”

“And until you finish the job you were meant to do on earth, we must put up with your sorry ass,” added Daisy as she poked the mist spirit with her finger.

“Don’t! I can feel that!”

“You shouldn’t be able too,” she replied, looking at Beatrix who shrugged and added, “It’s because he’s only just died. His feelings will disappear in time, just like they did when he was alive.” She drew her lips into a thin tight line which relieved a hurt that still stung, and Daisy reached with her free arm and touched her shoulder.

“He was always an ass, Sis.”

Melissa North told us:  “My upbringing in the Brisbane, Australia was inspirational as my young creative mind overflowed with ideas and images. After marrying I moved, with my husband, to the North West region and have lived here and in the Lockyer Valley long enough to see both my children born and raised. 

“I return to Brisbane every year to our family home. I have always loved telling stories and so writing seemed to be the next natural thing to do. I love the journey I am on and would like to share my creative adventures with the youth of Australia and the world.  As an Author, I am creative, imaginative and original with a unique writing style that provides a reading experience unlike any other. I’m so appreciative and delighted by the positive response my work has received. I’m looking forward to sharing my future stories as they come to fruition.”

You can find Melissa on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, her blog and her website.

Q1: What do you like most about yourself?

Ha! Just before my heart attack, the realisation that I’ve become my father hit me. So, there’s not a lot I like about me at the moment.

I don’t think many people will miss me either, I’ve been called an asshole so many times, I’ve lost count. I’m a spirit now and besides hanging out for a smoke and to feel the taste of gin sliding down my throat, I flit around wishing I’d made better choices.

Q2: If someone offered you the chance to change one thing in your world what would it be and why?

*Gaston looked to be pacing the floor, however with spirit qualities, pacing really just doesn’t seem to sound right. His brow creased and dark eyes narrowed as he turned*

I would change the day my father lost the plot. He cheated on my mother with whores from a town the circus was performing in, and the bastard loved the moonshine… I tell you! If I was older then, I would have killed him myself!

*The caravan we are sitting in begins to shake and the drawers spring open dislodging their contents onto the floor*

Q3: What career would you most like to follow if not your own and why?

*Gaston shakes his head and scratched his bulbous belly*

In hindsight, I would not change my career, if I knew now what the future was to deal out, I would of changed my ways. I should have taken more notice of a lot of people. I’ve hurt some-one I love and I miss her.

*He fades in and out of view as he speaks before disappearing completely from my view*

You can find more about Gaston in Melissa North’s ‘A Confabulated Compendium of Anecdotes’ which you can find on Amazon USA, Amazon UK, and Amazon Australia and all other Amazon stores.

Please note ‘Castle Perilous’ is an Adult Read.

The gate guard at Castle Perilous was alert and unobtrusive, and a single robed and cowled figure mounted on a tall, grey horse was closely observed as it mounted the causeway. As the horse approached the gates the rider drew rein.
“Traveller seeking shelter.”
“Shelter granted.”

The rider shook the reins and the horse moved forwards with its iron-shod hooves echoing hollowly on the wooden planks of the drawbridge.

Once they had passed under the portcullis and through the curtain wall, a guardsman appeared at each stirrup.
“What is your business at Castle Perilous?”
“I have no business here,” the voice was low and pleasantly husky. “I merely journey from one place to another and seek shelter from the storm whose clouds roil and boil in the western sky.”
“Very well. We will take your horse.”
A hand went to the bridle, but was snatched away just inches from a set of snapping yellow teeth. The rider laughed.
“Be careful, Horse has been known to bite.”
“Indeed.”

A shaven-headed dwarf with massively muscular shoulders stepped forward and grasped the reins in one horny hand. He and the horse eyed each other intensely for a moment, then Horse gave the equine equivalent of a shrug and abandoned the attempt to win the staring match. His rider laughed, swung one leg over the pommel and dropped lightly to the ground.

The sergeant of the guard indicated that the visitor was to follow him.
“One of the guard will bring your saddlebags.”

The cowled figure followed in his wake and was brought to the doors of the Great Hall. The sergeant opened one leaf of the door and bowed the visitor inside.

The visitor trod the worn white flagstones towards the western wall whose arched windows overlooked a green valley up which the purple-black storm clouds were racing. Whoever or whatever was under the cowl seemed unsurprised by the magnificence of the grand chamber, and walked with bowed head and hands tucked into the sleeves of a monkish woollen robe. At the steps to the dais the visitor looked up, straight into the cold eyes of the incumbent of Castle Perilous.

He was huge and blonde-braided, with intricately tattooed runes running across his pale skin. Other than his moustached face, the hands that rested on the arms of a deeply carved wooden chair were the only undecorated flesh visible, being as white as milk but calloused and scarred withal. Those hands clenched and unclenched for a moment before he spoke.
“Do they send a monk to convert The Knight of the Doleful Countenance to their weak womanish religion?” His voice was deep, and booming, and filled with contempt.
His visitor put back the concealing hood to reveal that it was no monk who stood at the foot of the steps looking critically upwards.

It was a woman, an austerely handsome woman – broad of cheekbone, and with alabaster pale skin and astonishingly blue eyes. Her yellow hair was brushed smoothly away from her face and gathered in a club at the nape of her neck. She regarded the seated giant much as a cat regards a mouse and he shifted uneasily in his great chair.

“What then have they sent you here for? To seduce me?”
She laughed.
“Hardly.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I seek shelter from the storm.”
“What storm?”
As if on cue, the sky darkened and the air was rent by sounds of thunder. The windows behind the dais were battered by hailstones and lashing rain.
“This one.”
“Very well I will believe you. But there is payment to be levied.”
“Payment? What of the laws of hospitality?”
“I care for no laws. In Castle Perilous I am the law.” The enormous man laughed derisively as he looked into the woman’s face. “You look to be a tasty little morsel, and one that might while away a boring hour or two.”
The woman regarded him patiently.
“And what if I say no?”
He shrugged.
“It matters not a jot to me. Will ye or nil ye, I will have you.”
Her eyes remained unafraid and she lifted one shoulder.
“We shall see.”

The Knight actually chuckled, before rising to his full seven feet and extending a hand.
“I can at least offer you food while we discuss this further.”
The woman put the tips of her fingers on his bulky forearm and they walked together out of the great hall and up the stairs to the solar, where a noble fire warmed the air and the walls were hung with rich tapestries.

Behind them the household held its collective breath. It was very rare to see a woman walking up those stairs on her own two feet before, and the staff had learned to expect something cataclysmic to ensue.

However, the sky did not fall in and there were no screams to be heard, so a stream of lackeys mounted the staircase bearing bottles and covered dishes.

While the nameless ones went about their business, the Knight and the Lady stood by the window in silence and watched the driving rain. Once the last servant had bowed his way out, the Knight went to a side table and poured a glass of blood-red wine.

He brought the glass to the Lady who took it from his hand. She sniffed its bouquet and sighed.
“I do not need your wine laced with opiates.”
She put the glass down and looked into the Knight’s face.
“I meant it only as a kindness,” he growled.
“Kindness? To whom? When you rape me I intend that you should hear my screams…”
He would not meet her eyes.
“Why call it rape?”
“What else should I call it. You say yourself that you mean to have me, whether I will it or not. I do not. So there is no other name for it but rape.”
He bulked his shoulders but did not reply.

The lady put hands to the belt of her robe and unfastened it, removing the serviceable brown wool to disclose a simple creamy linen garment beneath. She sat on the window seat to remove her stout leather boots, revealing long delicately boned feet to the Knight’s heated gaze.

He swallowed audibly, but said nothing, merely handing her to a seat at a table laid for two. He served her a plate of carefully chosen meats before bringing his own meal to the place opposite her at the table. He watched her intently, with his lightless eyes resting on the hollows at the base of her white throat. She looked back at him.
“Why do you watch me so?”
“Because you do not fear me.”
“How do you know I do not fear you?”
He chuckled, and it was an almost human sound.
“You are not the first woman to sit at this table with me. There have been those before you whose bravado carried them thus far, but here in this room I have seen their fear grow and watched their hands tremble. I do not believe you could eat so calmly were you in fear.”
“Maybe not. Or maybe I just have more pride than those who have gone before me.”
“More pride than queens and priestesses and witches and seers?”
“Mayhap. You will never know.”
He inclined his head but said no more.

The silence between them was far from comfortable and it stretched for many moments before the Knight spoke again. His voice was a low growl.
“I wish you would drink the wine,” he said almost plaintively.
“Why? So that I cannot call you rapist to your head?”
“No, lady. So that I shall not cause you pain.”
She raised her brows and the Knight reddened under the weight of her gaze. He spoke with some reticence.
“I am not a small man, in any dimension, and when the lust rises in my blood I have no moderation. I have respect for your courage and I find myself reluctant to hurt you.”
“If you have no wish to hurt me the remedy is in your hands.”
“It is not in my hands,” the words sounded as if they had been ripped from his very soul.
The Lady looked at him in some pity.
“How so?”
“It is the castle,” he whispered, “it craves blood. The life blood of those knights who dare challenge me, and the virgin blood of the women sent in tribute.”
The Lady showed a row of perfectly even white teeth.
“Life blood or virgin blood? It seems you will have to kill me.”
It took a moment for the import of what she said to register, then the Knight threw back his head and roared in frustration, underpinned by something one might have called sorrow if he had been entirely human.
“Nooooooo….”

As he bellowed his defiance, the Lady felt the castle’s hunger as a vibration through the soles of her bare feet where they rested on the floor.
She sighed. “Lend me your dagger.”
Somewhat to his own surprise, the Knight handed it over and watched as his guest walked to the chimney breast. She laid her hand on the stones and the castle’s hunger became a high-pitched voice singing in the air around her head.
“You shall die
And you shall bleed
And on your blood
These stones shall feed”

The Knight fell back in his chair.
“You can hear it too?” his voice was a saw-toothed whisper.
“Of course I can.”
“It wants me to kill you.”
“I know.”

The Lady cut deeply into her thumb with the Knight’s blade and smeared her blood on the warm wall, making a complex rune. The eerie singing stopped, and the castle felt replete.
“How? What?” the Knight was perplexed, then he stretched himself to his full height. “Go now,” he whispered. “Leave while the monster is quiescent. The rain is almost over. Get your horse and go before the castle knows you are gone.”
“And what will happen to you when the castle wakes?”
“Nothing,” he said dully, “it needs me too much to do me harm. It will be angry for a while.”

The Lady smiled.
“Liar. It will punish you horribly if you let me go.”
“And if it does? What have I not done that deserves punishment? I have survived before.”
He shrugged off his leather waistcoat to display a whole landscape of scars, some as deep as the thickness of a man’s thumb. The Lady swallowed around a sudden sickness in her mouth.
“Why?”
“I let a virgin go free. She was too young and too small, and even the bloodlust of the stones was not strong enough to make me take her.”
She put one cool hand on his chest and he noticed that the cut to her thumb had healed already, but somehow it was too much effort to think about anything except her wide-set sapphire eyes.

The Lady appeared to reach a decision.
“How much do you want to escape?”
“When I am myself, I want to get away with every fibre of my being. But when the castle takes me over…”
“Understood,” she looked deep into his eyes behind which she could begin to discern a spark of humanity. “Understood, but are you of high enough courage to take a chance at my side?”
In lieu of a reply, the huge Knight knelt and kissed her foot.

She smiled and gave one of his braids a shrewd tug. He stood looking down at her as she dropped her robe.
“Undress,” her voice was soft but brooked no argument.
The gigantic Knight stripped quickly, standing before her naked save for his tattoos.
The Lady grinned into his uncomprehending eyes.
“We have one chance, and one chance only, will you trust me?”
He nodded, and she plunged his own knife into the femoral artery that pulsed in his thigh.

He let loose a cry of pain and shock as his blood spattered the walls of the solar.
At first, the castle seemed quiescent, then it began drinking the blood drawing the scarlet spatters into its very stones, finally it realised whose blood it had taken and the very stones cried out their anger and alarm.
“Too late,” the Lady spoke in a voice that seemed to echo from the heavens themselves. “Too late. You have eaten your own heart.”

As the stones of the castle began to let go of their form and slip and slither like living things, the Lady turned her attention to the dying giant at her feet. She extended a hand and he reached for the comfort she offered.

No sooner had their hands joined than a pathway opened up before them, a moonlit pathway leading upwards to who knew where.

The Lady smiled at the Knight; both stepped out of their fleshy prisons and set their feet on that upward path and walked away from the death throes of Castle Perilous followed by a dwarf and a tall grey horse. Behind them, their mortal bodies turned to dust, and the stones of the castle fell down never to be reassembled.

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 – Lesson 5. 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 verbiage. 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 children 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

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