A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

agroculture (noun) – the ethos of young men with assault weapons

beave (descriptive noun) – semi-shaven lady garden

cicksure (adjective) – bolshie and liable for fall over one’s own feet – often the result of the injudicious application of alcohol to the cakehole

denenter (noun) – word guaranteed to enrage a large man waving an axe.

emmory (adjective) – of men, having not shaved

endge (noun) – the bit of a car engine that whizzes round for no apparent reason

goid (noun) – swelling of the great toe caused by kicking the backside of an eejit

holarious (adjective) – so funny that you laugh until you all but get a prolapse

lierary (adverb) – of speech sounding as if it might be untrue

orgsam (noun – impolite) – self-generated sexual pleasure

sdie (noun) – bottle genie with a weird sense of humour

shre (adjective) – of yummy mummies to have special clothing for every activity

snutan (noun) – a peculiarly unappealing side of orange

touprt (noun) – ill-fitting hairpiece

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

Because life happens…

Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.

For life is a garden of flowers
With each bloom that you pick for your bowers
The right colour or scent
Just has to be meant
Then the finished display you empowers

E.M. Swift-Hook

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV takes time from his immensely important life to proffer profound advice to those who still struggle on the aspirational slopes of authorhood…

Dear Reader Who Writes,

As you will doubtless now be aware you are being addressed here by none other that the most highly esteemed author of that now classic masterpiece of the speculative fiction genre “Fatswhistle and Buchtooth”, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV. To friends, one is known as ‘IVy’ (a hangover from one’s days at at exclusive boarding school when puns on names were all the rage). To the maternal parent, it is ‘Moons’ (her idea of an affectionate abbreviation – or so she has oft times declared). But you, dear Reader who Writes, can use ‘Sir’ as befits our relationship status as pupil and pedagogue and I will refer to you as ‘RWW’.

There, formalities concluded let me explain a little in advance of today’s lesson, not too much, of course as your eager, if limited, spongesque cranial contents must not be over-challenged. Today’s lesson took form in my mind after I shared lunch with Mummy in the area of the kitchen we refer to as ‘the dining room’. It is a table squeezed into the bijou space left where the Aga used to live, before Mumsie declaimed one morning: “Stuff that sodding status symbol – I’m getting a proper cooker!” And in the same sweeping change, reverted our previous refectory to become her personal boudoir – or as she calls it her ‘withdrawing room’ – whilst establishing our current dining arrangements.

But I digress. We had just partaken of the midday meal, when Mummy burped gently and leaned across the table towards me. I was about to comment on the interesting new cologne she was sporting, when I noticed the gin bottle beside her place setting.

“Moons,” she slurred, “Do you ever feel like you are a walk-on extra in someone else’s life and not a proper person at all?”

It was, of course, a trick question as the moisture in her eyes – no doubt from suppressed laughter – betrayed. I can’t recall my exact witty and dismissive response but I do remember Mumsie rapidly withdrawing from the room right after and locking herself in her withdrawing room, not to emerge for two days.

So yes, today’s lesson:

Supporting Characters

We have, you will recall, already considered the best way to create the main characters in your stories, but now it is time to contemplate the little people. Those characters who appear for a paragraph or maybe a chapter, or step onto the stage now and then but are most often to be found off-stage, in the green room flipping coins with their fellows.

Such characters, you are thinking are you not my predictable pupil, are hardly worth investing the time in. They are a face in the crowd, a name on a list, a mere mention in passing. Wrong, I respond in this hypothetical conversation. Wrong and wrong again! These are not the non-entities you assume. No, each is an individual striving for their own aims and deserves to be treated as such!

So do not stint on your duty to these characters, give them as much attention to detail as you do to your precious protagonist. Let each have a history and a place in your world. When a new supporting star or starlet walks into your prose, meet them and greet them, sit down and have a cup of tea with them, listen to their dreams and pay heed to their nightmares. Be as their recording angel and capture their souls with the written word. Let them live!

And with that thought, à bientôt mes élèves!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound advice in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Forthcoming
Spring bounds
Leaping
Loping
Loving

Life returning
Spring sounds
Singing
Ringing
Bringing

Rain Falling
Spring pounds
Soaking
Blowing
Growing

Sun shining
Spring grounds
Bursting
Thrusting
Blooming

E.M. Swift-Hook

Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends. Life seems to be going well when…

Finoula turned her head and, as I often did, I got the impression that her sightless eyes saw more than most sighted people can.
“Is all well with you, Joss?”
“It is. So long as Morgan is protected.”
Finoula made a noise in the back of her throat and it came to me that Morgan’s protection was as important to her as it was to me. I clambered over Ben and took her hand in both of mine.
“Be at ease,” I said, “Morgan has us, and her father who would die before he saw harm come to her.”
Finoula relaxed. “Then all is very well.”
She squeezed my fingers and I felt her strong spirit.
“Jed,” I said, “will you take Finoula and the dogs out back and into the private garden. Ben and I will bring wine and tapas.”
He blessed me with his smile and steered his family out into the sunshine. I turned my attention to John Smith.
“Will you excuse me please.”
He smiled, and I thought it the first voluntarily genuine expression I had seen on his narrow face.
“It’s me needs to be excused. I’ll phone for a taxi.” He finished his brandy and stood up, passing me a square of pasteboard. “That number will reach my private phone. Please call me if the Proudly family becomes an annoyance.” Then he was gone, moving with the silent grace of a natural predator.
Ben scratched his head. “It’s amazing what hides under some folk’s skin. I think I prefer the killer.”
“Me too. But that’s only because he’s real. The off-duty accountant is just a very convincing fake.”
“Indeed. If you get the tapas, I’ll sort wine.” He bent for a kiss.
I raided the kitchen and crossed the garden with a big tray in my hands, followed by Morgan who carried another tray. She set it down on the table before turning her smile on Jed and Finoula.
“Thank you for caring about my face, but I’m fine. Truly I am. My dad says to tell you I’m protected.”
I looked at her serene little face, marred only by the cut and bruise of a vicious backhander and I remembered the frightened mouse of a girl, with acne and a heavy load of worries, who entered our lives two years ago. I went and gave her a little hug and she hugged back.
“Sit and eat your lunch Joss, I’ve got the office.”
And she went passing Ben on the way. He had two open bottles in his hands and it looked very much like his hoodie pocket held glasses. I ran over.
“Eejit. It’s not safe to carry glassware in your pockets.”
He grinned unrepentantly. “Sowwy mummy.”
Giving up telling him off as a bad job, I removed the glasses from his pocket and preceded him to the table. Jed was murmuring to Finoula who laughed, bright and happy.
“It’s not a bit of good you trying to civilise Ben,” she said “he’s an eternal schoolboy.”
I was trying for a smart retort when her phone burbled. She handed it to Jed.
“Tis Danilo.”
“Stick it on speaker, then. We may as well all hear.”
Danilo Lovell, television clairvoyant and current head of the Lovell family, sounded far from his usual urbane self.
“I find myself displeased with Amos Proudly. To the extent that I’ve unleashed Big Cliff, who is Fucking Furious, with only a reminder that dead bodies are bloody inconvenient.”
Ben chuckled. “That bloke is a bit of a twat, I grant you. But you aren’t usually so scrupulous.”
“No. I’m not. But what I am scrupulous about is the reputation of the Romany community. Which is going to suffer if he doesn’t rein in his bitch of a grandchild and stop declaring war in random people. Talking of which, I take it Morgan Brown is protected.”
“She is,” I said soberly, “and her dad is in a similar state to Big Cliff.”
The sound Danilo made might have passed for laughter if you didn’t know him. But I’ve known him for twenty years.
“What are you plotting?”
“Nothing right now. Although I’ve just taken a call from Connor Smith. Just to assure me he has no interest whatsoever in any feud between my family and the Proudlies.”
“Blimey. He must be running scared.” I said.
This time Danilo’s laugh sounded a little more natural.
“I hear you just met Smith junior. And scared the shit out of him. Which is an accomplishment when you consider he’s as nerveless a little bastard as his pa.”
“Wasn’t me put the shits up him. It was understanding who his family would be going up against. And whatever Finoula said to him. Which I think I’m glad I didn’t understand.”
“You should be glad. When Finoula is moved to rare anger even my beloved wife and our brats step away.”
I found that surprisingly reassuring.
“Give my love to Bethan and the boys. And kiss little Grace for me.”
“I will.”
Then he was gone. I spread my hands and gestured towards the food, while Ben poured rather expensive claret into big glasses. When everyone had a plate I raised my glass in a toast.
“Here is to Grandmother Lovell, wherever her spirit rests, and the great granddaughter who carries her name.”
“Grandmother and Grace,” Finoula said softly.
We all sipped our wine, then got stuck into excellent food. It was comfortable to sit in the sun and eat tapas with good friends.
Finoula, whose veganism had often been a problem before she moved in with Jed, leaned back in her chair and groaned a happy groan.
“I’m stuffed. And there’s not too many pubs where a vegan can go to pig out.”
Ben smiled at her. “Mostly we do well because of it. We’ve had a few brushes with evangelical veganism, but all in all plant-based food and booze, which we are careful to not label ‘vegan’, sit well with our everyone welcome philosophy.”
“How often do you get a problem?”
“Rarely now. We made it known that aggressive anti-meat activity would result in us stopping the plant-based menu. Nowadays any loud protesters tend to be being removed by their peers.” I said.
“And in at least one case given a kicking in the overflow car park.”
“How did you get away with that?” Finoula sounded amused.
“We did nothing that needed getting away with. And there are no security cams in the overflow…”
Jed laughed. “Are you sure you have no rom blood between you?”
“I’m positive. And I don’t want to think how much trouble Ben could get himself in if he had a Romany tribe at his heels.”
Finoula mugged pretended fear and we all laughed.
All too soon it was past time for me and Ben to be back at work.
Jed escorted his wife and their dogs out of the back gate and up the lane to his soon to be augmented horticultural kingdom.
Ben and I went back to work .

There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.

Because life can be interesting when you are a non-player character in an online video game…

The path to the pyramid was blocked by the two drakkonettes who guarded the gate. They were kind of friends with her. The kind who didn’t breath fire on you when you stopped for a chat, kind of friends. They blocked the gate to the pyramid by crossing their polearms in front of it to form a barrier. But when Milla approached they both relaxed and leaned on the poles and one of them called a greeting.
“Hello there, lass? How’re you keeping? You and that Visitor of yours?”
“We’re fine thank you. I was just wondering if you had seen an elf come through here recently?”
The other drakkonette smiled showing a mouthful of razorsharp teeth.
“Oh yes, dear. If you mean the one wearing the golden Armour of Blessings and carrying a moonoak bow?”
“Did she go inside?”
The drakkonette’s smile grew wider revealing even more teeth.
“She was very rude and started waving her sword around right under our noses. So we defended ourselves. But I’m sure she’ll be back. That sort always are”
“Here she comes now,” the first drakkonette observed.
Milla turned in time to see the golden clad elf dismounting from a bright pink unicorn, which shimmered into thin air the moment her feet touched the ground in the way that Visitor’s mounts always did. Having made a quick farewell to the drakkonettes, Milla hurried back up the path and stopped abruptly. The elf was standing in the middle of the path making odd weaving gestures and humming to herself off-key.
“Are you alright?” Milla asked when the weaving and humming stopped and the elf seemed to come back to herself.
“Oh frack! It’s you.”
“Yes. It is. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“What? Oh. Yes. I was just respeccing to get some better heals.”
“Heals?” Milla heard the word and perked up. That was exactly what Pew had said they would need. “You can heal?”
“I’m a Blessedknight. It’s what we do. Depending which way I spec I can be more tankish or more healerish. You can’t move on the forums for people who think they know the sweet spot to get the best of both worlds.” She smirked. “I have it but I’m not telling.”
“I need your help with something,” Milla said, speaking quickly before she changed her mind. Spending time in the company of this elf was going to be a trial.
“You already gave me your quest. And the reward. Or don’t you remember?”
“This is another quest. A bigger one. It’s a…” she tried to think of something that would win a Visitor’s attention. “It’s an epic heroic mythical saga quest.”
The elf stared at her.
“Not heard of one of those before. What’s the reward?”
Milla thought desperately.
“It’s a secret. No one is allowed to know until someone has completed the quest.”
“And no one has yet?”
Milla shook her head. She could see the gleam in the elf’s eyes
“So not just server first, would be an all time game first?”
Milla nodded. “But only if you do it right now and come with me. Or I’ll offer the quest to someone else.”
She stalked off, head high as if not really caring whether the elf followed her or not. It took less than the time to breathe in and out before the golden-clad figure was beside her.
“Hail fair lady! I, Blessedknight Gloryjammer, pledge myself to your cause. You have my sword and my bow.”
Hiding a smile at just how easy it was to get these Visitors to do things, she inclined her head gracefully and continued walking.
“Thank you. But I’d rather you kept your sword and bow and used them yourself. And my name is Milla.”
“Got it. Milla. And I’m Glory. So where do I get the quest?”
“You’re already on it.”
“But there’s nothing in my quest log window.”
Milla stopped walking and put her hands on her hips.
“I am a quest giver? Yes?”
“Yes.”
“And I’ve just given you a quest. You are now on it.”
“But…”

Log on to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook for the 16th Quest next week.

‘Wrathburnt Sands’ and ‘Return to Wrathburnt Sands’ were first published in Rise and Rescue: A GameLit Anthology and in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover.

Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

Big Bigger was up to something. He was digging a hole in the veggible patch and singing. The nomes were suspicious of cheerfulness in one so normally morose.

“Wossee up to?”

A whisper ran around the garden, and Chigger crept closer for a look.

“He’s planting a tree.”

“A tree?”

“There?”

Brenda went to look for herself. “That ain’t no tree you higgerant nome. It’s. It’s… summat else.”

Big finished his hole and unwrapped the thing. It was wide and hollow and he firmed it in carefully.

The empty box read. ‘Acme rocket launcher – for fireworks.’

The nomes all flinched….

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

aoid (noun) – egg-shaped monocellular organism that smells faintly of vomit

atke (noun) – bright orange sandwich filling that smells suspiciously like yesterday’s dinner mushed with a fork

babry cream (noun) – ointment for under tit soreness

chouce (adjective) – of chocolate brownies the squidgiest most delicious bit

Freake Dout (proper noun) small Appalachian village famous for sourdough whiskey and revolting cheese

frysrtarting (verb) – heating up  the chip pan in preparation for frying pop tarts

hubting (noun) – the sound of a very expensive alloy wheel graunching against the pavement

hysical (adjective) – of teenage girls  in particular being in the state where hysteria is going to have them lash out any second

migth (noun) – small buzzing insect with a powerful sting. Lives on fish cakes and Irn Bru

papberback (noun) – male gorilla with identity issues

pepict (adjective) – having the colouration and texture of the cheeks of a person about to projectile vomit

remmeberd (noun) – spectacularly unkempt facial hair

serices (noun) – speciality rice dishes from south-east Asia

shepherherds pir (noun) – a small light that can only be brought on by chasing shepherds past it

thinng (noun) – the sound a flexible knife blade makes when flicked against a glass chopping board

trilogoes (noun) – a company or brand utilising three logos

withing (verb) – being wriggling and wormlike and prone to self-adhesion

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

Because life happens…

Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.

Growing older does not have to weigh
If you throw out your scales one fine day
Tell yourself you don’t mind
A spreading behind
And you’re going to be happy that way

E.M. Swift-Hook

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV takes time from his immensely important life to proffer profound advice to those who still struggle on the aspirational slopes of authorhood…

Dear Reader Who Writes,

As is my habit, allow me to present myself and my credentials for offering this wealth of writing wisdom. I am none other than the Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV.  My seminal work of science-fantasy  “Fatswhistle and Buchtooth”, once peaked to achieve the coveted Best Seller status of one millionth on Amazon – although I recently withdrew it from publication to allow other, lesser, literature an opportunity to ascend the firmament of popular appeal. But do not weep and rend your garments, oh deprived ones, this is merely a temporary arrangement.

Those who have been my most assiduous students in recent times will be aware that my parents are not on the best of terms. Not that this is anything untoward, of course, but my father is in paradise – Bali? Bahrain? Something sunny and starting with B anyway – and as such has become for my mother the archetypal antagonist. Oh if I had but a fraction of a penny for every sentence she has started with the immortal alliteration: “Your fucking father…” I would have saved enough for a deposit on my own home long since. Sadly, I can not profit from it in that way, but I can – and do – use the antagonism to fuel the formation of my own antagonists.

Antagonists

Oh no, Mr Farquhar Metheringham IV, sir! I can hear your little voices cheeping in chorus, did you not already tell us how to do this? Did you not say they are just bad people and no more needs to be said of them than that? I say, well remembered my dear RWW. I did indeed say that was the summum bonum of the ideal antagonist. But, this is not speaking of the insignificant issues of personality, motive or malignancy. This, dear pupils, is a matter of physical characteristics – so when we first meet your antagonist we know from the off that is who it must be. So sit up, pay attention and make notes!

• Ugly Mug – ugliness is, of course, the first sign of evil. Make sure your antagonist has a hideous visage.
• Age – wrinkled age is evil – smooth youth is good. Everyone knows this, so use it.
• Dental Detail – villains always have bad teeth. Even the wealthy ones. And bad breath to go with it.
• Deformity – of course, evil is always deformed by something self-inflicted in the course of evil-doing.
• Dark Dressing – to be of the ‘dark side’ it stands to reason the individual must also always wear black. Red in accessories is acceptable.
• Gender – male is default. After all, we speak of ‘the bad guy’.

Of course there can be exceptions to these hard and fast rules. There is the evil-but-beautiful young woman who seduces our hero, for example. But for the novice writer, such as you are indeed, dear pupil of mine, keep to these basic guidelines and you will not go wrong.

Auf Wiedersehen, meine Schüler!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound advice in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.