A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

almsot (noun) – drunkard reliant on charitable donations to survive

bocan (noun) – pork-based sandwich filling

kund (noun) – well intentioned goat

mascarpine (noun) – soft cheese flavoured with disinfectant 

masocpic (noun) – a selfie taken whilst trying to pluck nostril hairs

na dback (adverb) – of marching, being persistently out of step 

parilment (noun) – collection of geezers getting fat on the sweat of others’ brows

prseit (noun) – confused clergy person with a magnificent moustache

pupit (noun) – a small mammal with sharp, yellow teeth and galloping halitosis

sopt (adjective) – of festival goers, soaked, normally with urine

stoy (noun) – text speak for dildo

tracjetory (noun) – path taken by drunk person when forcefully ejected from public house

understaoof (adjective) – of cardigans and woolly jumpers being covered in greyish beige bobbly bits irrespective of the original colour of the garment

wikkid (adjective) – of sheep having unusually aggressive attitude 

yar (noun) – mispronunciation of the word year promulgated by your TV Royal Correspondent

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.

Dinner

The secret of living is this:
You don’t need ecstasy and bliss,
You just need a good man
Who knows how to – and can
Do the dinner when you are half-pissed.

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…

Bonjour mes enfants,

It is I, the exquisitely lubricious Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV. Ivy to one’s chums and Moons to one’s deliciously outre Maman. I am, of course, the pen behind that seminal work of imagination and anal rectitude ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’ and the unimaginably enormous and generous intellect behind this programme of tutorials on the art of putting one’s soul onto paper.

I know you are all in awe of the crystalline perfection of my prose, and the lyrical lusciousness of my verse, and I know deep in my artistic soul that I cannot ever hope to raise the standards of your poverty-stricken scribbling to anywhere near the opalescent splendour of my smallest mark on paper. But it is my sacred mission to teach you little minnows sufficient that you may become sharklettes in the murky ponds of your own miserable literary existences.

With which in mind we shall proceed.

The Write Conclusion

Or, as Mama might say, “Famous last words, Moons. Fucking famous last words.”

You will, of course, be racking your teeny weeny little minds for the reason why the last words in a work can have any importance at all. I shall elucidate, beginning in the world of the moving picture theatre, a podium not dissimilar to the efforts of the literary genius…

Some examples:

Should one pronounce the phrase:

‘It was beauty killed the beast’

all of you will prick up your little ears and a spark will kindle in the dullness of your crania. Upon some basic level, too elementary to be called thought, you will know that ‘King Kong’ is being evoked.

Similarly:

‘tomorrow is another day’

brings to the screen behind the dullness of your eyes the face of Scarlett O’Hara and the flavour of ‘Gone with the Wind’.

Do you begin to discern my meaning?

And so to literary conclusions.

One will admit to being less than a fan of Mister Dickens’ turgid Victorian drama but he did possess the ability to pen an ending that etches itself into the consciousness.

There is no need whatsoever to have read ‘A Tale of two Cities’ to know that it concludes thus:

‘…it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known’

Equally it is true to say that not one in a thousand of those who quote Tiny Tim’s valedictory speech at the end of ‘A Christmas Carol’ will have so much as opened the book. Notwithstanding this fact ‘God bless us. Every one.’ has become just as much a symbol of the festive season as brandy butter and Boxing Day divorce.

Boiled down to its very essence, today’s message is both excruciatingly simple and exquisitely obscure. If your last few words are as strong as Sampson, as sexy as Rod Stewart, and as breathtaking as a sussurating sunset, it matters not a jot what the rest of the endeavour is.

Oh yes, my hopeful scribblers. A memorable last line will enshrine your work in the canon of literary excellence…

Consider your options carefully and remember the final words of my own magnum opus as Fatswhistle lays his heart and his fortune at the feet of his beloved Buchtooth:

“Piss off Fats, I’m dying for a crap.”

Craft carefully mes estudas. 

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.

Sonnets on sunsets, and quatrains delightful
Odes to beloveds and limericks frightful
Poetic thinking that dances and sings
These are a few of my favourite things

Perfectly pitched prose and vocabulary
Fiendish acrostics to trap the unwary
Tender love stories whose heroines cling
These are a few of my favourite things

When the plot stinks and the words ming
When the Internet’s down
I simply remember my favourite things
And then I forget to frown…

©️jane jago

My earliest memories are of misery and darkness. In those days I had no name and no voice. I was constantly hungry, and alone save for the chained slaves around me and the hellhound puppy whose fur kept me from freezing to death at night. 
    All that changed at the moment Mother found me in that stinking prison and picked me up in her tender arms. From then on Puppy and I had love to fill our hearts and food to fill our bellies. We became members of Aascko and Aaspa’s big rambling family, and I acquired a name. I became Silver, the beloved child of a high status household, and I and my brothers and sisters were given every advantage that wealth, privilege, and, above all, love can give.
    At the time of my adoption Mother and Father already had three imps. First there was Owlet, whose mama was Owl and whose papa was unknown. After him Mother and Father adopted Tiger and Puma, whose mama was Small Cat and whose papa was Aanjo which died in prison. Not too long after me there came Tawny and Eagle, whose mama was Owl and whose papa was our Father, Aascko. Later, Mother and Father were to adopt Oak and Willow, whose papa was a cousin of our Father and whose mama poisoned her Mate to steal his money. When she was caught she was permitted to kill herself, and Oak and Willow became our nest siblings. Those were the imps of Aaspa’s family.
    Not long after I joined the household, there came a change in the family circumstances when our GreatFather Aasgo, whom we all call Papa, became the Master Hunter and we moved to the citadel. This move could have been hard on me, because I have weak legs as a result of near starvation when I was tiny and the citadel is ancient and rambling with many staircases, and corridors with worn stone floors. But my family had no intention of allowing me to suffer any inconvenience because of my disability and we lived in a pleasant set of modern ground floor rooms opening onto their own enclosed garden. 
    For the first ten winters of our life in the citadel I learned my lessons with the drone Branwen, swam daily in the warm waters of the hot springs, and played with my siblings. I don’t think any of us had any idea how important our family was and we were the happier for not knowing. 
    It is my thought that Mother and Father would have kept us in innocence longer had there not been an attempt to kidnap Puma.
    It happened on a warm spring morning when we eight, and our teacher, were taking a gentle walk in the meadows where the earliest flowers were already blooming. We had no inkling of trouble ahead, and had not Puppy sensed the reception committee and set up a tremendous barking we would have walked into a carefully laid trap. As it was, my hellhound scented trouble and she herded us away from the defile where the bad people were hidden, all the while keeping up her ferocious barking. Branwen firmed its chin and grasped Tawny and Eagle, but I thought it looked afraid, while Tiger took hold of Puma, Oak held Willow, and Owl put his arms about me with the obvious intention of protecting us from whatever had so disturbed Puppy. As the would-be kidnappers rose up out of the long grass and rushed towards us, we heard the snap of leathery wings and Mother, Father and a group of our fighters landed between us and the assorted elves, vampires and orcs who had thought to take us unawares.
    “Keep one to talk to,” Father said tautly as half the fighters formed a protective ring around us while the other half engaged the poorly disciplined rabble with savage efficiency. 
    Tiger put his hands over Puma’s eyes, and Oak did the same for Willow, but Owlet knew better than to try and protect me from the reality of our situation so I watched as our attackers were summarily dealt with. When the last but one fell to Mother’s expertly wielded blade I took a deep breath.
    “What did they want?”
    “I don’t know,” Owlet was grave. “But I suspect that Mother and Father will find out.”
    Father looked at us. “You should go home.”
    Mother placed a hand on his arm. “Too late for that, love, they need to see this through.”
    “Why?” Father sounded almost immeasurably weary. “Didn’t we work to protect them from even knowing about this sort of treachery.”
    “We did. And we have. But we can do that no longer. They are none of them babies any more. If we let them see precisely what happened and what we will do to protect them it will be better than trying to push the events of this morning to the backs of their minds where such memories could fester.”
Father pulled her into his arms and laid his cheek briefly against the glossy black curls of her crest.
    “You are only right, love,” then his voice changed. “Bring that here, Aanda.”
    The grizzled fighter dragged a surly-looking male elf over to where Mother and Father stood.
    “Talk,” Mother said softly.
    “Make me,” the elf hissed. 
    Mother laughed and tossed her curls. “You will talk renegade elf, you will even sing should I so choose.” She turned her face to Father. “Would you invite Witness Aanan to join us.”
    He grinned grimly before throwing back his head and roaring. 
    Our honorary uncle arrived swiftly and with no ceremony. He walked over to Mother who pulled his head down and whispered in his ear. He chuckled mirthlessly.
    I could see the flaw in the air as he formed a portal.  A familiar figure strolled out onto the warm grass with a metal-studded oaken club balanced negligently on one shoulder. It was the alpha female troll, Mabel. She grinned as us before turning her countenance on the by now shrinking elf in Aanda’s grasp.

From  Aaspa’s Imps by Jane Jago.

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

The key fitted and as Milla turned it the doors began to glide silently open. Inside it was dimly lit from…somewhere. There was no obvious source of light, but the room was illuminated. The three ryeshor walked in cautiously, looking around at the plain stone walls, each with a door in the middle. The door they had just entered by slid shut and suddenly the light dropped into shadowy darkness. Milla froze as something chittered and scuttled nearby. Beside her she felt rather than saw as Pew raised his staff. Then the tip glowed like a miniature sun. Milla just had time to register that the room seemed to be full of spiders before the other two ryeshor exploded into action beside her. String’s boar shot into the middle of the room and all the spiders attacked it. Moments later a rain of burning sparks fell from the air, and the smallest spiders disappeared. String sliced some spiders with his sword and then Pew snatched a ball of fire out of thin air and threw it at the remaining arachnids instantly incinerating them. Strangely, even though it had been in the middle of the conflagration, the boar was untouched. It tossed its head and made a grunting noise before trotting back to String.
Milla was still standing stock still, her mouth slightly open. She closed it as Pew and String quickly checked the doors.
“I think you two have done this before,” she said trying to sound as if this was something she was fine with, but to her own ears her voice sounded thin and reedy.
“Yup. Just a few hundred times.” Pew told her. “All the doors are locked which must mean…”
“It’s a ring event,” String finished for him, just as four large spiders appeared, one in each corner of the room.
Milla squeezed her eyes shut as sounds of exploding fireballs and squealing grunts from the boar echoed back from the walls. When she opened them again String was grinning and Pew was brushing a hand over his collapsed crest, looking tired.
“I’m low on manapower and the boss mob is going to spawn any moment.”
“Ooops sorry, brov. I blew mine on Pigsy here mid combat. It’s on a four minute cooldown.”
“Is that like…magical power?” Milla asked a sudden idea forming in her mind.
“Yeah. Exactly that. I can’t cast any more spells without it.”
Milla gripped the pendant she wore in one hand and reached the other one out towards Pew. A white glow surrounded him and his flattened crest slowly straightened. Then he grabbed her arm and spun her round behind him. A gigantic spider had appeared suddenly, just where she had been standing a moment before. She tried not to look at the crouching mass with its sharp pincers as Pew, String and Pigsy brought down fire and mayhem on it. Then Pew was pushing the hilt of his dagger into her hand.
“Free Pigsy!” he yelled over the roar of exploding spells, staff still pointing at the monstrous spider.
Free?
Milla looked around for the boar and for a moment couldn’t see him. Then she realised there was a cocoon of spider web writhing on the floor. Trying to ignore the hideous bulk of the spider which was rearing up on six of its legs to confront the two male ryeshor, she slipped under its body and cut as fast and carefully as she could. Pigsy wriggled free of the last restraining threads and shot back into the fray. But the spider had sprayed it’s webbing at Pew and whilst String and the boar kept it occupied, Milla had to slice through the sticky silk to free him. She turned back to see the spider rear up, glaring at her and rolling it’s spinners to cast a web at her, but even as it moved to release the engulfing strands, a final shot from Pew hit home and it collapsed in a heap.
The grating sound of the doors opening was drowned out by a victorious whoop from String.
“That is healer gear,” he crowed. “Mine, brov, all mine.”
Pew looked too exhausted to care and Milla wished she had more manapower to give him but the pendant had lost its brilliance.

Log on to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook for the 9th 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…

Cheezer parked his wheelbarrow and lifted out its precious cargo. He was all but extinguished beneath pink rosebuds and baby’s breath. His brother Chigger snorted derisively.

“Stealing flowers from the cemetery ain’t gonna make her want an ugly nome like you.”

Brenda clipped him across the head and he subsided.

Cheezer bore the bouquet to where Primrose sat, sadly regarding her faded reflection.

He put the flowers down beside her and essayed a smile.

“Primrose. Would you consider being my Valentine?”

She jumped back startled, but then she smiled and touched the flowers with one chubby finger.

“Yes, please, Cheezer.”

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

agnoy (noun) – pain caused to head by the repeated losing of one’s shit

becaise (noun) – handbag in which to carry insects

bretsa (adjective) – of politicians, unintelligent and noisy, often venial and basically dishonest 

differnet – (noun) a branch of the Internet wholly concerned with  arcane magics

flase (adjective) – of adolescent boys having a great deal of testosterone and no outlet except exploding zits

geak (noun) – the nose of a computer savvy teenager

hopw (noun) – native American tribe with Welsh connections 

menatlly (adverb) – of looking at women as if they are food

mucyh (adjective) – of cookery getting the whole kitchen covered with a fine film of flour

secude (verb) – to exude a weird kind of sexuality with a particular emphasis on slippers and cardigans

srop (noun) –  very heavy cough medicine with much sugar

tantarula (noun) – dance performed by woman who sees a spider in her bathroom

unsuirable (adjective) – beyond belief, as in ‘I’ve never had any surgeries‘

werble (verb) – to sing off key with a finger in one ear, most often heard on open mike nights at folk clubs 

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.

Life is unexpected at times
When nothing you do seems to fit.
You try hard as you can
But it simply won’t work
And in the end, you just give up and go and do something else completely different instead!

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 Readers Who Write,

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV at your service mes estudas. For those whose education has missed out on my coruscating brilliance, I am the orchidaceous creator of that classic of superlative speculative fiction ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’, and the selfless author of this work of pedagogical genius you are so eagerly licking with your little pink tongue in order that you may imbibe some insights into the mysteries of the authorial inspiration.

As I was pondering on what I should take for the theme of my next excursion into pedagogy, dear Mumsie thrust open the door of my bijou writing room and peered at me with her piercing raptor’s gaze.

“Shit – it’s dark in here! You should get out of this coal cellar some days, Moons. How can you tell stories if you don’t do anything but sit in the dark all bloody day? I’m amazed you can think of what happens next at the end of each sodding page.”

Thus in her sweet, inimical yet loving way, Mummy gave me the theme of today’s excursion into the deeper mysteries of the art of literature.

The Write Narrative Arc

I suppose the less erudite among you may be unaware of the precise significance of the term Narrative Arc. It is, my little students, the process by which we move our characters from one state to another, or to phrase it more accessibly, the process by which we facilitate change and so tell our hero’s story.

An obvious narrative arc will take a character to his lowest ebb and will remove from around him every vestige of support, succour, or comfort, and then cast him afloat in a sea of his own inadequacy to ascertain whether he will sink or swim. When such a device is utilised, we can expect the sorely tried protagonist to undergo a process of growth and change and to emerge triumphant, or not, in the third quarter of the story.

But we spit upon such oversimplification, we urinate on the shoes of the easy single arc of narration. Strive instead as you put finger to keyboard to create as many arcs as possible on whose multiple streets your characters can walk to their intertwined destinies. Weave, weave, and again I say weave. Let not a sparrow fall on page one of your magnum opus without there being a corresponding tsunami of reaction when that one tiny action impacts on the lives of each and every private soldier who marched to the tune of your fife and drum.

Dream large and write even more elephantine prose. Let the arc of your narrative be as tall as the leaning tower of Pisa, as complex as a FairIsle cardigan, and as unobtrusively essential as a well lubricated condom. When one of your characters is plunging into the depths of their personal Hades, another can be dancing on clouds of delight and fulfilment. Paragraph to paragraph you can twist the emotions of your readers: this sentence despair, the next ecstasy, whirling the cast of your creation through a rapid roller-coaster of writing. Be not like the dull who see in consistency the summum bonum of the story, instead cast caution to the wind and have your characters on their multiple arcs shifting the story as they spin. Does not the very thought exhilarate?

In short, my adoring fans, discard the advice of those who are less than we. Discard the old lies and shibboleths. Take up the banner of the convoluted arc and let us run with it into the ocean of sensuous prose, and swim to the islands of perfection in storytelling and lubriciousness in character building. Let the arcs of your narrative fill the skies with a spectacular rainbow spectrum of socially unacceptable colour. Let the world marvel at the vibrancy of your imagination and the courage of your prose.

Then and only then will you find your own perfect Narrative Arc.

Work tenaciously, mes estudas. And ecrit bon…

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.