LOUISE PIEPER

That very verdant vernal verdure

Ah, springtime! It’s very vert.

Yea, verily!

And since it’s Wednesday and words are our favourite Wednesday jam, let’s enjoy a wallow in the etymology of ver, which is Latin for spring, or the springtime. From it we get the word vernal – pertaining to spring – which doesn’t get much of an outing these days other than in reference to the equinox.

Ver – it’s very straightforward…

But not so fast!

That verdant verdure – or fresh green pasture – which is synonymous with this time of year derives not from ver, but from vert. This Old French word for green comes from the Latin viridis – green, blooming – which derived from virere – to be green.

Viridis also gives us viridian, the name for the colour between green and teal on a colour wheel. The process of making chromium green oxide was discovered in Paris in 1838 by Pannetier, who kept his methods secret. In 1859 another Parisian chemist, Guignet, synthesised a hydrated form of chromium oxide which created the viridian pigment.

Vert also gives us verdigris – that lovely green patina that forms on copper when it is exposed to the air. Verdigris comes from verte de Grece in Old French, which literally means ‘green of Greece’.

So ver beginnings in words are easy because they’re all about spring and green?

No. As Kermit told us, it isn’t easy being green.

Without doubt you could have a verdant verge – in the sense of a lushly green border of, for example, grass by the side of the road. But verge does not share etymological roots with verdant. It comes originally from the Latin virga, meaning a shoot or rod. Leaving aside its 13th century English application to the male member, verge still has a really interesting history.

garden ornament of a fantasy dwarf

It was used in English, to quote the Online Etymology Dictionary, in the phrase “within the verge (c. 1500, also as Anglo-French dedeinz la verge), i.e. “subject to the Lord High Steward’s authority” (as symbolized by the rod of office), originally a 12-mile radius round the king’s court.” But the meaning of the word back-flipped, for reasons that are unclear, and changed to “the outermost edge of an expanse or area”.

In other words, verge went from being inside the area of authority to right at the edge of it, if not actually beyond the pale. (The ‘pale’, of course, being the wooden stakes which marked the outer boundary of a jurisdiction, as in the area around Dublin where English law was enforced in Ireland between the late 12th and 16th centuries.)

And what about our truthful ver words, like verify, verisimilitude, and verily? They’ve got nothing to do with spring, being green, or a rod, right?

Right. They have yet another Latin source – veritatem, which means truth. The maxim In vino veritas – in wine there is truth – is a concept that’s been around for as long as there’s been wine. I could say it’s very true… but I’d just be repeating myself. The word ‘very’ is simply asserting the truth or genuineness of a thing – so it’s the same as saying something is truly true. Unnecessary and bound to make people think you are protesting too much.

spring blossoms cherry tree blue sky

Vera and Verity are virtue names meaning truth, but since people don’t chat in Latin so much anymore, they’re kind of stealth virtue names, like Amity, Benedict and Fidal, rather than the slap-you-in-the-face virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity (which are still an improvement on the beat-you-over-the-head-with-a-stick Puritan grace names like Abstinence, Humility and Resolve or the hortatory masterpiece of If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-for-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebones).

But, as usual, I digress…

Chasing down all the versions of ver (that’s another one from the Latin vertere, to turn) would take more time that I have for this post because spring has sprung and I have gardening to do. All the photos in the post are from my garden – which makes me happy, but kind of overwhelmed. I grew up in the sub-tropics and having a spring garden is kind of weird.

So, any tips on what garden tasks I should be doing would be very welcome.

Funny you should say that

After a weird two months of blog silence, I’m back with a bang, or at least a funny story.

But it’s not of the ‘three men walk into a bar, one got concussion and the other two were slightly injured’ variety. It’s my entry to this month’s Furious Fiction competition. The challenge was to write a <500 word story which contained humour, a sandwich, and the words dizzy, exotic, lumpy, tiny and twisted.

You only have to hear the words “know any good jokes?” and every humorous tale or comedic routine you know evaporates from your mind. So too with the command that you should “write something funny.” Still, that’s the whole point of writing challenges – trying to scoop soggy words out of your head with a slotted spoon.

But, one of my favourite ‘funny things I have heard’ stories happened this month, thirteen years ago, when I happened to be on a boat in the Brunei River, with my then five-year-old, looking for proboscis monkeys. Yes, it was fabulous, thanks for asking.

brunei river water village and mosque

We’d just passed a water village, where children and dogs were splashing in the water, when my son said, with relish, “That is a saltwater crocodile.”

And yeah, it was.

saltwater crocodile in the Brunei River Aug 2007

Not a small one, either.

Anyway, the guide confirmed the creature’s identity and the only other person on the tour with us – an elderly English lady – said, “Oh dear, what do they eat? There are children in the water just back there.”

And the guide said… Well, if you want to know what the guide answered, you’ll have to read my story.

THE MADAWOMP

“M-m-madawomp,” the local guide stuttered.
“Nonsense,” Uncle Melchior murmured, gaze fixed on the tiny creature crawling across the expanse of a white-ribbed leaf. “It’s a Glim beetle, which is just what we want. Killing jar, Vida.”
His niece ignored the demand, and the exotic insect, and followed the line of the guide’s trembling finger. A deeper shadow drew its bulk from among the dark roots of a nearby fig tree. It looked like a cross between a tapir and a crocodile, with a long, crenelated neck and a huge beak, which it clacked at them.
“Madawomp,” the guide repeated, swallowing hard.
“What do they eat?” Vida asked, with some urgency.
The guide tugged at the neck of his shirt and swallowed again, setting his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Er… fruit,” he said.
“Well, that’s nothing to worry about then,” Uncle Melchior huffed.
“Before noon,” the guide went on without looking away from the beast. Its lumpy neck ridges rippled as it swung its head from side to side. “Meat in the afternoons. Fresh meat, by preference.”
“Oh.” Vida’s uncle shook his pocket watch, but it hadn’t worked for weeks and they were too deep in the jungle to be able to tell if the sun was still obligingly ante-meridian. Vida suspected not.
“Pass me the killing jar, niece,” he demanded.
Vida wondered if he still meant to catch the Glim, or what use he thought an eight-ounce jar would be against an eight-foot creature. Her hands, freed of their glass burden, began to check the contents of her belt pouches. Her gaze stayed on the madawomp.
“On Wednesdays,” their guide went on, swaying with the beast’s undulations, “they devour only crustaceans, but –” He overrode Uncle Melchior’s cry of relief. “– only in the months when Saturn is visible in the night sky.” He shook his head. “If they feast on the roots of the paljum, it will rain in three days and –”
“You are remarkably well-informed about the dietary habits of these monsters.” Uncle Melchior complained as he twisted the lid off the killing jar and thrust it at Vida’s face. “My dear, I don’t want you to suffer.”
“No,” Vida cried, startling a shriek from the madawomp. She reeled back, dizzy from the chloroform, and began to empty her belt pouches. “We have to try something. Here!”
She thrust a spanner at their guide and a compass at her uncle. Her fingers closed over an apple she’d packed for the trek back to camp and she pitched it at the beast, which gave a derisive squawk as the fruit flew past its head.
“After noon,” the guide despaired.
“Chocolate, nuts, butter menthol…” Vida flung foodstuff from her pouches. “Aha!”
Uncle Melchior seized her crushed sandwich and waved it at the madawomp.
“Ham!” he cried, triumphant.
The beast froze, then frills of red skin unfurled from between the lumps on its neck. It lowered its head and burbled.
“Unfortunately,” their guide whispered, “sliced bread makes them amorous.”

***

Our poor tour guide really did tell the old lady that the massive saltwater crocodile cruising the river only ate fruit… and fish. My son, ever helpful, opened his mouth to protest this polite fiction, and I clapped my hand over it and assured him, quietly, that we’d discuss the dietary habits of crocodiles later. The look of relief on the guide’s face at not having to deal with the truth was priceless.

I’m not sure how saltwater crocodiles feel about ham sandwiches, but I suspect they’d eat them too.

Banner image of a beetle cropped from a photo by jggrz from Pixabay.
Brunei images are my own.

The play’s the thing

The line between comedy and tragedy can be pretty thin and my latest piece of flash fiction crosses it. I’m not entirely convinced that’s a good idea in a story of less than 500 words. But I’m hopeful that the foibles of the fascinating world of theatre, particularly at the amateur dramatics end of things, are well enough known that the comedic aspects don’t need explaining.

And the tragedy?

Well, ghosts have been part of human folklore since antiquity, so I don’t think that needs too much explaining either, especially in relation to Shakespeare.

* and speaking of Shakespeare, that banner image is cropped from a photo I took of the Zombie Macbeth cast promoting their show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2006 *

There were three requirements for the AWC’s May Furious Fiction challenge:
1. The first word had to be ‘five’,
2. Something had to be replaced, and
3. The words ‘the/a silver lining’ had to be included.

You can follow the link to find the winning and shortlisted entries and to sign up for notification of the competition, which happens on the first weekend of each month: you’ll have 55 hours to write a <500 word story that meets the criteria announced at 5pm on Friday. It’s a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy Shakespeare and Spirits:

“Five fathoms deep thy father lies –”
“It’s not –” Avita said and Zoe grabbed her arm.
“I’ll just stop you there a moment, er….” She checked her clipboard. “Miles.”
On stage, the actor frowned and peered at them across the lights.
“Is there a problem?”
“It’s ‘Full fathom five’,” Avita said.
“What?”
“Just a couple of things, Miles, sorry to break in so early,” Zoe said, hushing her assistant. “Avita’s right, though, Ariel’s song starts ‘Full fathom five’.”
“Well,” he huffed. “I think I caught the gist of it.”
“Yes, but Shakespeare –”
“I mean,” he went on, “there’s alliteration and then there’s just showing off. Anyway, if you insist.”
He flung out his right arm and declaimed, “Full fathom five thy father lies. Of his bones –”
“Miles!” Zoe pinched the skin between her eyes where a headache had wormed its way into her skull. Seven auditions and this was the last.
“What?” said the actor.
“We’re not auditioning for Ariel,” Zoe said.
“Yes, but –”
She spoke over his protest.
“In fact, we’re not auditioning for The Tempest.”
“I know that,” he said. “But you can’t expect me to read from the Scottish play.”
“But we’re auditioning for the Scottish play,” Zoe said, looking away from Avita whose jaw had dropped in disbelief. “We urgently need another Banquo.”
“And why is that?” he demanded. “Because the curse of the Scottish play fell upon you.”
Avita’s mouth snapped shut and she surged to her feet. Zoe caught her wrist.
“Our Banquo died of a heart attack during dress rehearsal,” Zoe said. “There’s no curse.”
“I think you’ll find,” the actor said, putting his hands on his hips. “that the curse is very well documented.”
Zoe released Avita’s wrist and let her stalk towards the stage steps.
“Yeah, well, thanks for your time today, Mr Carr,” Avita said. “I’ll just see you out.”
As her assistant bundled him off stage, Zoe repeated, softly, “There’s no curse.”
“What, can the devil speak true?”
Her head jerked up. There were no more auditions…
Something flickered like a figure in an old black and white news reel beside the curtains to the downstage wings. Dressed for the first act, their Banquo stood on the spot where he’d died.
“Connor?” Zoe said.
“All’s well.” He lifted his pale gaze to her. “I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters…”
Light caught the edge of his tunic, a silver lining that flared like touchpaper and consumed his strangely celluloid image. Zoe shook her head. A ghost.
She didn’t believe in ghosts.
“Unbelievable,” Avita said, coming back onto the stage. “That’s all of them gone. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know about you,” Zoe said, “but I really need a drink.”

Wednesday keeps it creepy

It’s been a while since we last enjoyed the etymological delights of a Word for Wednesday feature.

So, let’s delve into the archives and explore some book related terms and then we’ll have a story…

Archives, etymologically speaking, according to our good friends at the Online Etymology Dictionary, derives originally from the Ancient Greek word for public records – ta arkheia – the plural of arkheion which was the building where the records were kept. That word derives from arkhein which means to be the first, through the derivations which gave primacy to government as the ‘first place’.

It’s the same root of the arch in archduke and archipelago and arch-villain – a Latinised form of the Greek arkh-, arkhi- “first, chief, primeval” . We’ve already looked at the class-conscious derivation of villain, but let’s make a bad pun for a prime evil book-related sidestep for a moment and consider Arkham.

You might recognise the word from DC Comics’s notorious, fictional Arkham Asylum – more correctly the ‘Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane’, Gotham City’s distinctly porous (although allegedly high-security) facility for detaining psychopaths such as The Joker. Within Gotham’s backstory, it was named by the psychiatrist Armadeus Arkham, in honour of his mother who died prematurely… with assistance.

Batman and Joker from DC Comics cropped from image by Daryl Govan from Pixabay Anyway, Batman editor Jack C. Harris and writer Dennis O’Neil actually named Arkham Asylum in 1974 in homage to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, most immediately his fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts (based significantly on the real town of Salem). By the above etymology, Arkham would probably mean ‘first settlement’ because of its common Old English suffix -ham.

Miskatonic – the name of both the river and the university in Lovecraft’s Arkham – is also etymologically interesting. There’s nothing good about the prefix ‘mis-‘ since it’s either from the Old English/Proto Germanic ‘mis-‘ meaning bad or wrong, or it’s from the Old French/Latin ‘mes-‘ meaning, er, bad or wrong.

It lucks out either way.

Chthonic is a lovely old word meaning ‘of the underworld’ from the Ancient Greek word for the earth – khthōn. Or maybe Lovecraft was thinking of catatonic when he named the river – the medical Latin catatonia is made from Ancient Greek kata meaning down and tonos for tone.

‘Bad underworld’ or ‘wrongly toned down’… either is appropriate for Miskatonic.

octopus tentacles

While we’re talking about fictional places, what’s the deal with ‘fiction’?

Firstly, it’s not etymologically related to fact. Facts were deeds before they were truths – from the Latin factum, meaning an event or occurrence. What they are now is apparently entirely arguable…

Fiction came into English in the 15th century from an Old French word ficcion meaning a fabrication or dissimulation. This in turn came from the Latin fictionem – a fashioning or feigning, which came from the same word root as fingers in the sense of shaping or devising something.

Any writers out there know all about shaping their fiction.

Go on, ask us – we’ll tell you!

And speaking of fiction it’s time to wrap things up, literally, with the repulsive anthropodermic bibliopegy. Well, that’s etymologically easy isn’t it? We just go to straightforward Ancient Greek roots to find…

anthropo – from anthropos = man or human
dermic – from derma = skin
biblio – from biblion = book
pegy – from pegia = to fasten

So it’s… fastening a book, or book-binding, using human skin.

That’s… disgustingly creepy.

Bookbinding using human skin is real enough, but it’s more common in fiction than in real life.

I wrote a short story, Under the Skin, which features such a loathsome text held in the archives of St Guinefort’s Library for the Thaumaturgic Arts.

Architectural drawing of Edinburgh Central Library by George Washington Browne If you’ve ever visited the lovely Edinburgh Central (Carnegie) Library on George IV Bridge, you might recognise some of the inspiration for St Guinefort’s slightly more fantastical library.

So follow that link to my story page, my friends, and have yourself a delightfully creepy Wednesday.

IMAGE credits:

Banner cropped from an image by WILLGARD from Pixabay

Joker cropped from an image by Daryl Govan from Pixabay

Tentacles image was photographed by me at the Southern Cross University’s Solitary Islands Aquarium in Coffs Harbour a few years ago.

Architectural drawing of Edinburgh Central Library by George Washington Browne

Dude, where’s my deadline?

B_Orange

The late, great Douglas Adams said he loved the whooshing sound deadlines make as they fly by.

I like the comforting terror of them looming towards me, growing until they blot out the sun, forcing me to do the work, do it now!!

So, it was a tad disconcerting to have two of my mid-April deadlines pushed back – one to mid-May and the other to the end of May. My reaction may be of limited interest amid all the other fascinating social hodgepodge and governmental jiggery-pokery that’s been going on for the last few weeks (which have felt oddly like a slow-burning eternity).

Nevertheless, I offer up my tale of two varieties of procrastination as solace to those also afflicted by the blight of diminishing motivation.

The first mid-month deadline was a critique of a novel for my writing crit group. It now goes hand-in-hand with my needing to complete a final edit of my own novel before I upload it for perusal by the group for June critting, but that deadline was always mid-May so let’s put it aside. I was racing into the last pre-crit week, devouring the set novel and enjoying it immensely. Then our deadline was pushed back for a month and I … stalled.

Stopped.

I haven’t opened the file in three weeks.

It’s ridiculous. I was enjoying it and suddenly… nothing. Part of my reason for writing this post is to try and overtly reboot my brain by reminding it that the new deadline is only two weeks away, hoping that the looming fear of diminishing time to finish the job will get me cracking again.

It’s not working… yet.

The other deadline, pushed back to the end of May, is to complete a short story for submission to the Heroines Anthology* (which this year also includes the Heroines Women’s Writing Prize). I had stories published in the first and the second anthologies, and I’m really excited to try and make it three for three.

All was going well and then the deadline was pushed back and suddenly… boom!

My story exploded, gaining more and more twists and turns, more layers of fairy tale references. It went wandering off across the Fells, chatting to Long Meg and King Eveling and hooking up with Jane Eyre and her Gytrash.

Now it’s become two separate short stories and I’ve had to take to them both with a machete because they’re like the blasted alien Red Weed, spreading across the countryside in a seemingly unstoppable tide.

What’s going on? On one hand I drop the bucket. On the other I go into manic bucket overdrive.

…and speaking of Fantasia’s sorcerer’s apprentice – which we totally were – and therefore our dire friend on Bald Mountain, did you realise that, as it is the last day of 2020’s endless April it is Walpurgisnacht? This is a traditional night for witches’ Sabbats on the tops of mountains everywhere, but not this year due to social distancing restrictions. It’s tough all round…

Er, what? You didn’t realise?

Of course you didn’t – you’ve lost track of time.

Days blur and bleed into each other. Weekdays and weekends are indistinguishable. You stay up late because there’s no reason to wake up early. You check your phone, blink, and the morning is gone.

Sorry, Einstein, time has become irrelevant to the observer.

We were warned, at the start of this social isolation malarkey to have a routine. I did. I do. I have lists of things that I need to accomplish by certain times. You’re probably thinking ‘so stick to the plan and get things finished early, doofus’. That’s rational. It just doesn’t work for me. My system is dependent on the motivation of deadlines. Once I am free of the shadow of its looming I’m all zen like a stripey-tailed lemur, basking in the sun.

I think I need to do more than reboot my brain. I need to reboot my year. So tonight I’ll draw up some fresh lists and set some fresh goals and I can treat the 1st of May as a new start – 2020b, perhaps? It can’t be worse than version a**.

* if you are a writer and a woman then follow the link to the Heroines Women’s Writing Prize and Anthology. Read the guidelines. You have until May 31 to submit your <3000 word story.

** no, Universe, that is not a bloody gauntlet. Cut it out. It’s not funny.

Better not go alone

You know it’s lovely down in the woods but sometimes it can get a little creepy. That’s what happened with the March Furious Fiction writing challenge of ‘person, place, object’. Simple right? Our <500 word stories had to include a character in disguise and a mirror, and take place in a park.

National park, dog park, business park, car park, amusement park – there were plenty of options, and stories are all about choices. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

You can follow that link to read this month’s winning and shortlisted stories, and you can join in the fun this coming Friday (3 April) when the AWC will issue a new challenge at 5pm for a weekend of furious writing.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy my tale of an ultimately delicious walk in the park:

The Dead Zone
You slip through the hole in the fence half an hour after sunset.
I’m waiting by the gate, hidden by the twilight and the camouflaging shadows of signs that shout ‘keep out’ in seven languages. The weeds are waist-high and my shirt is the same colour as the rusted links of the padlocked chain. I watch your face as you take in the ivy-draped guard hut, the cracked bitumen where trees have reclaimed the road, the blistered husk of an old telephone booth.
Your eyes shine with the illicit thrill of doing the forbidden.
“Hallo, kleiner Leuchtkäfer,” I say.
You startle like a deer, but you don’t lose your smile when you see me. I like that.
“What did you say?” Your accent is as broad as the wide country you call home.
“I welcomed you in, little firefly.” I thread through the weeds towards you. You weigh my size, gender, clothes and age with a glance, and I see the moment when you decide I’m not a threat but an opportunity. Your smile grows brighter.
“Are there fireflies?” you ask. “I read online there’s all kinds of animals.”
I wave my hand at the devouring wilderness, as if I have conjured it.
“All kinds,” I agree. “The fireflies are best near the pond.”
You tap your phone to bring up an aerial photograph of the site. I move closer, pretending to peer at it, but I want to breathe in your scent.
“There’s supposed to be a tower,” you say. “I want to camp there and watch for wolves.”
You name the predators with reverence and I allow myself a smile.
“There is a watchtower.” I start to walk as if I will take you there and you pace beside me, gesturing with the hand not snapping images of saplings growing through ruined cars, faded graffiti on crumbling concrete, squirrels chastising us from the illusory safety of their trees.
“I knew it’d be good,” you say, “but this is amazing. Are there still landmines?”
“Oh, yes,” I say and you move closer. “It is one reason they warn people to keep out.”
“But they don’t. Tourists. Locals.” You flick a glance at me as I lead us into a narrow lane between derelict cottages. “They call them stalkers at Chernobyl.”
“I am not a stalker,” I say, “and there is no poison here, only the demilitarised zone.”
“It’s still an exclusion zone, a dead zone,” you say and I almost laugh.
“An involuntary park,” I murmur. “It had no choice.”
You do laugh at that.
The fireflies I promised are mirrored in the dark water of the pond. You tap and tap, capturing their beauty. Then you hold your phone at arm’s length and sling your other arm around my shoulders, drawing me close for a selfie.
“Smile,” you say and I bare my teeth although, of course, you are alone on the screen of your phone.

(Banner cropped from an image by Iva Balk from Pixabay)

Refuge and resources

old gate with sign 'please shut the gate' Not wanting to catastrophise or anything, but now seemed like a good time to post about some free online resources that I love and which others may not be aware of.

In the coming weeks/months you might find yourself with some thumb-twiddling time (or possibly climbing the walls). What to do if you get bored of binge-watching and you’ve delved to the bottom of your physical TBR pile of books? What to do if, for reasons we don’t need to dwell on, you can’t physically nip down to the local library to restock on books, magazines, DVDs and CDs?

Well, you can still visit the library, even if you can’t do it physically, as long as you have internet access. Your public library service very likely offers a glorious multitude of online resources that you can use, as long as you’re a member (and it’s free to be a member so it’s all good).

Here are some of my favourite online library resources:

BOOKS: Obviously books! Your public library should give you access to one or more eBook and eAudio book providers. You may be able to do a single library catalogue search and get back all results, both physical and digital, and borrow from there. Or you might have to access your library’s online resources page and log into the eBook provider to search for eBooks from that particular provider. That might sound complicated, but it’s really not. It just means you might have to check in a couple of places. I regularly use BorrowBox and OverDrive and access the files of the borrowed eBooks through Adobe Digital Edition and CloudLibrary, which I’ve set up on my laptop. Chances are good your library has clear instructions on how to get started with eBooks and, if you get stuck, technical help is only a phone call away.

READERS’ ADVISORY (RA) SERVICES: Not sure what to read next? No handy librarian to ask? PM me, or DIY with eResources like Books and Authors or Novelist Plus or Who Else Writes Like? You’ll have to check to see what online RA services your library subscribes to, but they are fabulous ways to find read-alikes, genre and themed suggestions, and lists of recommended books. Then, once you’re armed with a few suggestions, you can check out the eBooks…

MUSIC: Free streaming and free downloads? Over 13 million songs with everything from classical music to Broadway showtunes to death metal? Yes! I hope your library service offers you access to Freegal like mine does. Freegal lets you search by genre or artist or song title, find new releases, music videos, most popular songs and albums, and also provides themed playlists. It’s great for finding old favourites and, if you search by song title, lots of versions of popular songs. It also has audio books and spoken word albums which include comedy routines and poetry readings and more. Hours of entertainment!

FILMS: I’m not that keen on the moving pictures thing, but if you are, check to see if your public library online resources include access to Kanopy, which lets you stream movies and documentaries.

LANGUAGES: Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn a new language? If your library has Mango Languages in its eResources, you’re in luck. Your library membership lets you log in to Mango and choose what you want to learn from over 70 languages. Best of all, if you want to impress everyone come next September 19, you can even learn Pirate.

MORE, SO MUCH MORE: Honestly, log into your library website, go to their Online Resources page and browse the list. Magazines, newspapers, articles, genealogy, video tutorials, educational kids’ games, car engine manuals (seriously!), craft and hobby resources – it’s kind of overwhelming how much stuff is just sitting there, waiting for you to discover it.

So brew your hot beverage of choice, find a comfy chair, and treat yourself to some online goodness. Learn new things, immerse yourself in fabulous fiction, discover songs you can dance to.

Stay safe, everyone, and let your library’s free online resources help you stay sane.

On guard, and time for fury!

photo of an alert dog Another month, another Furious Fiction.

Today’s post is a two-edged sword – one side shares the 500 word story I wrote for February’s AWC Furious Fiction Challenge, and the second (the sharper side and call to action) is to tell you that today, at 5pm, the AWC will unveil their March challenge. You’ll have 55 hours to craft your own tale to meet whatever fiendish criteria they propose – and be in the running to win $500. Come on, it’ll be fun.

Meanwhile, here’s my take on February’s requirements for some sort of guard in the story, inclusion of the words narrow, golden, leathery and glossy, and the first and last sentences each to contain just two words:

RESCUE
Bad day. You make it to the couch. Cue brass band and medal ceremony. Achievement get. Level up.
You make it to the couch and curl around the pain like a whiskered fern frond, or one of those leathery, segmented insects you find under rotting wood. Are they slaters? You can’t remember.
The room hangs sideways. Horizontal verticals of curtains, door frame, bookcase. Improbable uprights on the tilted coffee table. You reach for a bottle of water caught between the sedimentary layers of neglect but you’re too stiff. Fossilised. Curled like an ammonite. Like the glossy, carved scroll on the neck of the violin you haven’t taken out of its case for eight months.
Cue first violin, screeching a glissando from shame to rage, a tremolo of failure.
You read online that some people don’t have an inner monologue and laughed until you couldn’t sit up, until your head was an Easter Island monolith, drenched in salty Pacific rain. For years you absorbed criticism and despair. Now the sullen echoes, a symphony in D-sharp minor, crush you into the couch.
You can just about breathe through it.
Then he’s there, coming in from the kitchen, trailing dirt prints on the carpet and the scent of basil he’s brushed against. A velvet-soft head pushes under your hand and noses your wrist. He’s so warm, like he’s swallowed the sun to bring it inside for you. His tail beats a bass drum tattoo on the couch, thunderous applause speaking joy at your company.
You breathe together.
Your fingers glide over his ears, stretch and repeat – easier than any scale you ever played. He whines softly, a melancholy oboe, just enough to remind you there’s more to the orchestra than the strings. More to the day than the couch. More to you than failure. He licks the inside of your wrist, rasping and real in a way the echo of the first violin can never be.
“That’s right,” you tell him. “You scared it.”
You make it to the front yard. There are five chewed tennis balls tucked into the big blue pot with the golden cane palm. You pick one up and he’s a dervish, ecstatic with anticipation. You throw and he flings himself after it, blurred pursuit through the narrow tangle of green.
“Nice dog,” a voice says from the gate as the ball is returned. It’s a man, kitted and capable, from the building site three doors up. “What sort is he?”
The best sort you know. Bravest and true. The sort that stands between you and despair.
“A guard dog,” you say.
“Really?” He considers the soft ears, short legs, limpid eyes.
“A rescue dog.”
“Oh, cool.” He smiles. “Nice to meet a lifesaver.”
“Yes.” You look down and meet that dark, loving gaze. “Good dog.”

(Banner cropped from an image by Hans Aldenhoven from Pixabay.)

Monstrously fine!

B_red leaves I mentioned last August that I was interviewing monsters to feature in a short story I wanted to submit to the anthology call for CSFG Publishing’s Unnatural Order.

The good news is that the delightful beastie I chose, whose CV included such sterling job titles as Devourer of Souls and Great of Death, made the cut and has been included in the upcoming anthology.

Needless to say, I couldn’t be more delighted than to be again sharing a table of contents with the dapper Rob Porteous and the delightful C.H. Pearce, and eleven other talented monster wranglers, including Grace Chan, Freya Marske, Nathan J. Phillips, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Leife Shallcross.

Thanks to editors Alis Franklin and Lyss Wickramasinghe for their unnatural selection.

The anthology will be out later this year. Don’t worry – I’ll keep you updated on all monstrous developments.

A long time brewing

Some stories take longer than others to reach fruition.

In February 2018, over on terribleminds, Chuck Wendig’s then-weekly flash fiction prompt was to type “strange photos” into Google images, find one you liked and write about it. Ooh! clever…

ArthurTressimage

I found this photograph by Arthur Tress – in fact, his disturbing dream-like photographs were all over the results. At first I didn’t realise the cut-out men were soldiers in helmets and I thought it was supposed to be Paul McCartney or George Harrison in all their mop-top glory, which made it even weirder.

Anyway, the first 500 words of a story about a man called Amos Polkinghorne, the third and last of his name, kind of fell out of my brain. A creepy story. And although I knew how I wanted it to end, I didn’t know what came between.

Two months later, in April 2018, I went to Tasmania for my birthday and indulged my weird obsession with apples growing on trees.

On trees, I tell you!

bapples Look, it’s not that their arboreal provenance surprises me, but when you grow up in the sub-tropics, mango and banana and pineapple and avocado trees are everywhere but temperate fruits on trees are not. (Ha, ha, I know… pineapples and bananas don’t grow on trees. Pineapple plants are bromeliads and banana plants are just really big herbs.)

Anyway, I get ridiculously excited about seeing apples – and pears and plums and apricots etc – on trees. But especially, for reasons unknown, apples.

And down in Tassie, I talked to my cousin Matt about weird apple cultivars – like Lady in the Snow and Geeveston Fanny which you never see in supermarkets because they bruise too easily, or they don’t have a good shelf life, or they’re best for making apple jam or pies and not for eating – and he said he’s met people in the Huon Valley who’ve forgotten more about varieties of apples than we’ll ever know.

I tucked that away in my head, and found it had sidled up to the photo of the old man who looked suspiciously like someone who’d know an unseemly amount about Westfield Seek-No-Furthers or Winter Kings. And anything he knew probably wouldn’t be good news for anyone else.

Malice and Malus pumila started stewing together in my brain. Another 800 words bubbled up like warm cider hitting the frost-hard ground when you’re wassailing to appease the trees…

This is the odd thing about inspiration – bits collide and make a whole new thing. It’s the chemistry of story, I suppose. It’s why writers hate being asked ‘where do you get your ideas from’ because the answer is rarely ‘fully-fledged in a dream’ (although that does happen) and never, as far as I know, ‘I subscribe to a mail-order service which posts them out to me’ (although there are plenty of online story prompts including the inimitable Mr Wendig’s).

So, whatever happened to Uncle Amos?

He stewed, for more than a year, in the nether regions of my cortex, while I worked on other things and appeased characters who were more clamorous about their stories being told. I read about the rediscovery of a lost apple cultivar – the Kittageskee – and about Appalachian folk magic and about mummified scarab beetles (yeah, delightful, thanks Juliette). Amos didn’t go away. He just sharpened his bone-handled knife, curled his lip at the world, and waited.

What I needed to push me into finishing, as usual, was a deadline. I picked an anthology with the right kind of theme, and a submission deadline of the 31st of December and promised myself I’d get it done. Finally, while I was tinkering with the voice of the story’s narrator, Amos’s nephew, I realised that it needed to be Amos’s niece and it all came together.

And then it all fell apart, when that anthology call was cancelled at the last minute.

And then… a bit of serendipitous deliciousness happened and I found a submission call for another anthology which fitted my unsettling little story even better. Yes! In a gratifying burst of resolve to finish and submit more of my writing, I sent off my bad apple on the first day of the year and, even though it’s taken me nearly two years to write, I’m happy with that.

So charge your glasses, my friends, and toast to a good vintage of stories in 2020, even if they do require a slow ripening and a leisurely fermentation.

Oh, and let’s hope Uncle Amos is happy too. We don’t want him haunting our dreams.

An update: Amos was not best pleased to be rejected, and spent most of 2020 in a foul mood. Well, he’s not alone there. But you can’t keep a man like Amos Polkinghorne down (Lord knows, his niece has tried) and I’ve just had confirmation that ‘Bad Apple’ will be included in the ‘Good Southern Witches’ anthology being released by Curious Blue Press on 13 April 2021.