‘A’ list, ‘B’ list, reality TV list – who can keep up? I swear I can read a list of celebrities appearing somewhere or the other and not recognise a single name. Is this something to be proud of, or a reflection that our notion of celebrity has gotten out of hand? I’m confounded by the interest in every banal detail of celebrities’ lives and by their symbiotic need to feed the beast of media ubiquity.
So why am I writing about them?
The blame can be laid at the feet of the AWC’s Furious Fiction writing challenge for November, which required <500 words in 55 hours which:
- had the first and last words an anagram of each other, and
- included the phrase ‘there were eleven # in the #’ and
- an interpretation of five emojis (a zipped mouth, a moon, a pair of scissors, a handshake and a cobweb).
Emojis? I don’t ‘do’ emojis, darling! And then, to quote the delightful Mrs Lovett, ‘you know me, bright ideas just pop into my head’.
I hope you like my petulant celebrities, appearing now in ‘A List‘:
“Three?” Theo Fitzclarence leaned towards the show’s host and shook his head. “I wish, Max. I’m afraid there were eleven people in the marriage.”
The studio audience gasped, laughed and clapped as the host’s jaw slow-dropped in his trademark facial move.
“You mean…?”
Fitzclarence raised the hands that had played the chords that had sold a million downloads for his alt rock band, Cake Scissors, and started counting them off.
“Me. Taniya. Her stylist. Her make-up artist. Hairdresser. Personal trainer. Personal assistant. Social media assistant. Two security guards to look after Cha-Cha and Biscuit…”
“The tea-cup Pomeranians?”
“More like tea-cup terrorists.”
Laughter as the cameras zoomed in to capture Fitzclarence’s sneer.
“You think I should have included them in the count? Maybe you’re right.” The musician scraped one hand across his stubbled jaw. “It was never about us. Even when we were alone – rare as that was – Taniya would be snapping selfies and tweeting about ‘quality couple time’.” He grimaced. “Her social media adviser said she got the most re-tweets when she tagged me and the band. I was just a prop to her promotion machine.”
The audience sighed their sympathy, but the host waggled his fingers.
“Your count comes up short,” he said. “That’s only ten.”
“Only?” Fitzclarence raised a derisive eyebrow, then looked away, jaw firming, thick dark hair falling over his eyes. “I don’t think I can talk about number eleven.”
Max wriggled in his seat, eager as a puppy begging for a treat.
“Come on, Theo, I won’t tell.”
He mimed zipping his mouth closed, then batted his lashes at the close-up camera.
Fitzclarence kneaded his fist against his chest.
“Nah, man. All I can say is his name starts with a C.”
More gasps and a drawn out ‘ooooh’ from the host made the musician smirk.
“You work it out,” he said.
“I’ve never been good with puzzles.” Max played to the audience. “So I thought we’d better go straight to the source.” He flung out his arms. “Let me present – fresh from her star turn on Broadway – Ms Taniya Webb!”
The studio lights dimmed and a spotlight picked her out, seated on a dazzling crescent moon, descending from above with a rain of golden glitter. The statuesque Webb high-kicked her diamond heels and blew kisses to everyone except Fitzclarence.
“Max, darling,” she said as he helped her off the swing.
“Now, if I can’t convince you two to kiss and make up, you can at least shake hands,” he said.
Webb lifted one exquisite dark shoulder and pouted over it.
“I don’t think so, darling. Theo’s a sweet boy, but it seems he can’t quite count. I make it at least seventeen in our marriage… with his groupies.”
The audience applauded as she tapped the host’s dropped jaw closed then patted his cheek.
“I’ve just tweeted about it,” she said. “You can read all the details there.”
I prefer stories where women get to do some questing, stomping and slaying of their own. 
The other influence on Melusine’s Daughter was the medieval ballad, from the Dutch folk tale, of Heer Halewijn. This thoroughly repulsive, magically powerful bloke was the progenitor of Bluebeard and other horrible mass-murdering chaps in folk stories and songs. The unnamed heroine princess of The Song of Lord Halewijn is a delight. She rescues herself from a dangerous situation and doesn’t take any lip from her would-be killer. Or his mum.
Librarians believe in Ranganathan’s five rules which include for every book its reader and for every reader his or her book. I don’t know if there’s a similar rule for real estate agents and houses, but one thing is for sure – it’d be very hard to write the sale blurbs for some properties.
I’ve been writing a Regency era fantasy romance and that means reading a lot of Regency romance (oh, the hardship!) and immersing myself in Georgette Heyer’s slap-up-to-the-echo dialogue. So much so, when it came time to write a nifty 500 words for the AWC’s