Beautiful and terrible

convent leadlight of a dove
Another month has flown by on stained glass wings and, where I live, autumn has finally arrived with chilly nights and bright, perfect days. So perfect, in fact, it’s the ideal time for a writing getaway. So I’m off with my writing buddy to write, edit, work on the new Picaresque Press website, and give our next CIT short course – Seduce Your Reader – a final polish (there’s still time to sign up – it starts on Tuesday 7 May).

Meanwhile, have a short story…

The AWC’s April Furious Fiction challenge was <500 words including these three lines of dialogue: 

  • “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
  • “He’s never done anything like this before.”
  • “What’s it going to be then, eh?”

Challenge accepted…

Pedigree

“I can’t believe it.” The equa pressed her fingertips, bloodless beneath their bronze-lacquered nails, against the desk. “He’s never done anything like this before.”

If Desi had a credit mark for every time she’d heard that, she sure as shit wouldn’t be stuck in the kennels.

“Look, Equa -”

The woman waved away her title, but shot a barrage of complaints after it.
“No. His pedigree is perfect. Top drawer. Full screening. All his shots. I won’t believe it.”

The denial had a shrill edge which needed blunting before it got any uglier. Desi reached for the screen and the older woman flinched from her hand, raw and red from all the washing the Rule required.

Everything as the Rule required. Everyone in their place: delphics, equae, marthas, pod-nans and kennel-nans. Women where they belonged and men where they couldn’t do any harm.

And everyone knew, by Rule and regulation, the kennels called for carbolic.

“Just watch the vid, eh?” Desi said.

“You film them? All of the time?”

“Out in the yard. So we can see what’s causing any argy-bargy.”

“Oh, fighting and biting. That I could understand. He’s at that age…”

The woman looked away, tugging the cuffs of her jacket straight.

“It’s the first thing I thought when I got your message.”

Desi let the lie slide and pressed ‘play’.

She watched the woman watch the vid. Watched the colour drain from behind her make-up in time with the pentameter. Watched her lips thin to a measure as precise as a sonnet. Then the equa drew a breath and tapped her nails on the desk, like she was busy-busy and time was money and they needed to get this nonsense sorted.

She almost carried it off, but her voice cracked as she asked, “What happens now?”

“We got regulations.”

“For this?” She snorted. “I find that very hard to believe.”

“Regs for everything, eh?” Desi straightened her shoulders and recited, “Aberrant behaviour in kennelled adolescent males. Regulation 241b. Poetry. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

“Emile.” The woman groaned her son’s name.

He wasn’t a bad boy; not by kennel standards and, by the Rule, they saw them all. No trouble. Smart, but not too mouthy. A sweet smile. Still, reciting poetry to his kennel-mates? That was dangerous.

“So we treat with great caution. Two options with poets. First offence–”

Desi pretended she couldn’t see the woman’s nails cutting crescents of control into her palms.

“First reported offence, he gets solitary. Observation. For a week. No access, sorry.”

“He won’t mind.”

“If he does it again – scribbles haiku on the walls, mouths couplets, anything – he’ll be sent to the Institute.”

The woman caught her breath, eyelids fluttering like she’d been hit.

“You said two options.”

“Yeah, well. Option two is you say it’s happened before and we put him down for reassignment right away. Saves the wait.” Desi shrugged. “What’s it going to be then, eh?”

Walk in, walk out

laundromat-1

I could cycle through the laundromat puns, maybe even spin them out, but it’s probably better to get on with the story and see what comes out in the wash…

March’s Furious Fiction challenge from the AWC was <500 words, with a setting inspired by the above image and a theme of curiosity. You can read the winner and shortlisted stories here.

I didn’t really hit the theme, but I was happy with my story: Walk In, Walk Out.

“Check it out!”

He stops in the middle of the footpath, wrenching my arm. It hurts, but it’s a fleeting pain. Not like the tightness which presses on the top of my chest as I recognise his gleeful tone.

He puts his hands on his hips, tilting his chin as he reads the sign taped to the shopfront.

“For sale. Walk in, walk out. Going concern. Imagine it, Jules.”

It’s an effort to keep my voice neutral. My blood pressure kicks up and anxiety presses down like a weight around my neck.

“It’s a laundromat,” I say, because I have to say something or be accused of not wanting to talk about what he wants to talk about, or having no curiosity, or being negative.

“Always demand for a laundromat in a tourist town.” He presses his nose to the window, cupping his hands at the side of his face to cut out the glare. His breath fogs the glass as he adds, “Neat little place. Kind of retro.”

That means dated. I don’t bother peering in. I can see enough through the wire-meshed security glass. Old and tired, half the machines probably broken, a–

“Great little fixer-upper,” he says, beating me to the not-funny punchline. “Imagine it. We could live here, cheap as chips. Run this place. Grow our own veg, keep a few chooks. The good life, hey?”

“Yeah. The good life.”

I drag in a breath, struggling to get enough air into my lungs. It tastes of grease from the fish and chip shop next door and exhaust fumes from the snaking queue of traffic heading for the beach.

“No big overheads. Set our own hours. It’s perfect, love.”

He rubs his hands together as if it’s all sorted, so I catch hold of his elbow and nudge his arm. He starts walking again and I breathe a little easier.

“Regular servicing, of course,” he says. “No money in machines that don’t run.”

A giant fist crushes my lungs.

I gasp out, “How do they work?”

It’s exactly the right thing to ask. He talks about electric motors the whole way home and I don’t have to say anything until we reach the front desk.

“Here we are,” the nurse says, taking his other arm. She raises her eyebrows at me and mock whispers, “How was he?”

“Fine. He was fine.” My breath catches as I press my lips to his bristled cheek. “We’ll go for another walk tomorrow. Alright, Dad?”

 

Out of choices

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Ever feel like your head is so full of things you need to do and choices you need to make that it’s about to burst?

Well, I’m with you and I can’t offer you answers, only distractions.

I wrote about choices for last month’s AWC Furious Fiction competition. The parameters were that the first sentence had to be three words and the story had to include some sort of first and a candle. You can read the winners and the shortlisted entries here and my 500 words worth here:

“Your father’s dead.”
The words drop, stone-heavy, into darkness.
“No.” I gasp and struggle against sleep-slick depths.
They’ll say I showed a proper reluctance to accept their tidings; that I cried out in disbelief that such a man – such a colossus – should prove mortal. But it’s only fear those stone-cold words will drag me with them into the abyss.
I blink against the light – blinded, bedazzled – until the flare diminishes. My sight sharpens with wakefulness and I realise there’s only one candle and my father is, indeed, dead. Why else would my room be full of those who, even yesterday, would have scorned to speak to me had they seen me hunched over one of my books?
The worst of them, my father’s cousin, steps closer, candle held high.
“You are Firstborn,” he says. The word is meant to resonate; meant to sound a dynastic chord thrumming through a line of secondborn and thirdborn, fourth and fifth and so on. But all it does is echo in my bedchamber, solitary and alone.
Firstborn. Only born.
My father sought a remedy. Now his wedding feast will serve for cold and unwelcome funeral meats. No doubt this task tastes just as bitter in his cousin’s mouth.
“Your father is dead and you are Firstborn,” he repeats. “You must choose.”
He holds out the candle. Others offer a book and a sword. My choice of faith-light or learning or leadership. Life is full of choices.
When I was born my father chose not to ring first-bells in celebration. I was small and frail and they say he feared I would not survive. Feared or hoped.
Four seasons past my father’s first wife died and I kept my mother’s candle vigil alone, for he chose not to see it with me.
Three moons ago he chose to spend Firsthallow courting a new bride, rather than hear me read my dissertation to the conclave.
Two days ago he chose to hunt for his wedding feast, but the beast he cornered chose not to join the celebrations.
I glance at the crowd who lean forward, eyes glittering, intent on the book. All know I’ll choose a scholar’s life. Or perhaps not all, for something hums through the room. Fear? Or hope?
I throw back the covers so the candlelight burnishes the cloth-of-gold cape I wear over my scarlet robe. They gasp. Did they think to find me vulnerable in white linen at such a time? I grasp the hilt of the sword and raise it high.
“I choose to lead,” I cry and my voice fills the room, banishing echoes and leaving no space for the shadows of other choices.
My father’s cousin opens his mouth, but no sound comes out, so it is another who shouts, “The king is dead. Long live the queen!”

Everyone loves a list

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Woah! It’s the end of January? Already?

I hope all those new year lists you wrote (resolutions or bucket lists or to do lists) are looking good and you’re ready for February. And what better way to kick it off than with a creative writing challenge?

The Australian Writers’ Centre will be running their monthly Furious Fiction this weekend – log in at 5pm tomorrow for the prompts and you’ll have 55 hours to write and polish 500 words to be in the running for $500. You can check out the January winner and shortlisted entries to get an idea of what they’re looking for.

Last month’s requirements were:

  • the first word had to be ‘new’
  • it had to include the words ‘desert’, ‘nineteen’ and ‘present’
  • it had to include some kind of list.

Here’s my 500 words worth…

THE LIST

“New shoes and new stockings. New unmentionables.” Princess Araminta’s lady-in-waiting smothered a giggle before continuing her list. “New petticoats for Your Highness, and a new gown, new cape and new crown. Everything you need.”

“To be a freshly-minted Minty? Wonderful.” The princess gestured to keep her attendants at bay. “Wait here for me.”

Skirts hoisted, she took the tower steps two at a time. List upon list for her Forecasting Day but not the one which mattered most. She was supposed to leave that one to politics and her father’s discretion and trust that time would sweeten their choice.
Well, there was no time like the present.

She bolted the heavy door and all but fell against the wall, palms pressed to the stone on either side of a large, gilt-framed mirror.

“Morgan,” she panted, “have you the list?”

Her reflection swirled like dirty water down a drain. A clouded face looked out, as if someone peered through a window coated with soap.

“Of course I have it, darling,” the mirror said. “Nineteen unmarried princes.”

Minty clasped her hands together, grabbing onto hope. “I only need one.”

“Yes.” Somehow the mirror drew the word out until it sounded more like ‘but’.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded.

“Four of them are old enough to be your grandfather and seven more have children.”

She bit her lip. “That’s not–”

Morgan cut her off. “Three of those are drunkards, two are diseased and one is an inveterate gambler.”

“And the seventh?”

“Prince Lothier has eight sons under the age of ten.” Morgan chuckled. “He’s had twenty-seven nannies in the last year and hopes a wife will prove a more permanent minder.”

Minty shuddered. “Eight then.”

“Two are from Upper and Lower Aureas.”

“Oh dear.”

“If I have it right, darling, Prince Zender is Prince Olver’s first and second cousin and his uncle. They both have the Mictivberg chin, I’m afraid.”

Another shudder shook the princess. “Six?”

“Prince Nimon is very keen on macramé, Prince Blaubard’s five previous wives all inexplicably disappeared, Prince Tirth–”

She raised her hand. “I’ve met Tirth. He talked about the average rainfall in the different regions of Verum. Prince Hal?”

“You know he’s nicknamed for his bad breath? No? Good Prince Vox is a paragon of virtue and a moral–”

Minty’s laughter drowned out Morgan’s words. “No and no,” she gasped.

“Prince Herac of the Panjan Desert is attractive, with a good sense of humour–”

“Perfect!”

“And four years old.”

“Morgan!” She frowned. “That’s all?”

“I suppose there’s also Clauv. He’s technically a prince, since his father is the Pirate King of the Patchwork Islands.”

“A pirate?”

“Young, handsome, fond of dogs, witty and well-read… It’s a shame you can’t swim.”

“I can learn.” She pressed her fingers to her lips. “Action and adventure! He’s exactly what I want!”

“He’ll need to attend your Forecasting Day. Make an offer…”

“Oh, that’ll be easy.” Minty grabbed her summoning bowl.

Morgan raised one shadowy brow. “That’s what they all say, darling.”

Crepuscular lifestyle choices

B18Sunset

Forget decluttering, self-care and elevation training: the hot trend in lifestyle choices is being crepuscular.

Really, it’s more fun than it sounds.

It’s an ugly word*, which is a shame, because when I say it’s a hot trend I mean that, literally. With temperatures across large swathes of Australia breaking records for hellishness (day after day above 40 degrees Celsius / 104 Fahrenheit) official health advice to a wilting populace is to stay out of the sun and the worst heat in the middle of the day, if possible.

So the smart move is to become a crepuscular creature – one that is most active at dawn and dusk.

Crepuscular comes from the Latin word crepusculum, meaning twilight or dusk and the word can be used in a derogatory sense to imply dim understanding or an ‘imperfect enlightenment’. In zoology, though, it’s one of the words used to describe the behaviour of different species according to when they are most active.

Most people are familiar with the idea that animals are diurnal or nocturnal – active in the day or the night, respectively. Again, these words have Latin roots – dies means day and nox means night and urnus is a suffix denoting time. But we should reject this simplistic reduction of choice to one thing or the other – either diurnal or nocturnal – because reality is more diverse and linguistically interesting.

Many animals, including wombats, deer, ocelots, hyenas and mice, are crepuscular.

Some are matutinal, or matinal (if you want them to sound less like mutants). It just means they are most active at dawn.

Vespertine beasts – like some bats and owls – are most active at dusk and vespertine flowers are those that bloom in the evening.

They’re all derived from Latin words – Matuta was the Roman goddess of the dawn and the canonical hour of Matins takes its name from matutinus vigilias meaning ‘morning watches’. Hesperos, the Greek god of the evening star, became Hesperus in Latin, which became vesper when referring to the evening, the star and west. Vespers, also a canonical hour, is called evensong in English.

Interestingly, Vespa – the brand name for an Italian motor scooter – is the Latin word for wasp, but wasps are diurnal. WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) are unlikely to be found at either matins or vespers, although you might find some high church Anglican  varieties at evensong.

Anyway… back to crepuscular. I can’t imagine using it in a non-technical sentence without sounding entirely pompous. But I can imagine adopting the habits of a crepuscular beast – using that delightful time at dawn and dusk to be most active.

Imagine it? I’m living it.

So be crepuscular, stay cool, stay hydrated and remember – for the rest of the daylight hours there is, thankfully, air-conditioning.

 

*Word for Wednesday can get a little judgey, but even the Online Etymology Dictionary agrees the older adjective form ‘crepusculine’ sounded ‘lovelier’.

An authentic Christmas experience

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If you’re still eating leftover turkey, you might be fresh out of Christmas cheer. But stick with me – I’ve got a serve of short fiction chock-full of authentic Christmasocity. (I’m pretty sure that should be a word…)

The AWC’s Furious Fiction writing challenge for December was to write a <500 word story which:

·         took place on Christmas Eve in either 1968 or 2068,

·         included the words ‘it was gone in a flash’, 

·         had the first and final words rhyme.

Tricksy. You can check out the winner and shortlisted entries, or read on, below the bling, for my tale of a totally authentic 1968 Christmas according to entertainment experts in 2068. 

christmas baubles

Great Expectations smouldered but Martin Chuzzlewit was gone in a flash.

“Nothing like a good Dickens to get the fire blazing,” Rush said.

“Tradition, innit?” Anavrin’s knee-high, white vinyl boots gleamed in the firelight.

“On my eye, we always burned Dickens for Christmas when I was a kipper.” Jake forced a chuckle.

“Cut!” La-A screeched. “It’s nipper! Oh aye and nipper!”

Morez darted between the symbi-stars with an extinguisher and sprayed foam on the fire.

“Chi-chi.” La-A grinned at him. “We don’t need another carbon fine after that fracking turkey set off the alarms.” Her smile fell away as she rounded on the oldest symbi. “This is streaming tomorrow, Jake. For Christmas, memahami? We’ll get a viral-load symbiote interface if History 4Most corplug it.”

“Which they won’t if you snarf up the jargon,” Anavrin muttered.

“People want the authentic experience, mate.” Rush gripped Jake’s shoulder. “It’s why they sym it.”

“So, let’s sym it.” La-A’s holo-nails flashed lightning at her fingertips. “Tell me your nodes all veer-checked the fire.”

The men nodded. Anavrin tugged at her grotesquely patterned sweater. “Yeah, but this costume cooks. Did they have an Ice Age in the 1960s?”

“Morez, drop the ambient,” La-A ordered, fingers tapping on her palm plate. “We can’t risk another fire take, so the Grandad’s reminiscing’s out. Places for…” She checked the scene feed and smirked. “Parlour games. No challenge here, Jake – you’re napping on the sofa. Tilly, we need the Mother on set.”

“It was cold back then,” Jake said, shuffling to position. “Even when I was a kid, it was cooler.”  

He lowered himself onto the pad which protected the antique fabric and waited until Tilly had walked past in her orange and purple pantsuit costume before he stretched out his legs. 

“Cool?” Anavrin snorted. “At Christmas? I don’t think so.”

“Must have been colder a hundred years ago,” Jake said, closing his eyes. “I remember Grandad saying they didn’t even have air-conditioners. Mustn’t have needed them.”

Rush and Tilly fussed with vape sticks disguised as old-style cigarettes and Anavrin snorted again.

“No air-con? And stupid-hot snowflake sweaters? And cancer sticks? You’re trolling me.”

“If it wasn’t cold, why’d they have all those songs about it snowing?” Jake said.

Anavrin opened her mouth to answer but Morez tapped a button and some whisky-voiced dude started singing about dashing through the snow. She scowled instead.

“Perfect, Anavrin,” La-A said. “Just cross your arms. The researchers said by 1968 all teenagers hated the charades. Veer nodes to record?” They synched and she checked the feed. “Remember, we want merry and bright. People sym for an authentic, historical Christmas experience. Three, two, one – sym it!”

Tilly opened and closed her hands and placed two fingers on her forearm, then tapped one.

“Book title.” Rush leaned forward. “Two words. First word.”

Anavrin rolled her eyes as Tilly tugged on one ear and tapped her wrist.

“Sounds like…” Rush frowned. “Could it be watch? Time? Late?”

 

Writing is a gift (or it can be)

fox in the snowStill wondering what to give your writer friend or loved one for Christmas? Perhaps you’re planning to get serious about your own writing in 2019?

If the relevant writer lives in or near Canberra, here’s a great deal:

Short courses at CIT Solutions are 15% off until the end of the year and that includes the amazing creative writing courses that my writing buddy and I will be running in early 2019.

  • CAPTURE YOUR READER: a six-week course in creating compelling characters, page-turning tension and delivering on your promise to the reader.
  • WRITING LOVE, LUST & LONGING: a Saturday intensive on big and little ‘r’ romance, as well as vocabulary, anatomy and emotion.
  • SEDUCE YOUR READER: a six-week course focused on understanding your story’s heart and immersing your reader in the protagonist’s experiences and feelings.
  • WHO’S TELLING THE STORY?: a Saturday intensive on tense, voice and point of view and making sure you’re writing an unforgettable main character.

Register in any course by the end of 31 December 2018, use the SUMMER19 discount code, and you get 15% off. It’s win-win.

‘Fabulous,’ you say, ‘but what’s it got to do with that snowy fox in the banner?’ 

I’m glad you asked.

These courses are a new adventure for me and Juliette together (although goodness knows we’ve clocked up a lot of instructional hours separately) and they’re also the first string to the bow of our new company: PICARESQUE PRESS.

Every bold endeavour needs an inspirational mascot and ours is Picaro the fox, as pictured. Or perhaps it’s Picara the vixen? I couldn’t tell them apart, because at the time of our acquaintance I was living on the second floor of a terrace house in Edinburgh and the fox family lived under the garden shed next door – I never had the opportunity, or the need, to assess the gender of my vulpine neighbours.

The foxes used the suburban stone walls as their roads and came and went at will – here’s another photo, from spring, of one of them heading up the on-ramp. Look closer. Closer…

spring fox

An urban red fox is an opportunistic beast with a certain roguish charm. Clever and adaptable, they are wary, but accustomed, to the presence of humans. Here in Australia, foxes are a feral creature, responsible for the destruction of native marsupial populations which have no defence against such predators. But that’s not our beastie.

Our mascot Picara (or Picaro) is not an urban fox, nor a feral fox, but a thought-fox.

Ted Hughes wrote of every writer’s experience when he described ‘this midnight moment’s forest’, ‘the clock’s loneliness’ and the ‘blank page’ – in his poem, The Thought-Fox. He draws the creature out – the fox prints in the snow are the dark marks that fill the white page. His fox is both real and imagined, forever wild and yet captured by the words of the poem that evoke it.

We couldn’t find a better symbol for the art and action of creative writing: a roguish, rule-breaking, risk-taking thought-fox.

Sign up for a course with Picaresque Press and discover where a thought-fox can lead you.

Curious stickybeaks and nosy Parkers

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Wednesdays* are perfect for the heady joy of satisfying our etymological curiosity. And what better to consider than curiosity itself…

Curiosity comes from curious which evolved from the Latin cura to care. Lots of interesting developments have wound their way into the language from cura: cure and curate and curator and curio, just to name a few.

From around 1883, booksellers referred euphemistically to erotica and pornography as curious books or curiosa, deriving perhaps from the 18th century meaning that something curious was ‘exciting curiosity’.

The exclamation of “Curiouser and curiouser” in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 was attributed by Lewis Carroll to her being so surprised she forgot how to speak good English. Never fear. Like other contributions made to the language by Carroll (which include chortle, galumph, snark, vorpal and the concept of a portmanteau word) it is now commonly used and understood (according to the Oxford Dictionary) to mean ‘increasingly strange’.

It’s a well-known fact that curiosity is inimical to felines, so keep your cats off the keyboard as we delve a little deeper with the help of the Online Etymology Dictionary.**

Busy now means only being continually occupied, but it once also meant being anxiously careful and potentially prying or meddlesome and so a busybody was a person who snooped and pried into things that worried them, but were not really their business (or busyness, if you want to go old school).

‘Snoop’ is from 1832 American English, possibly from the Dutch snoepen ‘to pry’.

‘Pry’ is much older (c.1300) from prien ‘to peer into’.

The use of ‘nose’ as a verb, rather than a noun, in the sense of prying or searching something out, is first recorded in the 1640s, and being nosy meant having a prominent nose for centuries before it was used as an adjective to mean inquisitive in 1882.

To call a nose a beak has also been around for centuries and stickybeak is an Antipodean word to describe being inquisitive. You stick your beak into something in Australia or New Zealand and you are, ipso facto, a stickybeak. The act of sticking said beak can be referred to as stickybeaking or you can say, to justify your curiosity about something, ‘I just wanted a stickybeak.’

It doesn’t necessarily carry negative connotations, but dismissing someone as ‘an old stickybeak’ is like saying they’re a busybody – it’s pretty derogatory.

When I was a kid, with the surname of Parker, if someone showed an excess of curiosity, they were a stickybeak. You may imagine my horror, aged 8, when our substitute teacher told someone off in class for trying to eavesdrop by calling them ‘a nosy Parker’.

Not cool, man. Not cool.

After I lived down the shame (never more thankful that my nose is delightfully retrousse or I would NEVER have lived it down) I looked into what ancestral Parker had doomed us all to being thought stickybeaks.

The popular theory was it had been Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury at the time of Queen Elizabeth I, who was to blame. Or it may have been that parkers were park keepers and given to snooping when illicit couplings caused the shrubbery to rustle. It was an occupational hazard (or perk, depending on perspective) in the same way that people out ‘walking their dog’ engage in dogging.

But the first recorded use of nosy Parker isn’t until 1907, well after the heyday of the archbishop and of Parkers being necessarily associated with parks. So it remains unclear just which Parker was to blame for marking us all as nosy.

And now to digress from etymology and swerve into genealogy:
Despite the huge numbers of Parkers in England, the story in my family was that we were descended from the archbishop, and, since the family came from Cambridgeshire, also from the Parker after whom Parker’s Piece in Cambridge is named.

I was curious.

So, when I lived for six months in Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire, I took the opportunity to do a genealogy course and to trundle down to Cambridge to have a stickybeak in the shire records office. I found no link to the archbishop nor to the Trinity College cook who kept cows on Parker’s Piece.

But I did find that my 10 x great-grandfather was Thomas Hobson.

Hobson ran an inn in Cambridge which hired out horses, to students and academics especially. His practice was to rent out the next available horse – regardless of what horse was wanted – because then the fastest horses didn’t get overworked. The saying that you have ‘Hobson’s choice’ – take it or leave it – is said to have been popularised by the poet John Milton, who as a Cambridge University student, wrote mock epitaphs for Hobson.

So I can’t claim to be a ‘proper’ nosy Parker… but I can claim a remote genealogical link to having a cavalier approach to other people’s wishes.

Hobson’s daughter, Elizabeth, married a chap called Fookes or Fowkes or Fox (they were a little slapdash with the spelling back in the late 1500s) who, before he died, sold his property of Anglesey Abbey to Hobson. When Elizabeth married Thomas Parker, Hobson gave it to them as a wedding gift.

Somehow, despite Anglesey Abbey now being a National Trust property, I never managed to pay it a visit, although I did get to the little village of Bottisham nearby, where lots of Parkers lived and died in obscurity before, in three generations my ancestors moved back to Cambridge, then to London and then to north Queensland.

One day, though, I’ve promised myself I’ll also get back to Cambridgeshire and have a stickybeak at Anglesey Abbey.

* Wednesdays are perfect for words – honestly, it’s a thing.

** An invaluable resource for writers of historical fiction who don’t want anachronistic words in their book.

Feeling lucky?

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Or if not lucky, at least in the mood for some fiction…

The Australian Writer’s Centre sets the Furious Fiction challenge on the first Friday of the month and writers have 55 hours to write no more than 500 words. This month the goal was: 1) start the story with a two word sentence, 2) set it in a supermarket and 3) have something breaking. You can read the winning and shortlisted entries on the AWC website.

Here’s my 500 words:

LUCKY’S
‘No Credert.’

That sign makes me twitch every time I walk into Lucky’s Holesale Supermarket. Don’t worry, the ‘holesale’ bugs me too, but at least the rusty ghost of a ‘W’ is visible on the corrugated iron. The other, hand-written, sign is taped to the back of the cash register.
First time I saw it, I swear I flinched.

“Listen,” I said to the woman leaning on the counter. “That’s not how you spell credit.”
The badge on her blouse said her name was Shirl.
Shirl said, “I know.”
“Then…” I gestured at the sign.
She looked at me through ice-pale, unblinking eyes.
“Some people like to have something to complain about.”

I thought about turning around and walking out, but I didn’t want to burn my bridges too early. The next nearest shop was the petrol station six blocks away and they charged like wounded bulls. I was renting between a sprawling industrial estate and a fetid, snake-filled swamp. I’d need my bridges when that damn swamp flooded.

So I nodded, grabbed a trolley and headed into the first aisle.
It was like no supermarket I’d ever seen. Industrial shelving lined one wall of a big, ugly warehouse and most of the floor space was taken up with water-damaged pallets. Perched on top were boxes of loose-leaf liquorice tea.

Three litre jars of dill pickles.

Blood pressure monitors.

Packs of toddler training nappies.

Tinned brawn.

Souvenir spoons.

Cheap, sure. But none of it made sense.
At the end of the aisle the stink of rotting seafood slapped me. Four chest freezers stood reeking against the hot corrugated iron. A sloughed snakeskin fluttered, caught on the wheels of the nearest freezer. I gagged and swore.

“Silly, isn’t it, putting them against the western wall?”
An old lady emerged from the next aisle, clutching a wire basket which held three tins of baked beans and a blood pressure monitor.
“I never buy their fish,” she confided, “but that’s not why we come here is it?”
“Why do we come here?” I was genuinely curious.
“Because one day we’ll find what our heart desires.”
She sighed, smiled and drifted into the next aisle.

Mad, I figured.

I was halfway down aisle two, digging through tinned beans for the extra cheese variety, when I heard her cry out. I pushed between pallets piled high with toilet paper and novelty lawn ornaments, sending a ceramic panda crashing to the floor.
“Are you alright?” I gasped.
She held something against her chest which lit her face like she cradled a star.
“I am now. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
She sailed off towards the checkout, leaving me to push pieces of broken panda under the pallet with the side of my shoe.

“Got what you want?” Shirl said when I wheeled my trolley up.
“Uh, sure.” I gave my gleanings a dubious look.
She cracked a slow smile and said, “Maybe next time.”
Maybe.
I guess that’s why I keep coming back to Lucky’s.

More than just steam and giggles

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What’s the deal with Steampunk?

I’ve been pondering the question since having a fabulous time at the Goulburn Waterworks Steampunk Victoriana Fair last month. I love Steampunk as a sub-genre of speculative fiction – it’s a blend of science-fiction and historical fiction (with a dash of fantasy) inspired by the visionary writings of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

It’s a reimagined Victorian Era where the Industrial Revolution has gotten more than a little carried away, run off with Mad Science and spawned all sorts of steam-powered gadgets.

It’s delightfully anachronistic, full of dirigibles and derring-do, corseted women who (ironically) won’t be bound by societal expectations, bold chaps with monocles and mutton-chops and, sometimes, werewolves in top hats.

When it wants to go wild it goes west – to the frontiers of a very Weird Wild West. Or it heads south. Way, way south. Check out the work of two talented and creative writers I know, who’ve done amazing things with Antipodean Steampunk – Geraldine F Martin and Felicity Banks.

It is, as the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences succinctly puts it – “modern technology, powered by steam and put in the 1800s.”

steampunk 6But it’s also much more.

It’s fabulous clothes and costuming. It’s engineering challenges and arts and craft and decorative styling. It’s music, film and art. It’s a whole lot of fun.

What I find amazing is the way it’s slipped sideways and, unlike some genre / pop culture fandoms which have fiercely loyal but very niche adherents, Steampunk has gone… well, I guess mainstream is too strong a word.

Still, Goulburn is far from alone in hosting an annual fair. Every year you can steampunk (I’m sure that’s a verb) at Lithgow’s Ironfest, the Hunter Valley’s Steamfest, Adelaide’s Steampunk Festival, Georgetown’s Steampunk Tasmania and more.

Across the Tasman, they’ve not only got fab festivals, there’s Steampunk HQ, an incredible museum and gallery, in Oamaru – recognised as the Steampunk capital of the world.

Check out The Unorthodox Society for the Elucidation of Retro-Futurism’s deliciously exhaustive Australia and New Zealand Steampunk Directory for links to groups, festivals, bands, artists, costumiers and, well, pretty much everything.

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I don’t know why it’s so popular, other than that it’s a fun, creative way to play the game of ‘what if?’. And that’s a game that every writer, reader, dreamer and creative person loves to play.

So, why not give it a go?

Get your top hat goggled and your parasol poised, and I’ll see you at the next Steampunk soiree. Toodle pip!