Super stud unscrewed [Three word week #37]

‘You’re at it again!’   She slammed the mug of instant coffee down onto the worktop with sufficient force for it to slop over and puddle.

‘At what?’   He had hoped to project male disdain at excessive female emotion but his head hurt too much for him to raise his eyebrows.

‘Using those poncey made-up wank-words, the ones you keep bringing home from that American girl that you say you hardly know, and never speak to.   ‘Inoculatte’ my arse – it’s not lack of  coffee that makes you late, just lack of will power – though I suppose you’re expecting me to be tactful about that too …’

Over the rim of her glass of peppermint and jacaranda tea, she studied him.   Not only was he self-pitying and failing to perform but he looked unattractive too, face sheened and glaucous, eyes dull and a couple of whiteheads appearing on his chin.

Seeing her eyes on him he strove to gain further sympathy.   ‘I’m not sure I’m well enough to go to work … I’m clearly suffering from an invasion of xenobiotic antibodies …’

He’d misread her expression, misread the tone of her voice and misread the gentleness with which she set down her own mug.   Deceptively calm, she said ‘And I’m suffering from an invasion of Zeno stoicism.’   She handed him his jacket and his briefcase.  ‘ Go.’

This week’s entry for Steve Isaak’s Three Word Week

http://readingbypublight.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/3-word-week-37_22.html

I.) glaucous - adj. 1. Of a pale grayish or bluish green.
II.) inoculatte - v. - To take coffee intravenously when you are running late. (Source: The Washington Post's Style Invitational, 2005)
III.) xenobiotic - adj. - Foreign to the body or to living organisms. Used of chemical compounds.
n.A xenobiotic chemical, such as a pesticide.

Fearful symmetry [Book Blurb #56]

Everyone recognised Antonia Blake – how could they not? – but no-one could remember her from school.

No-one remembered Meggie Tyger – whyever should they? – and her absence from St. Hilda’s twenty-first reunion went unremarked, as it ever had been.

Antonia was ‘Fearful Symmetry’ – gossip columnist, socialite and style icon –  and of course they wanted to be listed as a friend, under her wonderful tiger icon!

At the twenty-second reunion talk inevitably turned to the four whose deaths had occurred in the interim, seemingly accidental, unexplained and increasingly bizarre.

Questions were asked, connections made.   Eventually Meggie Tyger’s name was whispered, ginger hair, glasses, head-to-toe freckles and a brace on her teeth recalled, consciences pricked.  

But was Antonia once Meggie?   Had Antonia, absent this year,  taken revenge for the bullying?  

Or could it have been the unforgettable PE teacher William Anvil, who left after only one term, career in ruins, having impregnated five girls?

Week #56’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and Scott Liddell's photograph.

Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

Triple serendipity, coincidence

Last month I posted on 6S a piece called ‘How it sometimes goes’; about the arrival from nowhere of the name “Susannah Elphinstone” into my head in response to a photographic prompt for Book Blurb Friday.
She stayed there and, as the story grew, under the influence of Thinking Ten prompts, was found by Luke at a long-lost ruined house which came to me from a half a century ago, part memory, part fabrication.  
Today I sought to add some substance to that house.
Found a solitary photo on a Flickr site.
Found that the man whose site it was, the man who took the photo, was a boy I once sat beside in primary school.
Whose face and voice and impact I remember clear as yesterday and whose conversation about the need to look at and really see I coincidentally recalled last week.  

Unsuccessful salving of a conscience

Baz had been attending a hanging, otherwise he’d’ve been there.

And afterwards, in my more hysterically dishonest moments, I even wondered if Luke had arranged for the assassination.  But that was a step too far in self-justification.   And if it hadn’t been for the fact that Luke knew the restaurant owner and had got reservations – because Baz asked if he knew whether or not it deserved its reputation – we’d not have been going there anyway.   I’m certainly not petty enough to say it was because Baz was missing for my birthday celebration – I know very well how these things happen:  the nearest available reporter had to go and Baz being on the spot there was no choice.   He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way either, even said to me (later, before he found out) that he’d been relieved that the Arts correspondent had been at his grandmother’s funeral.  (Which, he also said, made it five grandmothers he’d buried, in two years)

But.   He hadn’t been there.   I had, and so had Luke.   And because it was my birthday Luke was being kinder than usual, less vituperative, more entertaining, and he opened up a bit more than usual.   When the conversation got around to books he mentioned the Wigtown Book Festival that he’d been to at the weekend, which led to him telling me about Wigtown’s Bladnoch whisky.   And I couldn’t blame the whisky either because by the time he’d suggested we go to his flat just round the corner from the restaurant (I hadn’t known that, but presumably Baz had) so I could sample it, I was already guilty.

This also appears on Thinking Ten, where it is my response to the Monday, On Location prompt of 'A restaurant'.   As before, I am using these prompts to spark scenes for potential short stories or character development for forthcoming novels.

'Revolver' inspiration at MuDSpots

Michael Brown asked for writing based on titles from this Beatles album - seventeen responses so far and all fascinating and individual voices - check out  MuDSpots ~33

Read the small print [3 Word Week #36]

I don’t like stating the bleeding obvious, or being predictable, but it really is impossible to use the words ‘Heath Robinson’ without also saying ‘contraption’   You try it.   Although I  did think that surprise had something to do with my loss of verbal control.  
This is how it happened.  My Dad coaches one of the top football teams (can’t tell you which for reasons of discretion) and he's always let me tag along to training sessions at weekends and in the summer holidays, so I always got to know the players, seeing them come and go as I grew up.   A couple of summers ago, when I was fourteen, he said he didn’t want me to join in the swimming pool sessions, last year it was no shorts, and at the beginning of this holiday he presented me with a track suit – expensive, top-of-the range, very nice, but bloody baggy!    I knew what he was up to, of course, I’m not stupid, but no amount of argument would have him change his mind.   Last summer I eventually gave in, not without sulking.   This summer, no problem, meek as the proverbial!
And the reason for that?   

Aha, as I said, I’m not stupid, so I’m not telling you his name.   Suffice it to say, lest you think the obvious, he wasn’t one of the footballers.   No, he was one of their Dads – bet you weren’t expecting that were you?   Anyway, to cut what might be getting a too long story short, him and me had been getting on really well for a few months, if you know what I mean, so when the team got to the European Cup and were away for a week I decided I'd surprise my bloke by turning up at his house to spend some quality time together. 
Well, he was surprised, yeah, but so was I, because the first time I went into his bedroom there was this … well, believe you me, ‘Heath Robinson contraption' is the only word.   Levers and pulleys and swivels and angles and chains and all sorts of springy spikes and slightly sharp-edged bits and pieces.   Being of a practical disposition, it took me ten seconds max to work out what it was.
‘So,’ I said, demonstrating I was an understanding sort of girl, ‘You put your foot in here,’ (indicating) ‘or your hand here,’ (ditto) ‘move it up and down, faster the better, and Bingo, you got pain.’
He went red, poor sod, all embarrassed and a bit woebegone too, like a little boy caught with his hand down his trousers and a dirty magazine under the mattress, but me, I’m dead straight as well as practical so I said ‘Look, love, if it’s flagellation you want, absolutely no worries, I only charge triple rates.'   He should’ve known that already, it was on the card I gave him at the beginning – as I said, I don’t like stating the bleeding obvious.

http://readingbypublight.blogspot.com/2012/03/3-word-week-36.html
I.) flagellate - tr. v. 1. To whip or flog; scourge., 2. To punish or impel as if by whipping.
adj. 1. Biology Flagellated., 2. Resembling or having the form of a flagellum; whiplike.
3. Relating to or caused by a flagellate organism.
n. An organism, such as a euglena, that is equipped with a flagellum.
II .) Heath Robinson - adj. - Absurdly complex and fancifully impractical. (The term was coined after W. Heath Robinson [1872 - 1944], a British artist known for drawing ingeniously complicated devices.)
III .) woebegone - adj. - 1. Affected with or marked by deep sorrow, grief, or wretchedness.
2. Of an inferior or deplorable condition: a rundown, woebegone old shack.  

Lily Childs' Feardom

If you like reading or writing horror or chilling flash fiction you could give yourself a treat by visiting Lily Childs' Friday Prediction Challenge

Each week Lily posts three words and challenges participants to use them in a piece not exceeding 100 words and then post their entry as a comment on her page.  Comments are generous almost to a fault;  Lily picks a winner and (surprise, surprise - no point in hiding my light under a bushel) last week's winner was ME, as she says herself:

Winner of Last Week's Prediction Challenge
Every week many of you say, how does Lily choose a winner when the quality is so high? Well, it's always hard but this week - hell has erupted from the frozen lakes of my chambers and stumped me. However - it must be done. There will be just one winner, and no runner-up... because every single entry is a runner-up. Well done, one and all.
My winner is Sandra Davies with the second part of her harrowing series The Blacksmith's Wife. This tale is screaming to be told and I cannot even begin to anticipate what will happen next. Many congratulations Sandra - don't leave us dangling!

The story so far can be found on my Friday prediction page - next week's words are curdle, cherub and rip and I shall do my best to continue the tale.

Death: fresh daily [Book Blurb Friday #55]

The first body appeared on his first morning, bloody and tied to the first of the rusty piles, the second the next day.   After five days, and five bodies, all presumed to be connected, the local police claimed to be at their wits’ end.
Which was when the almost invisible elderly man, offered his theory.
Assistant Chief Constable Colin Thrush had been coming here for years, incognito and always alone – the only place he truly found relaxation.   This would be the last time.
Widowed, retirement three years away but death less than three months, he yearned for just one more  active investigation, having found paperwork more tiring than hands-on had ever been.
He got his wish:  uncovered age-old pacts and compromising conspiracies which threatened reputations, created controversy among those who controlled, and knew he had nothing to lose by ignoring threats and pursuing all leads to their multi-damaging ends.

Week #55’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and, with apologies, to Kathy Matthews’ undeserving light-hearted photograph. 
Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

NaNoWriMo2011 - fifteen weeks on

A bit of a 'Eureka!' moment - after weeks of tweaking,  adding and refining,  a sudden impulse yesterday to write an 'Aftermath'.   Two thousand words later - and the whole thing coming together far more smoothly than looked to be likely at first (i.e. I avoided the 'and then, and then' dreary explanation, as well as the compulsion to tidy everything) - so that at 125K I do believe the end is nigh!

Elspeth and the siege of St. Remy [Book Blurb Friday #54]

Elspeth believed in the indissolubility of marriage.
          Jake merely paid lip service.
Elspeth tried to put an end to his cheating.
          Jake was too blinkeredly arrogant to notice.
So when a last-ditch but genteel Provençal attempt at romantic revival failed, Elspeth ditched both belief and gentility and took up a chain-saw instead, intent on some cure-or-kill pruning.
          With results which surprised her as much as Jake.
          With results which also surprised Chantal the cook, Marie the waitress, Soulange the hotel-owner’s teenage daughter ... and Soulange’s utterly delicious brothers, Jean-Pierre and Michel.  
          And then, more satisfactorily still, Soulange’s devastatingly capable, widowed father, Charles.
But WAS it kill?   Or cure?   Or merely a seasonal trimming, which would require repeating in a twelvemonth?   
          Jake, for one, could never be entirely sure, nor ever as complacent again.

Week #54’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and one of my photos (which does make things harder not easier, I find) 
Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

Strumpet trumping [Three word week #35]

‘Giraffiti? Giraffiti bollocks more like – you’re having me on!   It’s no more than a spelling mistake by some ignorant wanker.’

They were lying, post-coital, in her bed, gazing up at the high – and highly-ornate – ceiling above them.   He had likened the multiplicity of water stains – mostly  ecru, occasionally eau de nil (though he’d laughed and said the Nile was miles from here) and multi-rimed with ochre shading out to dirty grey – to something he’d seen in some art magazine somewhere, was trying to remember how it had been described. 

She turned her head and looked at his profile.   Better by far than full face, but even that was better than most.   She rolled over and straddled him.

‘Never mind giraffertiti or whatever you said, I think you’re highly videogenic …’

‘Videogenic?   What’s that, some sort of super stud?’

‘Yeah’ she said, covering his mouth with hers.

http://readingbypublight.blogspot.com/2012/03/3-word-week-35.html

I.) ecru - n. A grayish to pale yellow or light grayish-yellowish brown; the color of unbleached linen.
II.) giraffiti - n. - Vandalism spray-painted very, very high. (Source: The Washington Post's Style Invitational, 2005)
III.) videogenic - adj. - Having a physical appearance and exhibiting personal qualities that are deemed highly appealing to video viewers.

'Ignorance, not necessarily bliss'

It's Jules Verne Week over at Thinking Ten; Tuesday's 'Take it away prompt' was Yesterday/Tomorrow I will ...   This was my response:

Tomorrow I will know.
Today I am ignorant.
Suspicious, yes of course, but while I do not know I can convince myself it might not be so, not as has been described.   And despite the rumours, despite what my so-called friends have told me, despite the inaccurate and embarrassed mumblings of my mother, I remain ignorant.
Because having been told the facts, the mechanics, if you like (and whether or not the words used were those from the nursery, a textbook or the gutter it makes no difference) is absolutely no substitute for the reality of  experience.   I may be young but I am not so stupid as to be unaware of that.
And so I hold on to the fact, merely, that tomorrow, in approximately twenty hours’  time, I will know.

Pillow talk [Three word week #34]

“Your s-s-sulkiness is unbecoming, my dear ... I have told you before, s-s-size is most definitely not everything.”   He had turned towards her, lifting himself onto one elbow, the better to make his point.
She turned her head away, averting her face from his steely grey eyes, knowing that he would be even more supercilious were she to tell him that it was not the size of his cock she found so antipathetic – certainly not the most diminutive she’d come across (no pun intended) – so much as his fricative struggles with her name.   
‘Susannah’ was bad enough insofar as whenever preceded by cries of  'Oh' it invariably reminded her of a Negro spiritual, banjoes and coming from Alabama and all that, but when the stuttered sibilance was such that all she could envision was a ravenous chorus of nesting vipers, inevitably all passion sped, leaving her profoundly unsatisfied.

http://readingbypublight.blogspot.com/2012/03/3-word-week-34.html

diminutive –

adj. 1. Extremely small in size; tiny.
2. Grammar Of or being a suffix that indicates smallness or, by semantic extension, qualities such as youth, familiarity, affection, or contempt, as -let in booklet, -kin in lambkin, or -et in nymphet.
n.  1. Grammar A diminutive suffix, word, or name.
2. A very small person or thing.
fricative –

n. 1. A consonant, such as f or s in English, produced by the forcing of breath through a constricted passage. Also called spirant.
adj. Of, relating to, or being a fricative consonant.
unbecoming -

adj. 1. Not appropriate, attractive, or flattering: an unbecoming dress.
2. Not in accord with the standards implied by one's character or position.

Pulling [Three word week]

“Fuckssake” he growled, overly belligerent, one booted foot resting on the gleaming brass rail along the front of the bar, two blue eyes gazing at the notice, writ large in flowing copperplate and hung on a level with the optics.   The black-clad, barely-legal-age Goth behind the bar, metal-festooned face a practice climbing wall for caterpillars, raised her be-ringed eyebrows, blandly enquiring.  

"Is it the banning of eructation, expectoration and all and sundry evacuations you are objecting to, or were you intending to admire my chirography?"
       For the merest fraction of a second his eyes rested on the startling contrast of her pale cleavage before rising again to examine the sturdiness of her shoulders, her washer-woman forearms, the knuckleduster-size silver rings on several of her fingers and the intelligence in her mascara-spikey eyes, as she placed a beermat, the same calligraphic message repeated thereon, on the polished surface of the bar and proceeded to pull the pint of Belhaven he had, with the barest of nods, requested.
       He smiled as he handed over a tenner.   

"Nay, pet, I’m for avoiding velitation at all times.  And have one yersel."

http://readingbypublight.blogspot.com/

I.) chirography (also called cheirography) - n. Penmanship.
1. the penmanship of a person, especially when used in an important document, as in an apostolic letter written and signed by the pope.
2. the art of beautiful penmanship; calligraphy.
II.) eruct - vb. - To belch.
1. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Physiology) to raise (gas and often a small quantity of acid) from the stomach; belch
2. (Earth Sciences / Geological Science) (of a volcano) to pour out (fumes or volcanic matter).
III.) velitation - n. - A dispute or contest; a slight contest; a skirmish.

Death of the Puppetmaster [Book Blurb Friday #52]

Anton Worrall was dead – captured live on national television in the presence of upwards of fifty journalists, one of whom appeared to have fired the fatal bullet – there was no doubt of that. 
And precious little mourning.
But when the autopsy reveals not one but three potential causes of death, and at least two perfectly legal wills are found, one naming hitherto unknown-of children, the strings of his tightly-controlled life began to tangle more than could be thought possible.

Was it the bullet which killed him?   Or the accumulation of arsenic, discovered to have been administered by his mistress?   Or the cyanide pill found under his tongue, possibly crushed at the moment the bullet entered his body?
DI Luke Darbyshere is reliant on more than pathologist’s evidence to unravel this murder, especially when he discovers that his current girlfriend is a beneficiary of a large proportion of Worrall’s estate.

Week #52’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and Lyn Obermoeller’s challenging photograph. Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

Just Bobby and McGee [Book blurb Friday #51]

It wasn’t the Secret Seven, nor the Famous Five.   Not the gang from Swallows and Amazons, and not even three friends or two.   Just him, Bobby, and his dog.
And five weeks of the summer before him, while his parents alternately lay in the sun, backs to each other pretending to read or stood face to red and angry face, shouting rude and horrible things at each other, only stopping when he sidled in.
‘Go and play, love.’ they both said – about the only thing they agreed on.
So he did.
It took three weeks and police forces from three counties to find him.
And what an adventure he had had.


Week #51’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge. Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

Assembly [Three Word Week]

He had seen their like before.  Hungry men, men beleaguered by the harsh words of their swollen-bellied wives, the thin cries of their ailing children.   Men beset by exhaustion, who had given every year of their strength and knew that it was never going to be enough.

He understood, his future once was as theirs had proved to be; his boyhood had after all been spent with them.  

But he had escaped, had known what was needed and had done it, done it all and yea, he had thrived, while they had not.  

He emerged from the doorway, took three paces to the top of the steps, and as the light from the cressets identified him he both heard and saw the winnowed murmur of recognition, of hope pass from the front to the rear of the crowd.    Saw that they regarded him as their demagogue, one who would know what was due to them, would know where to lead them. 

Silence fell.   He raised his voice, and spoke a single word.

‘Tomorrow.’ 

This week's entry for Steve Isaak's 3 word week -
beleaguer  demagogue winnow
definitions to be found at 
http://readingbypublight.blogspot.com/2012/02/3-word-week-32.html

Reusing - is it abusing?

‘Angle-poised fingers ... mouth an acid sine wave.’

Used once, this is a character description, part of a response to prompt #27 for the regrettably and undeservedly under-read MuDSpots 
I liked it when the words came to me, not entirely without effort - such descriptions are not part of my every-day writing - as I rejoice and wallow, soak up and deeply drink of them in others’ writings.    And while I know that the joy of writing (like other things) is to be found in expanding and exercising and finding ever-new combinations, I wonder whether, and if so where and when and how many other times, it is permissible to reuse such felicitous phrases?
My gut feeling is ’Not ever – think again’, especially because I have been irritated at finding repetitions in other writer’s works, have thought it lazy.
But when it’s just a blog-post, and not enough have seen to truly appreciate?

In days of olde ... when knights were absent [Three word week]

Victoria turned from the turret window, from which the pluming dust of the Crusade-bound cavalcade, led by her liege lord in response to the king’s summons, could now barely be seen.   Disbelievingly she regarded what lay on the pewter dish, the canescent globes unappetising in the extreme.   One raised eyebrow was sufficient to permit the waiting varlet to speak.

‘My master asseverated that your chastity could only be assured if you ate these especially selected mushrooms daily – on pain of death I am to make sure.’

Victoria smiled – her lord could hope, but she knew that neither her chastity nor the varlet’s death would be an issue  – unless issue became one instead.

This is my first post for Steve Isaak's three word week challenge http://readingbypublight.blogspot.com/2012/02/3-word-week-31.html

where you will also find definitions of the relevant words:  asseverate, canescent and varlet.

Memories ... memoir ...

I'm a little more than halfway through  Maggie Gee's memoir 'My Animal Life' which has three or four parallels with my own life and which tempts me, as did Margaret Forster's 'Hidden Lives', to attempt to write my own.
As a family historian it ought to be considered essential.   How many times have I rued not having the diaries, which I know were kept, of my grandmother, of her father?   How well I remember the conversation with my father about how we should all write our own biographies.
And how much do the words of my children ring in my ears:  'yes but family history is boring' because I give them facts and not a story.
Reading such memoirs loosens my mind so that I can see the way to do it, so that the words begin to come, to tell my story.
Yet there is what I perceive as danger, as reasons not to.
Just this year I have twice written pieces which describe a barn.   The first was in response to a Six Sentences challenge (and was reposted here on 26th January) and yesterday's Thinking Ten piece, in response to the 'Once in a lifetime' prompt, was partially informed by memories - hints of memories - of that same barn.
Because what happened there is returning to me.  Its effect, seemingly, longer lasting than I ever knew, the event itself buried for some fifty plus years.   It is visual - hence my description of the place, and was more shaming than anything else.   The shame of ignorance, of lack of knowledge.   Not of facts, although they were probably lacking, but of how to behave, to react.   The lack of sense of what I as a person was due, so that when I should have protested I kept quiet.  And stayed quiet.
And whereas I feel justified in saying that I will not allow myself to be disloyal, I cannot say the same when I know it is just embarrassment of that ignorance, of revealing that inadequate person to people who know me now, that prevents me writing it.

Belief misplaced ([Book Blurb Friday #50]

Lovingly reared on fairy tales, all with happy endings, and then when just thirteen discovering the sumptuous language of Angela Carter, Eloise was confident she knew what to expect when she agreed, three years later, to become the concubine of Philip Charterhouse.

But books cannot, as everyone eventually discovers, compensate for lack of experience.   And Eloise had never read the books that might have even partly prepared her for what Philip expected.

Within a summer she knew she had to escape, and would need help to do so, but was Philip’s younger brother Joseph the man to trust, or should she rely on the practical assistance which Ben the stable lad had hinted might be on offer?

Alternatively, was Philip’s now-pregnant wife the one to truly show her the way to freedom?  

Week #50’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and Ashley Ortiz’ fairytale photograph. Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

BAZ ROSE AND ROSE MADIGAN

FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT TWO OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS

CHARACTER SKETCHES FOR BOTH ARE BELOW

Rose Madigan - Baz's description

 He had heard a great deal about her before ever they met.   As soon as she arrived in the city, some three years or so ago now, there had been would-be scurrilous and often bitchy gossip – from blokes – most of whom had tried it on with her and failed to impress, or had actively earned her allegedly considerable wrath, usually for incompetence or for patronising her.   Much of it stemming from jealousy of her reputation, which they refused to admit could be due to talent and hard work.   Having met her, go to know her, he thought ‘feisty,’ as used by the less prejudiced, more literate, was one of the better words to describe her, but one which was insufficient to fully encompass what he admired in her, which was her hard-working professionalism and her tenacity.   And her dislike of playing the feminist card, particularly the two-face, only-when-it-suited version.   What he had not heard was any hint of any other man – or men – in her life;  he doubted she was celibate and guessed she’d raised discretion to a hitherto unheard-of level in the newspaper world.

Waiting at the bar, for the pint of Dark Island she had asked for – he had not known in advance what to order and, having arrived earlier, was already halfway down his pint of the same, impressed that her choice coincided – he watched her reflection in the mirror behind the bar, unseen by her because she was studying a notebook she had pulled from her scruffy leather shoulder bag.   As  with every entrance she made, although he did not think it was intentional, just came naturally, she had come through the double entrance doors of the tartan-carpeted bar with all the energy of a mini-tornado, her thick tawny-coloured hair looking wind-clumped as usual,  salt-rinsed even, as though she had crossed a particularly stormy stretch of ocean to reach here:  incongruous in the centre of the city.  

Her eyes this evening were grey and peaceable, almost matching the jacket she wore, over a plain white cotton top, but he knew that they were capable of flashing a vivid green when angry or especially heated about something.   And when in the throes of sexual  passion no doubt. (He smiled at himself here)   And smiled again, knowing this to be a comparison he would never – probably – tell her of, but at such times – the anger, not the passion – she reminded him of a Tasmanian devil he had once seen in Ballarat zoo, solid-packed with muscle and bad-temper.   She certainly wasn’t skinny, was well fit, in the old-fashioned, conventional sense and he knew that as well as sailing occasionally she climbed and ran regularly.   Rumour had it she boxed too but he hadn’t ever asked about that.  

What she would be like as a wife he could not imagine.   He certainly couldn’t see her as ever being  meek and subservient, and, thinking about it, realised that he didn’t even know the extent of her domestic skills, if any.

Baz Rose - Sunday morning confrontation of newly-ex.

Baz’s appearance, when he eventually answered the door ... unshaven, barefoot and wearing old jeans and a misshapen university sweatshirt, had further pointed up the differences between them.  

His stubble-shadowed unkemptness also exacerbated his undeniable ugliness ...   He was ugly, his features large and over-mobile, surrounded by folds and crevices of flesh which added to the expressiveness of his words but removed all likelihood of him ever being referred to as ‘chisel-featured’.   His near-black curls were abundant and unruly, always over-long, although presumably he did go to the barbers reasonably regularly, and his sideburns hinted at some gypsy past.   (The lack of red-spotted neckerchief created a small desire, at least in some female observers, to place, initially their fingertips in the hollow of his throat.)   His nose had been broken in his youth, ‘more than once’ and his mouth, also over-large, was asymmetric.  

His eyes were his best feature, dark, and shiny as well-oiled olives, habitual merriness indicated by the sunburst of pale lines at the outer corner of each eye, and his every remark was emphasised by surprisingly well-shaped black eyebrows. 

At first sight he could be taken for a taller-than-average gondolier with pugilistic proclivities.  At second sight, but again solely to female observers, he might still suggest gondolier, but the overwhelming impression was of a devastating sexiness, in a bad, guilt-inducing sort of way.  

Susannah Elphinstone lived there [Book Blurb Friday #49]

“Susannah Elphinstone lived there”
He nodded at the house across the valley.   It took less than fifteen seconds for the name to register then Rose Madigan’s grey eyes momentarily flashed with the green light of interest.
Thank God, her brother thought, ever since she had arrived, self-invited (but nevertheless welcome) he had seen she was in desperate need of something to relight the spark of curiosity which had been notably absent and which was undoubtedly linked to the current and unexplained absence of Baz Rose, the most recent and, he’d thought, most important man in her life.
“The notorious Susannah” she said, then her eyes took on another expression, which he could not read, but which made him wish he’d kept his mouth shut.
“That was one of Luke Darbyshere’s rare and inexplicable failures, wasn’t it?”

THIS SIXTH ROSE MADIGAN MYSTERY BRINGS HER CLOSER TO DANGER THAN EVER BEFORE

Week #49’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and Kathy Matthew’s instantly inspirational photograph. Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

The Barn - a writing challenge

November crows in the line of trees behind, nests overcrowded by the loss of one felled prematurely, crashing, crushing through the roof, rendering it beyond repair.    Monochrome, except black with red not white ... the red near brown the colour of dried ... no do not go there.   One end still standing, corner struts supporting despite the sagging centre where the shelter is no more, reduced to emptiness, no longer able to provide its once-essential role.  
Corrugated ridged and dotted tracer lines of blacker circled holes where nails had once held things together, now shown to have begun the breakdown, caused the sapping of inherent strength, allowed the red-edged crumbling to begin.   Aching jagged gaping where violent rust has torn away what once was bright and new, unmarked, was whole and made to last far longer than just nineteen years and twenty-seven days.
Thirty-seven weeks before those nineteen years and twenty-seven days a sweeter-smelling place  - new hay and striped inside with dust mote beams, shadow-interrupted by the nesting swallows, darker corners sought and found and stifled laughter, the future mirage-bright.


[This is my response to a challenge by Bill Latham and Six Sentences and is an exercise from The Art of Fiction by John Gardner, page 37. The challenge is: "Describe a barn as seen by a man whose son has just been killed in a war. Do not mention the son, or war, or death. Do not mention the man who does the seeing." And, as always, only six sentence entries, please. The winner will receive the admiration of starving artists everywhere.]

Over and out - [Book Blurb Friday #47]

Morgan York, after fifteen years as a private investigator in the city of Bath had promised to retire at the end of the year.

It was a promise he had every intention of keeping until, on the 21st of December, he was visited by Annis James, a twenty-two-year-old PhD student.   Annis told him she was the latest in a long line of students whose research was being appropriated by head of department Professor Rabelais.   Inadvisedly challenging him at a department dinner, she had been overhead by the Dean and, infuriated, Rabelais  vowed to not only ruin her reputation but also threatened her life.  

Twelve years ago Rabelais had seduced and then abandoned Morgan York’s daughter.   York had long wanted to discredit him and was not going to turn the opportunity down now, regardless of the fact that Rabelais had, just the night before, phoned to reiterate his original death threat.

Week #47’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and Sioux Roslwski’s  photograph. Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

Solstice sacrifice [Book blurb #46]

Two days into what turned out to be the Madigan family’s final family holiday sixteen-year-old Rose is told by a malicious shop-keeper that the daughter of the family who rented their holiday cottage a year ago disappeared under mysterious circumstances.  

Against a background of shortly-to-be-divorced parents and soon-to-leave-home brothers, the weather too bad for climbing, Rose takes refuge in investigation and uncovers not only the possibility of sacrifice by a local, deeply secretive pseudo-religious cult centred on the nearby Neolithic stone circle, but a playboy yachtsman whose appetite for illicit drugs and nubile crew members has already brought him to the attention of HM Customs and Excise.

And when Magnus, son of the owner of the local pub, who has been helping her, tries to call a halt, Rose becomes even more determined to solve the mystery, refusing to believe that she might become a victim herself.

Week #46’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and Joseph Claro’s innocent photograph. Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

NaNoWriMo2011 - five weeks on

A friend, questioning my reasons for absence from Six Sentences ("I am impressed that you are still novelling") surprised me because it really is NOT possible to write a novel in a month, and I knew that 'Not wanted on Voyage' would take much longer than that to properly complete.

For three of those five weeks (two were taken up, most enjoyably, with friends and family) I've been editing what was already written and trying to fill in the scamped bits which were necessary to reach 'The End' by November 30th.   Harder than writing from scratch in many ways, and the more it grows the harder it gets and the more apparent the holes in it.  

With a cast of around thirty-five, a whole shoal of red herrings and three, four, five attempted murders, it's more like plate-juggling.   It took two days to write a half-hour episode of confrontation simply because I couldn't keep in my head how many policemen there were supposed to be in the room, and had to keep practising on myself to understand how to describe how someone could be held tight, walked backwards, with a knife held to their throat ...

   And the word total has grown only 10K from the 78K I ended on, but there is still more to write as well as more to prune.   Not that I'm not enjoying it, just it's mind-consuming, and likely to be so for a few months yet.

Number puzzle

Northings and eastings.   That was what they looked like.  

Dad had told him about those last summer, on holiday in Suffolk, when they were looking at one of those pink Ordnance Survey maps, number 156 for Saxmundham.  

That summer they’d spent a lot of time doing a sort of I-spy with the symbols in the key – ticking off the different sort of woods, coniferous and mixed, the bridges and embankments along railways, quarries and pylons, and all the stuff on the little picture with all the water features.   Dad had made time to find as many as possible.   Mum had kept asking about the churches – why did they not have those any more, they used to have steeples, and towers and things she said.

But this board couldn’t be a grid reference, the numbers were useless without a two-letter grid square reference.   Looked more like telephone numbers or something.   Pretty badly written though,   pretty inconvenient too, just painted, and with a bit of a scraggy brush, onto a piece of old ply.   Couldn’t sensibly go carrying a piece of ply around, not when it was ten times the size of a mobile.   And why the stripes?   They had to’ve been painted in first.

Dad would have been able to tell him, he was sure.   Mum wouldn’t know, and wouldn’t care, would ask why he was wasting his time asking questions without answers.  If he knew the answer he wouldn't ask the question would he? She was doing that all the time now Dad had gone.   And Scotland was too far to see Dad every week like he’d promised. He’d also promised Disneyland if he wanted next holiday, but really he just wanted to go back to Saxmundham.   Back to last year. 

[This was inspired by this week's Thinking Ten ' Canvas prompt]

Persuading Alicia [Book Blurb Friday #45]

Tobias, prematurely inheriting the title of Duke of Tettleburgh and thereby becoming responsible for maintaining the livelihood of sixty full-time estate staff, urgently needed a wife.  
Discussing the problem with Clumberpatch, his estate manager, a plan was hatched and rules drawn up for a  Winter Selection Ball to which a dozen well-bred girls from the best families would be invited and at which they would undergo a series of tests and competitions to identify the most suitable.
Unbeknown to Tobias, however, was the fact that Clumberpatch had a daughter who was both pretty and practical and who would make a most admirable wife.   Mr and Mrs Clumberpatch laid plans to ensure that Alicia attended and that she would either beat every other candidate on merit or they would fail miserably by some trickery or other.
But they forgot to ask Alicia what she wanted.

Week #45’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and Tammy Goodsell’s  beautiful photograph. Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html