MARY'S BIT or STOMP A REED'S HERO

A favourite silly pastime is playing with anagrams, and needless to say the Web offers a fair number of sites wherein visitors may enter "well known words or phrases" -- as the announcer used to solemnly intone when introducing Twenty Questions in the days of steam radio -- and receive them back rearranged into anagrams. Given the circumstances, you will not be surprised to hear I but lately visited one such page at http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html

With occasional re-arrangement of word order as necessary, I uncovered a few apt phrases in the yard-and-a-half long word-lists generated by words related to John's saga.

Take for example Emperor Justinian. His name and title metamphosed into JOINT RUNS A EMPIRE. Ungrammatical it may be, yet a number of historians agree that Theodora co-ruled in all but name. And speaking of John's least favourite person, the second part of the header for this burst of linguistic exuberance is a most fitting anagram for Empress Theodora. So is HADES POEM ROSTER, a suggestive phrase that immediately brings to mind Crinagoras, a whiny court poet who makes his first appearance in Fivefer.

Since we're on the subject I shall devote a few lines to Five For Silver. Set during the Justinianic plague of 542, John's investigation begins when his elderly servant Peter announces he's had a visit from an angel with a message concerning Gregory, an old army friend. It transpires Gregory has indeed been murdered, but then John discovers that Gregory was not what Peter thought he was...

In the course of his investigation John interviews people ranging from churchmen to lawyers to bear trainers and booksellers. There's also a holy fool who outrages Constantinople by such dreadful antics as dancing with the dead -- and there are many such, since thousands are dying daily in the city -- not to mention invading the imperial baths while Theodora is splashing about.

Other characters we introduce include Aristotle, dealer in dubious antiquities, and Sylvanus, keeper of oracles for a wealthy importer. However, sad to say, none of the latter's charges happened to be among those wonderful examples made by Greek smiths, whose oracular creations (according to William Butler Yeats' Sailing To Byzantium at least) sat on golden boughs and sang of events present, past, or future. Otherwise John's task would have been a lot easier!

NECESSARY EVIL or BSP TICKER

NEWS OF JOHN or FIVEFER FLAPS FORTH IN FEBRUARY

The news you'll now hear
Is that in February next year
Fivefer will appear

Crinagoras would be proud of us!

CURRYING FAVOR or IS THERE MAYHEM STILL FOR TEA?

EAVESDROPPING ON AUTHORS or THE PPP BLOG

This instant posting method of web activity struck Eric as so interesting that he decided to start a blog of his own, devoted to material that wouldn't quite fit into the PPP blog. There will be thoughts about writing, of course, but also other short, random musings, and interesting links he happens across. It's a bit of an experiment which may or may not continue, but for now readers can check it out at http://groggyblog.blogspot.com

AUTHOR FREEBIES or OFFERS YOU CAN HARDLY REFUSE

JOHN IN ROME or FINGERING THE MURDERER

ERIC'S BIT or WE ALL HAVE THE RAW MATERIAL

During the years Mary and I have been working together, I've learned that writing professionally, for an audience, is hard. In order words, it is just like anything else one might do professionally. This wouldn't be much of a revelation, except that so many people appear to be convinced that the best writing is easy to do, being simply the result of sheer inspiration or perhaps the innate superiority of the author's sensibilities. I've never subscribed to the "author as a special person" school of thought. Writers don't feel more deeply than anyone else. They don't have any particularly unique view of the world. Every person has a unique view, after all. How could it be otherwise?

Perhaps this is one reason I am leery of book signings and such. I am not an interesting person. Whatever I have to offer is contained in the books and short stories on which Mary and I have collaborated. I'm not that fabulous beast known as "the author," but merely someone who writes and hopes to continue to improve at the job.

Writing can feel like magic at times, such as when we toss around plot ideas and twists and turns start to appear as if from nowhere, or when characters we have cobbled together suddenly come to life and surprise us by their words or actions. However, we aren't performing authorial legerdemain. We are just allowing our thoughts free rein, something most of us aren't allowed to do much in our every day jobs. After all, what would my legal editors say were I to playfully make up a lot of amusing new laws for my next jurisprudence article?

Making up stories is one thing, but contriving for readers to also be able to join in and enjoy these fictions is something else. That's where the labor comes in. It's necessary to ferret out overused phrases, passive voice (I'm forever falling into the passive voice), and duplicated words, not to mention plugging an occasional hole in the plot. No matter how much I write, I still find myself occasionally employing empty adjectives. Yes, really, I actually do! Even after editorial comment and revision, the finished manuscript is never perfect, or anywhere near, but it is much better. At times I vow I will never again embark on such a project, but somehow I always do.

AND FINALLY

It wasn't just celebrated in rural areas because even though she lived in the city they took a tin of peas or peaches to church for the harvest festival service. These offerings were lined up on the stone window bays interspersed with an occasional loaf of bred or even on one unforgettable occasion a small sheaf of corn. After the service, the edibles were distributed to the less well-off, a charitable effort that naturally led to jokes about most of the local congregation getting their donated tins back.

There was not much tree colour to be seen there in October, since apart from a park several blocks away and a flattened, grassed-over tip about the same distance in the other direction, the only greenery close by was in the cemetery at the top of the street or on various bomb sites left for years after the war. The latter became unofficial rubbish dumps, which in summer displayed vivid yellow and red patches of coltsfoot, dandelion, and rosebay willow herb, but by October rusty bed frames, wheel-less prams, old sinks, discarded paint tins, and the like would again emerge from the undergrowth as these plants died away and winter began its journey down Scotswood Road.

The imminent advent of winter was also heralded when folk started to routinely get up to intricate, feathery patterns of frosty branches covering the insides of windows. These beautiful creations of Jack Frost also reminded the forgetful that it was time to get coal stocks replenished for the winter months. Thus you might say winter was heralded in black and white, and appropriately more black and white will come your way on December l5 when the next edition of Orphan Scrivener trundles into view.

Best wishes,
Mary and Eric
who invite you to visit their home page, which hangs out on the virtual washing line that is the aether at

http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/