Chapter 4 - The Fayre - Greg Rochlin (Aus)

Guest author, Greg Rochlin, writes chapter 4 of 'The Fayre,' one of four serials currently running on The Story Mint. If you want to read the rest of this serial so far or any of the current or past serials just click on the link below then go to Serials and enjoy.

www.thestorymint.com                                                                                                                                                                

"Brian,” Rose said, with a colourless sort of voice.

“What?” I asked, still attending to the leg of the stall. I could see Cal chatting to Norman Croft, who was dressed in a tight-fitting short black jacket and a bowler hat. Marg his wife was wearing a rather ridiculous frilly bonnet.

“Brian Coleman, your nephew.” I stood up slowly, the tack-hammer still in my hand, and followed Rose’s hard gaze.

There he was indeed, over the other side of the Green, in conversation with Vicar Johnson, and looking as casual as you please. As before, a suede jacket and casual slacks. The same black hair falling over one eye, the wide face with a boyish fragility. Five years older, but with the same cockiness, as I could see from fifty yards away.

The image of the ceramic statuette came before my eyes. An heirloom from my grandfather, and from his grandfather before him.

He had been twenty-six at the time we accepted him into our house. He had been a lost soul, needing a steady base for a while. His mother, Jenny, with whom I am on very good terms, lives in Devon. Brian had had an unhappy affair with a girl from Hamburg, and had dropped out of his studies in mediaeval history. We suggested he stay with us for a while, until he could get it together.

“Well I’m damned,” I said turning to Rose. “What an absolute nerve, after what he did. And after all we did for him.”

I had tried to get him involved in the business, and he had quickly become adept at cleaning a carburettor, but had said after a week it was not for him. He had then surprisingly started spending most of his time in our local library. It seems it has a collection of historical books.

Rose had by this time retrieved the box and was finishing laying out the table.

“Well,” she said without looking up, “are you going to go and ask him about it.”

The white ceramic statue. A shepherd at the feet of a shepherdess, with shrubs and flowers.  We had had to take it out of its case, and he would stare at it for an hour at a time. I think he would have liked to take it to bed with him.  So when he shot off to Paris, and it was missing, it was clear as day he had it. Our statue!

And here he was, in all his brashness, suddenly standing before me.

“Hello Jack, how are you?  Hello Rose.”  The same easy smile. I shook his hand, perfunctorily.

“So when did you get in,” I said shortly.

“Just yesterday. Staying at the Bull and Bear.”

There was something otherworldly about his eyes, and a stillness in the air. Suddenly I had a premonition. “Was Brian’s arrival connected somehow with the white hawk?” I pondered. “Is that ceramic statuette somehow involved with all that happened this morning?”

Greg Rochlin (AUS)  copyright  gprochlin

A hint of historical influence; perhaps something medieval. Here comes a premonition and perhaps a dark secret from the village's 17th century past. Who knows but Greg has planted the seeds of something that could be sinister and ghostly. This whole chapter is to do with setting and getting into the 'meat' of the story. The last paragraph certainly gives us a clue and leaves the next author the opportunity to lay bare the bones of the story. Nice work, Greg.

If you would like to submit an article, short story, or a sample of your work on this site, please contact me at ray@raystoneauthor.com and send your submission via an attachment. Thank you for your support.

Caleb Pirtle - A novel that's written by a poet and has language that's as beautiful as the plot is intriguing 

http://www.amazon.com/Isias-Secret-Ray-Stone-ebook/dp/B00FCRGON8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1384027074&sr=1-1&keywords=isia%27s+secret

Tea Break Story - Ray Stone

©I watched the big Georgian house on the corner of Marcus and 22nd street. Number 3275 was in darkness. The upstairs window panes reflected dancing orange light from a street lamp masked by two large Mountain Ashes waving furiously in the gusty wind. A looping telephone cable slapped rhythmically against the flagpole in the front garden and in the middle of the driveway a rolled newspaper in a polythene sheath, that day’s headline still unread, slid to a halt in a large puddle.

“Say Claude; don’t forget to put the trash at the end of the drive. You know what them guys are like. They’ll tip shit all over the lawn you don’t put it at the end of the drive.”

A woman’s distinctive baritone voice, rising above the noisy elements, came from a house down the street a-ways. I turned my head and watched a small black guy waddle down his driveway and dump a couple of trash bags on the sidewalk, shaking his hand as though dismissing the irritating voice. He turned to face the direction the order came from.

“Missus, you better shut that mouth of yours,” he shouted, “or I swear I’m gonna’ get em to take you away too.”

I pulled the hood closer around my head and looked down at my feet where a piece of paper had wrapped itself around one foot and flapped madly in the wind. I reached down and picked the paper up. It was an official auction notice for the sale of 3275 22nd street. The county was selling the house against unpaid property tax. I crumpled the notice up and threw it away, smiling.

It was damn cold. My eyes watered and my nose and ears stung. Rain and sleet threatened but that wouldn’t be until the morning. For the time being, the gusty wind was playing havoc with anything that moved, whistling through trees and rattling windows as the people of Milford Heights began to sleep through a restless night.

                                                              ********

A fluorescent buzzed and flickered in the middle of the restaurant ceiling. I propped the Post up against the sugar shaker and read the advert a second time while forking fried egg and grits. Above the front counter chatter, the TV, and noisy A/C unit in the corner of the diner a soft southern voice sounded in my ear.

“You want more coffee, honey bee?”

Without looking up I pointed my fork at the mug. An anonymous hand sporting two large rings and a silver charm bracelet dangling from the wrist appeared in front of me. As the coffee pot was tipped, the bracelet clacked against the glass. The aroma was strong and inviting. Wiping my mouth on a napkin, I sipped the coffee before deciding to make a call to the number listed and apply for the job.

The advert didn’t say too much except it was a one off job and paid five hundred bucks. Only a strong young guy need apply. Out of work for a year since the mill closed down and with no other prospects, I wanted in.

Five minutes later I walked across the dirty lot outside Denny’s to the telephone stand. I put my hand to one ear as an eighteen wheeler spewing diesel fumes passed close by along highway 101. Coughing on the fumes, I placed a quarter in the slot and stabbed the number on the worn keypad. The line was dead for a few seconds and then I heard the far off gentle ring tone. There was a click. A female voice I guessed well into old age answered.

“You ring about the job?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“You see the inside of a cell?”

“No ma’am.”

“Single?”

“Yes ma’am.”

About twenty questions later she surprised me and said I had the job and to expect a letter in the post containing instructions on what she needed doing. She didn’t want to tell me what the job was about over the phone and the details I should keep to myself. Half the money was included inside the letter and the other half wired on completion of the job.

I kept thinking about her last question which intrigued me. Would I like to be famous and could I keep a secret? I guessed she might be a bit cranky and put it out of my mind. She was certainly trusting, sending half the money although despite that, her cracked shrill voice came over stern – like a school mistress.

The address I gave the woman was a flop on the outskirts of Milford owned by ‘Smitty’, an old friend of mine from Nam. He’d been divorced several years and let me crash out for a few months. Money was scarce so we ate whenever we got really hungry but smoked and drank most days.

Three days later the letter arrived and the money with it. The instructions were clear and concise but I wondered what her reasons were for doing such a thing. I’d find out about her reasons in the newspapers later, she wrote. I thought about it for a while and figured I could walk away with the two hundred and fifty bucks but something besides the rest of the money made me decide I’d go through with the job. Maybe it was because I was dealing with a lady, who knows.

I had plenty of time to do the job so I got Smitty to walk across town with me to the smarter suburb where the money lived.

The area was beautiful; trimmed hedges and manicured lawns that sloped down to the edge of clean sidewalks free of weeds poking out of cracked pavements. It smelled nice too.

My instructions said no-one was at home and after twelve at night the whole street was asleep. Residents here were middle to old age; retired couples, their educated kids all married and gone to work for Bill Gates. I found the address and took a good look at the house. The driveway and front garden was as she had described it.

‘Go onto the driveway and cut across the lawn. The trees will hide you until you reach the side entrance. The door has a glass panel to the top and this is the way in. There is no burglar alarm.’

The following day I had her shopping list with me and bought the items listed one at a time from different shops and paid cash. When I got back to Smitty’s I sat in his garage for an hour shaping a small hollow in one side of the balsa wood block and preparing the rest of the materials. I sat thinking about something else the old lady had said; that if all went well she would recommend me to friends. It was a strange remark to say the least but hell, five hundred bucks not only bought my agreement to accept the job but my silence too without trying to understand her motives.

‘It glows for as long as you want, depending on the length of the fuse cord. The tip smoulders red. When the fuse burns down to the top edge of the ping pong ball stuck in the balsa wood, it drops down inside the hole and into the lighter fluid. For a few seconds the light plastic ball will get brighter and brighter until melting plastic allows the burning liquid to spread across the balsa wood.’

All this she explained in the neatly handwritten instructions.

‘The balsa wood burns easily and ignites the pile of crumpled paper you have placed on the floor beneath the window. Make sure you open it a crack. As the fire from the paper spreads, the draft from the window will fan the flames which will then ignite the curtains. Setting everything up at the back in the living room will hide the fire until it is too late.’

                                                                     ********

‘By now the paper should be alight,’ I thought. ‘Another couple of minutes and the room will be engulfed.’

It was five minutes before I saw a few red sparks spiralling almost sideways from the rear of the house. I shivered and walked to the end of Marcus and turned right into McDonalds before I heard the wail of a siren.

The papers quoted the fire chief the following day. The house burned to the ground and nothing indicated arson. Probable cause of fire, an electrical fault.

Two days later Smitty woke me. “You got mail,” he called. “Get your arse down here; it looks like Fargo sent you some dough.”

Sure enough it was and with it another letter from a PO Box in Texas.

‘As my apprentice you succeeded admirably and I want to congratulate you. Should you decide to make this your new career please ring the enclosed telephone number for your next job. I will contact you as each new client contacts me.

Yours, Firefly.

A 'Word' in your ear

Editing  - The Wrong Message

I will keep this short and sweet. Every writer, when looking to publish, should be edited. Unfortunately not everyone can afford an editor and even when they can, the chances of getting to a break-even point financially are pretty slim. For those who cannot format or design an eye catching cover the costs go on and on. It is a slog but most of us either pay up or learn very quickly.

So I get very annoyed when I see adverts from so called experts telling us that the only way to success is through the many services they have to offer at affordable fees designed especially for your budget. What a load of rubbish Their services are not as good as they say they are and the fees are outrageous. I would love to hear from anyone who has fallen foul of these companies so I can post their experiences here to warn others. We work hard at our craft for the love of writing – not to line some unscrupulous dick head entrepreneur’s pockets.

My advice is to read other writers blogs, especially writers with several publications to their name. A lot of them offer very reasonable services to boost their income and they provide excellent service. They know what the writer is looking for and appreciate there is a budget.

Here’s one writer and editor I would recommend. Apart from providing great service she has also given me advice and there is nothing like talking and listening to advice from someone who cares about writing.

CEO of The Story Mint - Suraya Dewing - www.thestorymint.com

Want to say something?  Write to me at ray@raystoneauthor.com and let me know what you think.

A Book for the Tool Box

The actual publication of a book is the end product of two to three years hard work by an author and an editor/proof reader and a publisher. During the writing process an author needs advice and practical help on a wide variety of subjects before he or she gets to the point where an edit is required.

Planning and creating a plot, characterisation and dress, scene settings, period, tense, genre, etc. etc. Through each of these planning stages the writer needs information and advice and where to get it. It may take as long as a year to gather and make notes to produce a scene by scene synopsis; a building block from which the story plot takes shape in the author’s mind as he or she starts to write.

Each book reviewed has been selected with one purpose in mind. Keep everything simple and easy to understand.

Book Description from Amazon             Author - Noah Lukeman

Release date: January 20, 2000 | ISBN-10: 068485743X | ISBN-13: 978-0684857435 0

IF YOU'RE TIRED OF REJECTION, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU.

Whether you are a novice writer or a veteran who has already had your work published, rejection is often a frustrating reality. Literary agents and editors receive and reject hundreds of manuscripts each month. While it's the job of these publishing professionals to be discriminating, it's the job of the writer to produce a manuscript that immediately stands out among the vast competition. And those outstanding qualities, says New York literary agent Noah Lukeman, have to be apparent from the first five pages.

The First Five Pages reveals the necessary elements of good writing, whether it be fiction, nonfiction, journalism, or poetry, and points out errors to be avoided, such as

* A weak opening hook

* Overuse of adjectives and adverbs

* Flat or forced metaphors or similes

* Melodramatic, commonplace or confusing dialogue

* Undeveloped characterizations and lifeless settings

* Uneven pacing and lack of progression

With exercises at the end of each chapter, this invaluable reference will allow novelists, journalists, poets and screenwriters alike to improve their technique as they learn to eliminate even the most subtle mistakes that are cause for rejection. The First Five Pages will help writers at every stage take their art to a higher -- and more successful – level

Amazon print - $11.89 – also available on Kindle

I have this book sitting on my desk next to the dictionary. It is the only reference book I have nearly worn out. No matter whether you are a seasoned writer or a novice, this book should be on your desk.

Highly recommended

http://www.amazon.com/First-Five-Pages-Writers-Rejection/dp/068485743X/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395936333&sr=1-1&keywords=the+first+five+pages

Follow the serial - these serials are written by authors who follow one another to write the chapters. It is great fun and a great mix of experience and creativity.   

Here is the preface for The Choir. Click on the link below, click on the serial page of The Story Mint. Now scroll down the serial list and choose this or another serial to follow.

The Choir - from The Story Mint writers.

This preface was written by Ken Burns NZ

Being in a choir is the same as being on a soccer team.  The men who sing baritone are in defence. They can see what is coming their way. Baritones have the most fun after drinking and tell loads of jokes.  Tenor is midfield, so are anxious and annoying. Tenors just want a bit of everything. They are the power players. Altos are on the wing and female.  That is the periphery, so they provide the bawdiest jokes to get attention. Sopranos are in a world on their own, like any striker.  Highly strung and attention seeking when everything goes well. Kiri Te Kanawa is the most vivid example.

Frank knows this from his long time friend, Kathy, who invited him into her choir social circle. They sing gospel, R&B and pop.  He’s divorced and has no life outside of fire fighting.  Choir, like sport, is a great equaliser for social networking.  Frank only sees in himself an ability to sing in the shower but found being in a group with people of different abilities gives him more confidence to take on the public persona of a performer.

The choir’s name is, “Come as you Are”.  This is based on a Nirvana song from the ground breaking album “Nevermind.”  The final year’s performance will be at the children’s hospital to raise the spirits of those in need and their families.

Kathy has always been a doer not a talker about getting things done.  The debate about an end of year gig just got her into action.  Her everyday philosophy of “less talk, just do it” made her contact the hospital via email.   The children’s ward is more than happy to let “Come as you Are” bring their joy.  This is a location Frank is looking forward to.  He is a big fan of children and families but a bigger fan of women in uniform: like nurses.  Nurses are also great fans of fire-fighters.

The choir practices every second Monday with the location shared around by the members’ houses.  Kathy loves being in someone else’s place, looking at how they live and what they have for everyday life.  Today it is Frank’s turn.  Never anxious about keeping a tidy house, Frank feels a bit pressured while doing the vacuuming and dusting.  Cleaning the toilet is his least favourite activity but he knows he has to do it for Ruth, who runs the choir.

Never one to operate by committee, Ruth loves to be in charge and hates being challenged.  As a soprano, she can sing well but is a bit mental like the other highly strung singers.

Frank puts wine glasses on the table next to the water jug and tumblers.

There is an almighty crash as his house shakes.  Fifteen  seconds later, Ruth barges into the lounge, takes Frank by the shoulders and with her very beery breathe says

“I’ve just smashed into the back of your car. I’ve dodged an alcohol breath testing bus just around the corner.”

By Ken Burns NZ (Writers: . Cocobaby 2. Ken Burns  3.  roseyn 4. Blogcrossroads 5.Ray Stone  6. Ayjay  7. Iliena Bosu  8.  Suraya Dewing)

Start reading

:http://www.thestorymint.com/serials/choir#sthash.Im6YqKQg.dpuf

THE WORD

Infix    Audio Pronunciation\IN-fiks\

DEFINITION

 noun

 : a derivational or inflectional affix appearing in the body of a word

 EXAMPLES

The Philippine language of Tagalog adds infixes such as "-um-" and "-su-" to verbs to convey different tenses and voices.

 "As Mark Peters writes, [The Simpsons character Ned] Flanders is 'hyper-holy,' and his infixes sanctify a typically profane process. He is also gratingly cheerful … and diddly perfectly conveys his sunny attitude: murder and dilemma sound a lot less forbidding when infixed as murdiddlyurder and dididdlyemma…." — From Michael Adams' 2009 book Slang: The People’s Poetry

DID YOU KNOW?

Like prefixes and suffixes, infixes are part of the general class of affixes ("sounds or letters attached to or inserted within a word to produce a derivative word or an inflectional form"). Infixes are relatively rare in English, but you can find them in the plural forms of some words. For example, "cupful," "spoonful," and "passerby" can be pluralized as "cupsful," "spoonsful," and "passersby," using "s" as an infix. Another example is the insertion of an (often offensive) intensifier into a word, as in "fan-freakin'-tastic." Such whole-word insertions are sometimes called "infixes," though this phenomenon is more traditionally known as "tmesis."

The tourists are back

Yes, the sun is out and the warm weather is turning once again to the upper 70's - low 80's. I have a spot marked out on the balcony where I know the breeze will miss me and the sun will not get in my eyes. I have the table and chairs ready and a power socket close by for the computer and a fan. Writing is a lonely vocation but that should not mean we do not enjoy the scenery or the comfort of Scotch and ice on a balmy afternoon while being creative. For the next few months the island will echo to the laughter and late night nightclubs (Elvis impersonators included) and the hoot of the small electric train engines that tow carriages of tourists around the town. Just off the shoreline, fishing boats will be gathering nets and filling the holds of factory ships taking baby Tuna back to Japan. Summer here is a busy period that keeps the Republic's treasury topped up with some of the island's main source of revenue. All in all this si a wonderful little place to live and I wish we could use it as a template for the rest of the world. Malta, despite your growing pains within the EU and all the faults you have with bureaucracy, I love you.

For submissions of articles or fiction, please contact ray@raystoneauthor.com

As someone who likes writing I have missed out on one of the most important pursuits I should have been following - that of running a blog. I did have one until two years ago and then decided I should concentrate on writing my books and bowing and scraping to the social media, not that there's anything wrong in that but a blog is where I meet the serious readers and writers who want to talk about books and publishing. So with that in mind, I hope I will tweak readers curiosity with the following and hope to attract an audience with whom I can interact.
Each week I will be posting a review on what I call a 'work' book; an aid to one or several aspects of creative writing for all writers. (with a link)
Each week there will be a chance to increase your word power - a word with meaning and its historical background.
Each week I'll be looking at some aspect of the publishing world that has got me all annoyed or pleased.
Each week I will be commenting on my own experiences here on Malta with a slant to writing in general.
Each week I will be posting another writer's work on here. Maybe a short story or an excerpt from ongoing or finished work - published or not.
Each week you are invited to submit an article about anything you wish as long as it has something to do with our main theme - writing or creating a group of like minded readers and writers who want to be part of a literary group.

There are no rules - no fees - no age limits. To submit any work or article please contact me at ray@raystoneauthor.com  All of your work should be assigned the copyright symbol by you which will appear with your work or article. There is a comment box at the bottom of each page and you are encouraged to use this for comment on anything published there.

Submission guidelines - any article or piece of work or short story should be sent as an attachment in Word etc. and the same for any photo (small) and this includes a small shot of yourself.
There will be no editing and I promise I will post as is so make sure you submit your very best effort.

I have a voluntary job with The Story Mint  www.thestorymint.com as the publishing manager and will also be advertising our latest serial chapters with links so that you can follow the stories (four ongoing at the moment). FREE membership.

This is not a critiquing or publishing blog and all submissions are posted to help and encourage all writers to be creative while improving their skills through advice and discussion with fellow writers.

If any individual wishes to know about editing, formatting, cover design, publishing in print, or proof reading - get in touch as I have a mass of information on services that I recommend.

I do hope to hear from some of you soon. Thank you for your support.

RAY STONE

 ray@raystoneauthor.com

www.RayStoneAuthor.com

Please visit my new Facebook page at www.fb.com/raystoneauthorpage
http://xeeme.com/TwistedWire
http://about.me/ray.stone
http://raystoneauthor.blogspot.com/

It has been some time since I wrote a blog and at this moment I wish I had kept things going on my first blog site. Obsessed with the social media merry go round, I dismissed the blog in favor of thousands of FB, Linked In, and Twitters out there who were just waiting to snap me up. Now I have two books published and a third and fourth on the way, I am returning to the audience who actually gives a damn about my work; those who read and are interested in literature. Hopefully, in the fullness of time, they may become interested in me.
I won't dwell on my achievements but my two novels, both thrillers - The Trojan Towers and Isia's Secret - are published on Kindle etc and in print. My third, Twisted Wire, is almost finished and is number two in a trilogy series. Before I write the third of the trilogy I will publish Amber, Amber on the Wall, already written but unedited. There, that's it and now for the main purpose of this blog.
I want to talk to other authors and welcome comments about this blogs content which will include the social side of my life now I have retired to Malta. This is a wonderful place to write and with a trip to the USA every four years and a few European breaks in-between, I am sure there will be lots to talk about and discuss. I intend to write a piece once a week and post other items I have posted elsewhere if they are of interest.
I look forward to your company and seeing your name as a follower. Ciao, ciao.