THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER ISSUE # TWENTY-EIGHT l5 AUGUST 2004

We're writing this newsletter as the dog days of summer go snuffling mournfully off over the horizon until next year. And a good job too. The two months since we last hounded our subscribers have been so wet and humid that trees, lawns and bushes -- usually crisped to an attractive toasty brown by this time of the year -- remain a brilliant Irish green, the sight of which suggests house windows have been mysteriously fitted with green filters overnight.

Speaking of turning green, doubtless readers are feeling somewhat emerald about the gills at the sight of this latest issue arriving at their email in-box. At least the editorial staff of Orphan Scrivener aren't as bad as those "concocters of newsletters" whom Chamber's Book of Days (l879) described as a "mob of unscrupulous scribblers". And just as well given the outraged writer went on to remark that said scribblers as well as ballad-singers (apparently given to uttering political pasquinades) annoyed the government no end, while sentences to pillory or jail had done no good.

Political the Scrivener is not, but as for pasquinades, since we have been known to indulge in a lampoon or two even if we don't go so far (literally) as to paste them on Pasquino's statue in Rome, perhaps our best plan would be to change the subject entirely.

So we shall.

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ERIC'S BIT or BATTING IDEAS AROUND

WARNING: HEREIN THERE BE SPOILERS

I don’t like to write about writing.

In my opinion, a lot of what’s written about writing doesn’t mean anything. Most criticism is just personal opinion disguised as science. You’ll never convince me that there’s any objective measure of something like a "wooden character” when, demonstrably, one reader’s puppet is another’s real live boy.

Besides, for me, writing mostly means telling stories and what can you say about making up stories? There are some technical tricks, of course, but a recitation of such stuff is yawn-inducing.

Mary and I collaborate, so some of what happens in our books is her idea and some is mine. I’m not exactly sure how my story ideas occur to me. Mostly they arise from the characters and whatever research I’m doing while I’m working on a chapter.

For example, in Five For Silver there is a scene in which a holy fool quite unexpectedly visits Theodora at the private baths in the palace. I had seen a photograph of a well preserved Roman bath, a circular pool in a small domed room. The dome had an opening in the middle to let in light and allow steam to escape. Hmmmm. Hole overhead, bath below. If you’ve already got a half-crazed, wild fool in your story you just know he’s not going to be able to resist an opening like that.

Who could he drop in on? Well, since the fool aims for the maximum outrage and there’s an empress in the book, the answer was obvious. As for visualizing a weird figure in billowing costume plummeting down, that wasn’t much of a reach for someone whose favorite comic book hero was Batman.

But don’t suppose all my influences are quite so low-brow. When I was wondering what Theodora might be doing before her visitor arrived, I recalled the Lawrence Alma-Tadema painting of two Roman women splashing each other in a bath, one of those classic Victorian excuses to display naked women. Anyway, when I thought about Theodora splashing a couple of court ladies, that led to a little byplay between the characters because considering the empress’ temperament, if she’s urging you to splash her, perhaps you'd think twice.

Because Mary and I are typically writing different parts of a book simultaneously, we work from an outline to make sure we’re not getting in each other’s way. These outlines are not all that detailed. For instance, the outline for Chapter 20 of Four For a Boy begins:

"John and Felix pass an uncomfortable and cold night."

We know already they have been sent out into the streets by the Prefect, supposedly to lie in wait for malefactors. As it turns out they are attacked at dawn, but in between there needs to be a little about passing the night.

My first thought was they could hide in an alley. There are lots of dank, dark, and dangerous alleys in our books. According to your point of view, they are either cliches or repeated images fraught with meaning about the nature of John’s time. Where else would you hide to watch the main street anyway? Not that an alley, in itself, offers much concealment. The Byzantines didn’t have dumpsters, so how about a heap of refuse behind which you can hunker down? That’s certainly uncomfortable. Not very interesting though.

I have a weakness for visuals which probably goes back to my comic book days. Gotham City was filled with bizarre architecture and gigantic animated billboards, perfect for Batman to swing from while he fought the Joker. So, aside from rotted produce which is not very visually appealing, what else might be thrown away? I recalled reading there were so many excess statues in the city some were stored in an otherwise deserted square. So, how about broken statuary? Marble is also cold. John and Felix can be truly cold and uncomfortable now, peering out from behind a pile of marble limbs.

Now we need a moon to illuminate the marble. That’s a more interesting picture, but static. I added a window in the wall of one of the alley buildings and the dwelling's cranky tenant. Still not quite enough action to get through the whole night. Hmmmm. What else might be in an alley? Cats! I know that from Top Cat cartoons. Two cats get into a fight on the pile of marble limbs. Bif! Pow! Yowl!

That’s certainly enough excitement for one night.

At dawn, according to the next part of the outline, John and Felix are attacked and a riot breaks out, involving their assailants, various shopkeepers and street people. Unarmed beggars taking on men with swords seemed farfetched. Then I realized the beggars had plenty of arms right to hand, not to mention legs so they came out swinging marble limbs from that heap in the alley.

Sometimes scenes write themselves.

Now that I’ve tried to unravel my mental processes, I’m not sure I like where they lead. I seem to have admitted I get my ideas from comic books and bad art.

Worse, I’m thinking about John. By day, he is a rich and powerful man. By night, he haunts the alleys of the city bringing criminals to justice. He has a callow young sidekick in Anatolius, a faithful elderly servant in Peter. His nemesis, aside from Theodora, is the former court page Hektor, who has always painted his face but recently has more reason to do so having suffered disfiguring lye burns.

I think I've just admitted that John is Batman.

I told you I didn't like to write about writing.

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

We've often been asked why John is a secret Mithran in Justinian's Christian court and an essay explaining why will be published in the September, 2004 issue of The Write Stuff http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wstuff. This monthly newsletter is a service of Catholic Writers Online http://www.catholicwritersonline.com and is devoted to news and articles devoted to writing and the Faith.

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MARY'S BIT or KEEPING COOL IS A SIRIUS BUSINESS

As is well known, the ancients believed the rising dog star, in tandem with heat from the sun, was responsible for the annual stretch of hot weather between the beginning of July and mid August, this being what you might call a Sirius theory although not perhaps scientifically sound.

British summers are never that hot, especially in my home area, the windy north-east. Thus it'S not too often the temperature rises enough to feel really uncomfortable. While we were growing up, if the weekend turned really warm, the family sometimes trekked down river to the coast -- along with what seemed like half the city -- on day trips about which I wrote at

http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/geordie.htm#attic

However, one week-day during the summer holidays while the adults were at work, it started to get really warm not long after we'd spooned down our milk-mushy Weetabix breakfast. By dinner time it must have been in the low 70*s, because we reckoned it hot enough to have the calamine lotion bottle on standby for the anticipated bad cases of sunburn and kept sniffing the milk bottle to detect any suspicious aroma, the presence of which would mean anyone adding milk to their evening cup of tea would see lumps rising to its surface even if the bottle had been kept in a bucket of cold water all way -- our version of a fridge.

Keeping cool in an industrial atmosphere heavy with smoke and grit and chemicals in a city where air conditioners were not so much unknown as undreamt of, was a serious business. Once you've thrown up the sash windows to let in stray breezes, what else can you do? Eventually, having tired of throwing cold water on our faces and mopping up the flooded the scullery floor, my younger sister and I were suddenly inspired. Indeed, one could say perspiration was the mother of invention.

Bear in mind this particular dwelling had no indoor plumbing except a cold tap in the scullery. Hot water was dispensed in small quantities from a wall-mounted gas-heated geyser although if larger amounts were required, a metal bucket was pressed into service to boil whatever was needed on the cooker. However, and it was perfect for our plan, we lived in an upstairs flat whose back door opened to a precipitous flight of outdoor steps leading down into our back yard.

So what we did was gather together several common household items from which we handily constructed a nifty outdoor shower. It was a good example of makeshift engineering, formed by suspending a colander with three pieces of equi-spaced string from the handle of a broom. The bristle end of the broom was firmly tied with a skipping rope to the railing at the top of the stairs, so placed as to jut out over the yard below. Then a hosepipe was attached to the cold tap in the scullery, the sink being placed only a few steps away from the back door, and the other end of the hosepipe tied into the colander -- although a close eye had to be kept on it as well as the kitchen tap since both ends had a tendency to slip out of their allotted place.

I now wonder why we happened to even have a hosepipe, given there were no gardens to water around our way and nobody owned a car or anything else that would occasionally need to be washed down. In any event, once the contraption was in place, having put on our prickly black wool one-piece swimming suits and rubber bathing hats, we took turns to stand under the cooling sprays of water coming down through the colander holes while the other sibling kept a close eye on operations.

It worked pretty well, all in all, not to mention the concreted back yard got a good wash down as well.

Nowadays swimming pools, water parks, and visits to river, coasts, and islands are very popular and attract thousands of holidaymakers. Bearing that in mind perhaps we should consider patenting Reed's Miniature Portable Cooling System, which could be marketed with that wonderfully attractive slogan "No batteries required". Even better, if its purchasers grew tired of standing around getting wet, they could press its various components -- broom, colander, string, skipping rope, and hosepipe -- into their usual everyday use around the household and garden. Talk about frugal!

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AND FINALLY

The imminent start of the new academic year draws closer as we send this issue, with the dreaded red blight of "Back To School" sales signs appearing more and more in stores and malls every day. Thomas Merton observed that October in America is fine and dangerous but a wonderful time to begin something new. You'll be able to rashly begin something new, if not dangerous, in mid October, since the next issue of Orphan Scrivener will roll into your in-box on l5th October.

See you then!

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

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

Therein you'll find the usual suspects, including more personal essays and an interactive game as well as an on-line jigsaw puzzle (if you have a java-enabled browser) featuring One For Sorrow's boldly scarlet cover. For those new to the subscription list there's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned!

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # TWENTY-SEVEN -- l5 JUNE 2004

The recent transit of Venus across the sun caused a fair bit of excitement, not to mention publication of a barrel o' splendid photos underlining humanity's long fascination with various sorts of eclipses.

There have been only a few solar eclipses during our lifetimes, and strange indeed they were to experience, with that disquieting and marked drop in temperature, a deathly silence falling as birds gradually stop twittering, and strangest of all the contemplation of dancing, crescent-shaped points of light beneath trees when all around us ordinary light, albeit of a greenish hue, is as "solid" as ever.

Speaking of turning a greenish hue, readers may well do the same when they spot this latest Orphan Scrivener swim into view through the aether, its imminent arrival casting a shadow over their sunny summer day. Never mind, it doesn't arrive all that often, so ratchet up the fan, grab yourself an ice cream sandwich, and read on.

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MARY'S BIT or YOUTHFUL FORTITUDE

Jack Frost came a-calling on Gibson Street, leaving a bouquet of ice flowers and rime ferns traced out on the insides of our windows overnight.

Under a Wedgewood blue sky plumed with palls of smoke from countless coal fires and factories the thick snow that had fallen while we slept lent a temporary dignity to the surrounding sea of smoke-blackened bricks and slate roofs and deadened the noise of vehicles passing along Coatsworth Road.

Although it can be cold and there's usually a fairly brisk wind coming off the river, it doesn't snow all that often up north. Women living in our street improvised boots by tying plastic bags over their chunky-heeled shoes, a common though dangerous makeshift measure -- and particularly so if we guttersnipes had had time to make ice slides on half-cleared paths before adults ventured out to go to work or on a message, as running an errand was known.

Already on this particular morning a swift sorty or two to shufti around the corner revealed our traditional enemies in the next street had reached an advanced stage in the construction of a defensive wall. Raids were obviously in the offing.

The boys from our street therefore decided to build not only a wall but also a fort in the narrow back lane running between the back yards of our row of terraced houses and those belonging to the next street, Scarcely pausing long enough to toss a snowball at us girls or even shove snow down the backs of our coats or into our wellies, the lads set to work with a will, running up and down with their arms full of snow, knees blue and knobby under the short trousers boys wore then, soot speckled slush soaking into their jackets and home-knitted Fair Isle v-necked sweaters. (Rreaders have likely seen Tristan Farnon wearing the grown-up version).

Whether or not they had obtained inside information on our opponents' battle plans from eavesdropping after climbing up and lurking behind timber piled on the roof of the garage on the corner of our back lane -- a favoured spot of the boys from the next street, who routinely gathered there to plan their latest mischief and occasionally smoke cigarettes stolen from their parents -- we mere lassies did not know. However, it transpired the building of this fort was so urgent we were recruited to toil on the task, a joint effort hitherto unknown.

Looking back, I wonder why we only built one wall and not two. Obviously, if raiders from the next street circled around, crossed the foot of our back lane, ran up our street, and then turned left for a short distance they could attack us from the unprotected rear. But the decision was to build one wall, and one wall was built.

Staggering up and down, hauling lumps of snow patted into blocks with waterlogged gloves that froze to fingers and snow with equal impartiality, we soon had the lone wall built, cementing it together with more snow pounded between its blocks. The fort was a more casual affair, formed from a large amount of snow piled against a stretch of wall between two back yard doors and hollowed out igloo fashion by scooping away the inside of the pile in the time-honoured manner utilised the world over by children building sand forts.

Take that! we thought somewhat prematurely, standing back to briefly admire our handiwork before proceeding to the equally important task of making a goodly supply of snowballs to have on hand when the attack finally came. Some of these missiles (I am sorry to say) had small stone hearts. It was war, you see, and nasty indeed can be the wars of childhood.

Suddenly from the next street there came the sound of a muffled, dull, drawn-out "crrrruuuump", coupled with a low thud that shook our fillings.

Abandoning our igloo and defensive wall we rushed up the lane, turned left at the empty stable where some poor horse once lived far from fields and pastures but which was now only occupied by rats, raced along the short cross alley, and burst out into the next street.

Down the hill to our right clouds of dust were falling lazily, brown snowflakes laying a concealing blanket over a chaotic scene. A huge pile of bricks, tangled curtains, and smashed furniture had fallen into the street. It was obvious at a glance the front walls of several houses in the row had been blown out, presenting a view reminiscent of a giant doll's house with the front opened up. We could see the patterns on bedroom wallpaper, the colour of painted walls of staircases that led from landings of splintered wood and broken bannisters down into a muddle of masonry and bricks.

We stood agape as a terrible quiet fell along with dust and plaster.

Then an adult rushed by on their way to the local phone box to summon aid as neighbours began pulling bricks and splintered doors off the pile. It must have reminded them of war time.

Soon we heard ambulance bells clanging harshly from the direction of Bensham Road. One of these vehicles tried to take a short cut up our back lane but couldn't get past our snow wall, so it had to hastily reverse out, continue along the road crossing the foot of both our street and the next, and so up to the site of the explosion. We all later heard at some length from the grown ups about our handiwork and how it had blocked the way, and we also gleaned the cause of the disaster was reckoned to be an elderly lady had turned on her gas stove and then forgotten to light it. Or possibly the flame had blown out and she had not realised gas had been escaping for some time before attempting to relight it. A third theory was it was due to a gas leak from the mains.

So far as we ever found out nobody was killed although there were said to be injuries. The lesson we learnt that day was not to block narrow ways, and although the small fry's raids on each other's streets continued, we never again built a wall or an igloo in the back lane.

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

The ticker had only a short work day this evening, so just a couple of items to pass along this time around.

TWO ARE JOYFUL or GREECE IS THE WORD

We recently learnt that Govostis Govostis Publisher S.A. of Athens (in European, not the southern US) has purchased Greek rights to Two For Joy. No further details yet, but subscribers may recall Govostis issued a Greek edition of Onefer about l8 months ago so it seems likely John's fellow countrymen are enjoying reading about his adventures.

ANOTHER MYSTERY SOLVED or FOUR AND A BOY

If readers happen to have been looking for the iBook mass market paperback of Fourfer (it leapt fo(u)rth into the world earlier this month) only to be told it was "not in the system", it might be worth enquiring if it's lurking in there under nom de littérature Four And A Boy, as was reported by a reader on the east cost. The book itself has the correct name on its cover along with an interesting subtitle: A Lord Chamberlain Mystery. Class may discuss conclusions to be drawn from this.

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ERIC'S BIT or HOW NOW SNOW PLOW?

Mid-June is as good a time as any for us to talk about snow, when the memory of the last storm has faded and the next lies too far in the future to worry about.

It isn’t so much snow I hate as the cold it needs not to melt. Snow can be beautiful -- on the other side of a window. If it covered the landscape on a hot summer day it would probably be pleasant enough to walk around in it. Snow is wasted on the winter.

Occasionally, when I was a kid, I braved the frigid elements to play, however briefly, in the snow. Building snowmen was fun, until my mittens soaked through and my hands became as numb and useless as a snowman’s stick arms. To be honest, I have about as much insulating fat as a stick, which is why I feel the cold more than most.

One winter my friends and I built a “flying saucer” run down a steep, wooded slope in our neighborhood. The banked chute wound through a threatening maze of trees. Wobbling and spinning downhill kept me a few degrees from hypothermia for an unusually long time before I had to limp home, shivering. When I pulled my slush-filled overshoes gingerly off and with some trepidation, I was happy to find that my feet were still inside even though I couldn't feel them anymore.

That fall of snow turned a hill in a patch of scrubby trees into an amusement park thrill ride. That’s what I think about when it comes to snow, its power to transform. When you wake the morning after a blizzard and peer into the whitened landscape outside, is there any doubt you have been transported to an alien world? One not quite fit for human life?

I remember the impossibly high drifts of my childhood. Suburban yards were turned into an Arctic wilderness. Our little mutt, Sandy, had to leap from footprint to footprint, or else be forced to burrow like a mole. Years later I hiked around through the unnatural, day-long twilight of a record setting snowfall. Unplowed streets ran imperceptibly into sidewalks and lawns. Street signs were capped and obscured with white. Fine, endlessly falling snow hung in the air like pale smoke. There were no sounds except the crunch and squeak of my own boots. I would not have been entirely surprised if I had returned to the house and found it gone.

It’s no accident, I think, that Santa drives a sleigh and children hope Christmas will be white. Santa and his flying reindeer seem so much more feasible in a snowy world. At this far remove from last winter's drifts, with a run of recent temperatures nudging ninety, I could almost dream of a white Christmas, rather than having a nightmare about it.

Running will keep even an assemblage of bones like me warm. I have been able to enjoy being out in the cold so long as I keep moving. At one time I used to run through the wooded park at the end of the block. One day I ventured out in the evening, immediately after a few inches of new snow had fallen. By the time I had passed the pond and jogged slowly along the paths near the far end of the park, there were no footprints. Tree trunks loomed darkly, and the undisturbed snow undulating over the uneven ground and covering every twig of every limb glowed violet in the deepening twilight.

It was then I saw my first and only albino squirrel. You would think a snowy landscape would be the worst place to see a white squirrel, but this one was circling around a black tree trunk the way squirrels always do, putting the trunk between me and it. I thought at first I was imagining things, but as I ran toward the tree, fast enough to surprise the squirrel, I got another glimpse of it and could even make out its pink eyes. Then it went claw-clicking out of sight around the far side of the trunk and vanished up into the snow laden branches.

It really is a different world when it snows, one that is even more enjoyable to contemplate in torrid mid June.

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AND FINALLY

Although he might not have been talking about a June day as such, Henry James declared he considered "summer afternoon" the two most beautiful words in the English language. This sentiment is well and good when uttered in milder climes or during the warm but not overpowering days of early spring and late autumn, but already we've begun to hear the faint yapping of the steaming dog days of summer as they draw ever closer each day.

Speaking of dogs reminds us of cats and thoughts of felines lead to contemplating mice. And what has this to do with John and his world?. Well, it's our way of introducing a stop press news item. This very morning, even as we scurried about preparing to catapult this newsletter out into the world, we received a note from fellow mystery author Mark Terry. He is attending a professional conference at an Anaheim hotel about four blocks from Disneyland and had visited Downtown Disney, a shopping and restaurant area. And lo and behold, a book shop there was displaying the iBook edition of Fourfer in its mystery section.

And what's more, it was placed *face out*.

John has therefore managed to make his way into the Land of the Mouse, and we are pretty tickled about it, to say the least.

Returning to our muttons, or rather the fast approaching dog days, unfortunately for our subscribers by the time the next issue of Orphan Scrivener bounds into view the baying pack will have long since arrived at our collective doorsteps. We're off to buy a few shares in ice cream and cola manufacturers and hoping the summer heat won't be too bad, but in any event in the spirit of the well-known observation that misery loves company we'll see you all again on l5 August.

Best wishes
Mary R and Eric
who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the aether at
http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/

Therein you'll find the usual suspects, including more personal essays and an interactive game as well as an on- line jigsaw puzzle (if you have a java-enabled browser) featuring One For Sorrow's boldly scarlet cover. For those new to the subscription list there's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned!

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THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER ISSUE # TWENTY-SIX l5 APRIL 2004

As T. S. Eliot observed, April is the cruellest month and although we suspect he may have been casting a thought in the direction of Tax Return Day, of course the fortunate fellow wot not of Orphan Scrivener. Alas, our subscribers' luck just ran out, for this latest issue arrives (as you see) to contribute to the annual insult that is April l5th.

Some have derived the name of the month from the Latin aperire (to open), April being when leaves start unfurling in the green mist that spreads over hill and vale and heralds spring. Appropriately, then, April is now when -- having fought our way through the foggy wasteland that is the Form l040 instruction booklet -- we open our cheque books and send slips of paper representing green-backs off to the Department of the Treasury.

Those living in the l800s considered April to be ruled by diamonds, which in the Language of Jewels denoted innocence. It therefore seems a pity US tax returns are not due in March, for according to this charming Victorian belief, that month is ruled by bloodstones, representing courage. We therefore salute those subscribers with the courage to wrassle tax returns into submission *and* read this newsletter on the same day. Read on, ye innocents!

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ERIC'S BIT or RED STAR, SILVER LINING

As Mary could attest, my philosophy is that every silver lining is just trying to draw our attention away from the enormous, menacing black cloud looming behind it. This is why I can find something worrisome in Five For Silver's recent starred review from Publishers Weekly.

Now please bear with me. On the one hand I naturally take some pride in our books, but on the other I'm uncomfortable saying much about it, though I'm told I ought to do so for publicity purposes. Admittedly one could hardly say "Please read my book, it isn't very good", but I have been subjected to all too many strutting and crowing authors to want to appear as such myself. See the poet Crinagoras in Five For Silver, for example. What's more, to attempt to discuss a negative aspect of a book's success is to veer perilously close to what I might term "Ruth territory".

"Ruth" was a perfect girl in my grade school classes, who was not named Ruth (I'm protecting the innocent and all that...) Of course, she had endless reasons to brag, but being perfect, she couldn't. Instead there would be exchanges such as:

Ruth: "So what'd you get on your report card?"

Eric: Mostly 'A's. "Except a 'B' in Arithmetic."

Ruth: "A 'B'? You got a 'B'? Really? Oh let me see! Oh gee...you're lucky...I wish I could get a 'B'. Its sooooo boring getting nothing but silly old 'A's every time."

Having said that, I hope this is taken as the observation it's meant as rather than a disguised brag. The starred review, while most exhilarating did not strike me as an entirely positive thing. Because...now what? Either we get another (been there, done that) or we don't (abject failure, having had a star.) The strategy we've taken thus far is to try to make sure that successive books are different from each other in significant ways. We vary the tone, the mix of characters, the type of plot, thus avoiding the feeling that we have to continually top ourselves, by doing the same thing all over again...but better.

Thus there will be more sunlight in Book Six.

An even worse problem -- oh, yes, there's always worse -- is that I just can't put myself in a state of mind where I feel I'm writing anything worthy of a starred review anywhere. Generally I feel as if I'm writing something that would be sneered at by the editor of my college literary magazine, and I've been out of college 30 years. I've been writing stories of some sort with no success for decades, and the writing process, while I'm engaged in it, feels no different to me now than it did when nobody would give the results the time of day. The idea that what I'm laboring on will be criticized by a professional reviewer from Publisher's Weekly is just plain terrifying.

Then too, one shouldn't be contemplating reviews while writing. It is generally true, in any endeavor, that it can be disastrous to be worrying about the result when you should be concentrating on the process. I have enough problems figuring out which end of the sentence to place a word in, let alone wondering about anyone's reaction to the finished 75,000 word narrative.

So the way I see, good reviews are the first step on the slippery slope to writer's block.

However, having said that, I have to admit, when I saw that starred review, I not only felt misgivings, I also couldn't help thinking "Please, please...let Ruth read Publishers Weekly."

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

Just a couple of news items this time around, but how wide apart their content!

ERIC QUOTED or THE GAME'S AFOOT

As we've occasionally mentioned, in addition to writing fiction and essays for Orphan Scrivener, from time to time Eric has been known to construct interactive fiction (text- based games). He was therefore honoured to be quoted in a recent Australian article devoted to this somewhat lesser known area of the scriveners' craft, which can be seen at http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,9091818%5E15 388%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

RELIGION IN MYSTERIES or FICTION INVOLVING THE FAITHFUL

Mystery Readers Journal, a thematic quarterly review, will have two issues focusing on religious mysteries this year. As usual, each issue will contain reviews, articles and author essays. Part I, just published, offers essays from Julia Spencer-Fleming, Bernard Knight, Sharan Newman and many others, including (we are thrilled to report) several paragraphs from Casa Maywrite. On this occasion, among other things we talk about trying to capture a sense of living in 6th century Constantinople, a world steeped in religion, without becoming entangled in religious discussions, as well as how it was we came to invent a religion based on a Quadrinity. Part II will appear in June, but meantime you can check out MRJ's website at http://www.mysteryreaders.org

JOHN HAS GONE FORTH or FIVEFER GOES LIVE

Five For Silver was published last month and is therefore now darkening bookstore shelves on-line and off. And noir Fivefer certainly is, being set during the plague of 542. Peter, John's elderly servant, has a vision in which an angel tells him an old friend has been murdered, which turns out to be true. Thus John pursues his latest investigation in a city whose inhabitants are dying by the thousands every day, and death is murder's accomplice. Those who have not been able to flee Constantinople must deal with hunger, crime, and such abominations as a holy fool who dances with the dead, invades Empress Theodora's bath, and lives to tell the tale. And then...

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MARY'S BIT or MAKING A READER ATRABILIOUS

Subscribers who've been with us for a while may recall that in Issue l3 (February 2002) we revealed a correspondent had clarified something that had exercised us for years, to wit the identity of obelist, as in Obelists Fly High, C. Daly King's l935 "locked room" mystery set aboard a lengthy flight. (Answer: Obelists are folk who mark passages they think significant in mystery novels. Are *you* guilty...?)

Discovering the meaning of obelist is a good example of when reading mysteries are educational, as I've also recently found to be the case when perusing several old mystery novels and random gothic tales. In doing so, my vocabulary has been enlarged by several unusual words, the meanings of which were established only after consultation with Messrs Webster, Funk & Wagnall, Wordsmiths to the Trade.

Even after their sterling lexicographical assistance, I remain unenlightened as to the meanings of one or two so far untraceable words. For example, beaupots, spotted in the description of a manor house garden. If it is not a typo for beauty spots, my guess is they might be large, decorative containers in which flowers and greenery such as geraniums or ivy are planted. And equally puzzling, what should the reader make of a reference to a Bolo form of government? From the context it appears nothing to do with either a machete or a string tie with a fancy clasp, but could well refer to Bolshevik rule.

I will admit to some surprise when a character "elaborated a cigarette". At first blush it seems, as the old catch-phrase declares, a good trick if you can do it. However, further investigation established that to accomplish this apparently remarkable feat all the smoker had to do was make an elaborate show of painstakingly lighting his gasper. Then again, a slim character's physique, described as an appanage of birth, gives a hint of its meaning, being something belonging to someone by right or custom. An example given was of land settled by a prince on his younger sons, and the author's word choice is particularly apt given that these days for many in the public eye their physical appearances are their fortune.

Then again, I took to rhodomontade (variant of rodomontade), meaning vain, empty boasting or ranting. Indeed, it strikes me as a good name for a provocative or controversial publication, although its euphonious nature might lead unsuspecting readers to expect a quite different type of content.

My impression is the authors of many of these older works assumed readers would be familiar with words in less common usage nowadays, just as Victorian writers in particular seem to take it for granted their mythological, literary, and poetic references (as well as occasional Latin or Greek phrases) would be immediately understood by their reading public.

There again, such readers occasionally needed a fair grasp of esoteric phraseology, although it's always fun to take a stab at guessing meanings before looking them up. However, had I perused William Harrison Ainsworth's Auriol or The Elixir of Life while this bubbling potboiler of a gothic novel was first serialised in the l840s instead of only a month or so ago, I'd doubtless have immediately known that menstruum is a solvent rather than an archaic musical instrument, a burette isn't a hair ornament but a glass tube. and athanor signifies an alchemical furnace instead of one of J. R. R. Tolkien's minor characters, if indeed any of Professor Tolkien's creations can be termed thus. Auriol also mentioned gourd-shaped cucurbites which, as it transpired, are not malformed vegetables, but rather rounded vessels forming part of a distilling apparatus. Further, I discovered from this same novel that a fauteuil is an armchair, and as for estrade (a dais or platform) how many homes these days can boast one, with or without a fauteuil, cucurbite, or athanor?

Ainsworth's novel certainly rattles along at a frantic pace as scenes jump all over, and at times under, the landscape. Its plot is so byzantine that the closer I reached its denouement, the more I doubted the author could tie up all the loose ends dangling hither, thither, and yon. As it transpired I was not far wrong, for I eventually discovered this narrative confusion was largely due to the order of the chapters having been mixed up in the e-text I was reading.

Far worse, however, was that the closing page or so were such let-downs they must surely have been enough to provoke readers of even the mildest disposition to become atrabilious to the extent of provoking rhodomontadic outbursts of a ranting nature. -

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AND FINALLY

Speaking of provoking readers, this issue is being composed during what the Swan of Avon described as the uncertain glory of an April day inasmuch as it's sunny at the moment, but snow flurries are expected overnight. Even so, daylight hours are drawing out noticeably and by the time the next Orphan Scrivener trundles out we'll be into summer, with its seasonal delights of plump red strawberries and fragrant orange-fleshed melons, the delicate scent of roses, and (hopefully) time spent lounging in deck chairs in the back garden or at the seaside. Not to mention lots of good reading.

At this point subscribers may suddenly recall Ralph Waldo Emerson's observation that no matter what we do, summer unfortunately brings flies. In keeping with this, the next Orphan Scrivener will buzz irritatingly out to you on l5th June, the month represented by agate, signifying long life and good health. So if even the thought of the next newsletter's impending arrival gives you a headache, break out the aspirin well in advance and meantime take comfort from contemplating there's a reasonable possibility of being able to escape into enubilous meteorological conditions when our June 2004 issue casts its dark cloud over your email in-box.

See you then!

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

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

Therein you'll find the usual suspects, including more personal essays and an interactive game as well as an on- line jigsaw puzzle (if you have a java-enabled browser) featuring One For Sorrow's boldly scarlet cover. For those new to the subscription list there's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned!