THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER - ISSUE # THIRTY-SEVEN - l5 FEBRUARY 2006

As if there hadn't been misery enough on the east coast, now comes our latest newsletter on the heels of what for many has been a difficult time to say the least. The record snow totals being reported serve to remind us of a remark by Joseph Kutch, who reckoned February, not Puritanism, was the worst charge that could be leveled against New England. With this particular nor'easter, of course, other areas suffered as well, but let's try to see it as meteorological democracy in action: sharing the worst as well as the best.

And speaking of sharing the worst, although the prospect may chill your blood, we invite you to take the plunge and plough through this issue.

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MARY'S BIT or SPECK-ULATING ABOUT THE FUTURE

As we till the lonely field of Byzantine mysteries, winds howling across its bare expanse occasionally ruffle the pages of out-of-the-way reference works consulted to find information used only for a passing comment and never again.

In Five For Silver, for example, a Holy Fool drops in on one of the imperial baths, and for this particular chapter we had to look up arcane methods of soothsaying. I shall not reveal more about what happened after the Fool's arrival, but in the course of the necessary investigations I stumbled over onychomancy.

Given the word might be loosely translated from the Greek as claw-method-of-divination, subscribers will not be surprised that it refers to fortune telling either by interpreting images made by sunlight reflections on suitably polished or oiled nails (sometimes specified as to be those a young boy) or alternatively by examination of the white marks and specks often found on our fingernails.

Naturally this discovery immediately dragged me through the hedge into another field of enquiry entirely, but my visit was certainly interesting and in the end it transpired that one of these methods actually has some truth behind it.

Alas, I haven't been able to find out when this method of divination came into vogue, although it's certainly a less intrusive way than inspecting entrails and no special equipment is needed to perform it. Could it be connected with the divination aspects of sun gods such as Apollo or Shamas because as solar deities they are all-seeing, all-knowing, and nothing can be hidden from their glare, not even the future?

Be that as it may, my theory concerning the fingernail form of onychomancy is that it utilises the unconscious mind's interpretation of presented shapes, after the fashion of Rorschach blots -- or for that matter oenomancy, divination by considering patterns caused by split wine, another method mentioned in Fivefer.

However, it might be difficult reading reflected images using the variant method mentioned in Frederick Elworthy's book on The Evil Eye, which refers to nails covered with oil and soot. It's much easier and a lot less messy to examine fingernail specks, especially given you can have a go at this method even on cloudy days.

Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Sir Thomas Browne's fascinating examination of numerous common but mistaken beliefs, mentions this particular practice in connection with cheiromancy (palmistry). While he admits prevalent humours, as he puts it, may be established by observing these marks, he refuses to endorse their use for telling fortunes. He does however provide useful information about the topic, including the logical progression that spots near the top of the nail refer the matters in the past, those in the middle to present events, and specks at the bottom indicate future happenings. Beyond that, his brief comments suggest such contemporary interpretations were based upon planetary influences, rather as today's palmists say the index finger is ruled by Jupiter or the ring finger Apollo. His particular examples are that thumb nail specks refer to one's honour and the forefinger nail relates to riches.

According to Sir Thomas, generally speaking white spots are good omens, blue the opposite. Scoff or not, as intimated above, this form of onychomancy contains some truth, for a glance at any medical dictionary reveals certain ailments or conditions colour, streak, or otherwise mark the nails. So perhaps onychomancy involves less romancing -- in the old sense of lack of veracity -- than it appears at first blush.

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

...tickety tick tick...no news on the ticker this month... tick tick tickety tick...however Six For Gold and the rest of our Byzantine mysteries are still out there hoping to make news...

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ERIC'S BIT or HACKING NEEDED REVISIONS

Revisions. I hate them. I'm thin-skinned about my writing. It bothers me to have my decisions called into question, my taste impugned, my skills denigrated.

Don't tell me not to take it personally.

Nevertheless, after fuming for awhile -- sometimes quite a while -- I do what's necessary. As important as my words are to me, how they strike readers (and that they get the chance to strike readers at all) is more important.

Does that make me a hack?

When Mary and I have revised a manuscript entire chapters have hit the dust. Characters have vanished. We'd had perfectly good reasons for inventing those scenes and characters. The words had meant something to us, probably constituting an expression of ourselves and our outlook on the world and our philosophies of life.

Those scenes and characters had been torn from our inner beings. Our very souls.

Well, where else could writers' words come from, unless they're plagiarists? As it happened, we decided that those particular pieces of our souls slowed the story down. They had to be cut for the sake of the readers who will probably be more interested in the story than the state of our inner beings.

So maybe I'm a hack.

I've always written more to entertain than to express myself or impart a great message to the world.

When I was in the fifth grade my friends and I sat together in the back of the classroom and while everyone else was learning to divide fractions we'd draw cartoons in our tablets, show them to each other and crack up laughing until we caught the beady eye from our teacher.

My only goal was to get laughs. If it took explosions and large falling weights, than that's what I drew. I didn't care if those were cliches, that they weren't ripped bleeding from the deepest recesses of my psyche. (Although, who knows, maybe that's what's in there...)

I've never kept a journal. I've never tried to work through my problems by writing them out. Writing, to me, is performance. It's an action directed outward, meant for an audience, not a solitary exercise.

Something of myself sneaks into my writing, no doubt. That's probably true of even the most formulaic writers. In the end, the words need to be drawn from the writer's own, individual thought processes.

Writers are ranged along a spectrum. At one end labors the secret diarist who would be mortified if his or her words were ever glimpsed by other eyes. At the other end, the hack cobbles together bits and pieces of the latest bestsellers, with no object beyond how much the words might earn from eager readers.

Most of us fall somewhere in between.

Me, I fear I'm shifted toward the hack end of that spectrum. Or so I try to convince myself when I'm asked to change any of my precious words.

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AND FINALLY

Speaking of change, not many of us will have much to spare after April l5th, the due date for US residents to submit those annual penances, their state, local, and/or federal income tax returns.

John Maynard Keynes was of the opinion that avoiding taxation was the only intellectual exercise that carried a reward. Some might add unlike, say, reading Orphan Scrivener. On the other hand, the fact our next issue will flap into email boxes the same day tax returns are due may be a baleful confluence, but it's also coincidental. At least you won't need a calculator to read it, although it might be a good plan to keep the bottle of tax return aspirin handy.

See you then.

Best wishes
Mary R and Eric

who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing line at http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, a list of author freebies, Doom Cat (an interactive game written by Eric), and a jigsaw featuring the handsome cover of Five For Silver. There's also an Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Intrepid subscribers may also wish to pop over to visit Eric's blog at http://www.journalscape.com/ericmayer/

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THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER - ISSUE # THIRTY-SIX -- l5 DECEMBER 2005

Although we're not yet officially in bleak midwinter, frosty winds have certainly been making moan across our first significant fall of snow. Yes, the landscape here and in wide swathes of the country now features much frolic architecture, as Ralph Waldo Emerson characterized the effect of those frozen flakes. We have a good example right outside the front door, where our buggy sits snugly encased, the white mound on its roof topped with a wind-driven twig of spruce, putting us in mind of an enormous (if misshapen) Christmas pudding.

We're all familiar with that eerie hush snow carries in the fold of its bleached-out mantle. Today, however, will be less quiet, for a chorus of dismay will soon begin to arise hither and yon as this issue of Orphan Scrivener hits the aether and -- akin to unsuspecting pedestrians slipping on those patches of pathway certain gamins assiduously doused with water in the winters of our misspent youth -- slides in its unbalanced way willy nilly into your email box.

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ERIC'S BIT or BETWEEN A TURKEY AND A HARD PLACE

We're right smack in the middle of the holidays, halfway between the turkey platter descending onto the table and that big ball crashing down on Times Square, fortunately a long way from us.

Once upon a time I'd be choking down the last turkey-salad sandwich while wrapping the first Christmas presents. Yes, I was lucky I didn't die of "waste not, want not", otherwise known, in the case of three-week old chopped fowl and mayo, as ptomaine poisoning. At least it belatedly gave me things to be thankful about. Not only my survival, but the last sight of gobbler for another year.

These days Mary and I are vegetarians and say whatever else you want about them, wheat gluten and soy protein "chicken" slices don't fill up the fridge with life threatening leftovers.

Admittedly, I have a jaundiced view of the whole Christmas season. The tasteful lights my Dad used to string around the house matched my perception. Not that they were yellow. The lights were blue. But you get my drift. I only wish you could've come and got the snow drifts those blue lights illuminated.

That's right. I'm not a big fan of snow either.

Isn't there anything I like about the holidays, you might be asking, unless you've already thrown this essay across the room in disgust? (Or should I say turned off the monitor. Surely you wouldn't throw the monitor?) Of course. Lots of things. Well, some things.

For example, at a young age I was enthralled by an Advent calendar. I could hardly wait for each day's installment. There was something wonderful and mysterious about a story hidden behind doors. I admit, part of the thrill was all that stuff about shepherds watching their flocks and wise men and mangers ended up with Santa arriving.

Not that that ever worked out exactly the way I imagined. One year the grocery store was selling toys for some reason. Way up above the meats, where you couldn't examine it closely, they had a Cape Canaveral set. From my vantage point just south of the pork chops, it was a wonder -- moveable gantries and launch pads and rockets of all varieties, trucks for hauling liquid oxygen (with moveable hoses and probably the tanks actually held water), a control tower (and I'll bet it had batteries and lights and went *LIFTOFF!*), technicians and astronauts, seagulls to scatter as the rockets thundered into the sky. Well, I think there were seagulls.

My young heart's desire -- a space program in a box.

Unfortunately the Santa who serviced my house cut the NASA budget that year.

That's what I hate most about Christmas. No Santa. I don't like holidays that lie to me. It makes me angry.

And that reminds me of the fruitcakes everyone mocks. You know the jokes, how they're best used for doorstops and no one eats them and they put them away to give to someone else next year? What I hate is hearing those jokes.

Fruitcakes are one of the few things I like about Christmas!

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

This month the BSP Ticker is stuffed as full as the festive turkey, so please help yourself!

MINING GOLD or A PAIR OF PICKS

Six For Gold is now published and doubtless lurking on a store shelf not far from you. We are happy to say it has been kindly received. Indeed, John's latest adventure was Jeff Kingston Pierce's Pick of the Week for the week of 28 November 2005 over at January Magazine http://www.januarymagazine.com/crfiction/piercepicks.html

We were thrilled to see the company John's keeping, Jeff's previous Picks having included such luminaries as Ruth Rendell and P. D. James -- not to mention Priscilla Royal, fellow PPP scrivener, whose Tyrant of The Mind received the nod for the week of l3 December 2004.

In addition, Book Sense, which represents the independent bookstores of America, has chosen Sixfer as one of its December Notable Books.

http://www.booksense.com

All we can say is a very grateful woohoo!

HOW JOHN WAS BORN or FORGING AHEAD

Eric's been blogging for some time, but last month Mary dipped her toes into the water for the first time with a contribution to the Back Story feature on M. J. Rose's blog. Her essay addressed how John came into being and why we intend to claim the first short story about our protagonist was forged by that old gossip Procopius. For the skinny, see:

http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/backstory/2005/11/mary_reeds_back.html

ERIC'S AWARD or A SITE TO SEE

Last month Predators and Editors notified us our website had been recognized with their November Authors' Site of Excellence Award.

http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/peasda.htm

Sites chosen for this award are those judged to contain entertainment value rather than just advertising literary or other wares. Naturally we are thrilled, the more so since Eric, donning his hat as Apprentice Web Master, not only set it up himself but also continues to run it unaided. So conga rats to my co-scribbler.

KITTIES A-HOY or FAR-FLUNG FELINE FAME

No, we haven't been testing the proverbial no room to swing a cat by flinging one around, although hoy is a portmanteau word meaning "Hey, I want your attention!" as well as "throw" in the Geordie dialect spoken in Mary's home city of Newcastle-on-Tyne. However, resident kitty Sabrina and her departed buddy Rachel have not been left out of the general excitement at Casa Maywrite. Both appear in The Mystery Writers' Mews by Elaine Viets, http://www.elaineviets.com, author of the Dead-End Job series. Her article has just appeared in Mystery Scene Magazine Holiday Issue # 92 2005.

http://www.mysteryscenemag.com/

Our thanks on behalf of both felines for their first appearance in national print under their own names!

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MARY'S BIT or FRUIT OF THE YULE

As Eric notes above, fruitcake is much mocked. Not by me, however, for whenever I see one it reminds me of my first Christmas in this country.

At the time I was living in Florida. The state's beaches may be golden, but there wasn't much silver in the bank when the festive season rolled around. Of course it was hot, making tinsel and carols and Get Your Photo Taken With Santa seem out of place in malls largely patronised by shoppers wearing shorts and sandals and no doubt as likely to be looking for more sunscreen or postcards of orange groves to send north than sweaters embroidered with monograms or boxed selections of cheese and sausage.

As mentioned, the piggy bank was somewhat lean, so when it came time to deck the hall improvisation was the mother of invention. By snipping cardboard (having first coloured it with green marker) into two zigzag-edged tree shapes and then contriving a slot running from the apex to the halfway point on one cut-out and a matching slit running up from the base to the midway mark on the other, inserting Part A into Part B, the result was a jolly 3D faux Christmas tree. Even if it was somewhat unsteady and had a tendency to fall over every time someone walked past it or the door was opened.

The little tree was festively dressed in what interior designers describe as minimalist fashion, which is to say hung with thin strips of aluminum foil and paper stars cut from seasonally printed napkins, plus several shells picked up from the beach across the road and strung on embroidery thread.

This handiwork was interrupted by a knock on the door. The unexpected visitor turned out to be the son of a friend, and he arrived bearing gifts -- several branches cut from their over-tall Christmas tree (it was apparently a case of pruning it or removing the ceiling) and a large, homemade fruitcake! Which was put into the fridge after the cardboard tree was picked up and re-erected.

Tying the fragrant branches into a bundle and settling it into an old tin filled with pebbles, the new greenery was adorned in similar fashion to its smaller companion, and the flat filled with the fresh scent of pine, so closely linked with Yuletide celebrations.

Admiration of the general effect was interrupted by another tap on the door. This time it was a neighbour with a tiny portable TV to loan for the holiday. Unasked, I may add. Having righted the cardboard tree yet again, I looked over the set. While it would have been difficult to watch a tennis match on it, for the screen was exceeding small, it provided excellent entertainment over the holiday, including not only multiple screenings of It's A Wonderful Life on every channel it pulled in but also the chance to see again, Help, an unusual choice for Yuletide programming. Of course, its transmission did begin at two in the morning. Naturally I stayed up to see it, and just hearing those broad Scouse accents was a real tonic, for I had not heard a British voice in a long time.

However, as it turned out, this was to change. For on the afternoon of the 25th, sitting on the sofa eating a slice of fruitcake and staring at a sea twinkling like white fairy lights underneath long strings of pelicans flying past on invisible roller coasters, pennies were counted and there were enough after all to be able to make brief calls to family in the UK. Those who are or have been separated from theirs by long distances will know how much that meant.

The shell ornaments are still in my possession and, years later and far from that sunny state, they are a constant reminder that simple kindness is the best gift for any season or any reason.

As for the fruitcake, it was delicious.

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AND FINALLY

It's long been traditional to tell ghost stories at Christmas. One of our favourite spinners of supernatural tales is M.R. James, who among other things was Provost of King's College, Cambridge. The college has another long standing connection with the season because from the late l920s the BBC have broadcast their Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols worldwide, live from the college chapel. It goes out on Christmas Eve and for many unofficially marks the beginning of the holiday. While we can't carry a tune in a bucket, we've boldly taken a stab at a Jamesian story and it's newly online for your perusal at:

http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/thorn05.htm

It's our first attempt at this type of yarn, so in the spirit of the festivities, be kind!

We're fast approaching the gate of the year and when we lift its sneb to pass through into 2006, the creaking of wicket hinges will be masked by a cacophony of ships' hooters, car horns, numerous renditions of the chorus of Auld Lang Syne, peals of bells, firecrackers, and all manner of noisemakers announcing and welcoming the arrival of the new year.

May the coming twelve months bring many good things for our subscribers. We can't really claim the next issue of Orphan Scrivener will be one of them, but either way it'll be emailed on l5th February. See you then!

Best wishes
Mary R and Eric

who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing line at http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, a list of author freebies, Doom Cat (an interactive game written by Eric), and a jigsaw featuring the handsome cover of Five For Silver. There's also an Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Intrepid subscribers may also wish to pop over to visit Eric's blog at http://www.journalscape.com/ericmayer/

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THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER - ISSUE # THIRTY-FIVE - l5 OCTOBER 2005

The dog days of summer were yelping in overheated packs across an increasingly arid landscape when our previous issue flitted to your cyber doorstep. As this edition goes to press, however, here on the east coast the hitherto pleasant autumn weather has begun (in Charles Dickens' immortal phrase) to go to the demnition bow-wows.

Despite much rain and wind, most of the deciduous foliage is still doggedly hanging on to its twigs. Richard Le Gallienne termed this season the third act in the eternal play, describing fall's reappearance as emblazoned on trees in Chinese yellow. Many find contemplating the slow, stately spread of splashes of autumnal gold and scarlet across a menacing background of sinister, dark pines to be curiously calming. It's a pity the serenity of such subscribers must be disturbed by the arrival of this latest Orphan Scrivener, but such, alas, is how the chips fall.

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MARY'S BIT or LEAPS, FOOT, AND LEAVES

That common autumn sight of leaves falling or gusting past the window puts me in mind of my sole public appearance as an interpretive dancer.

It was during the time I attended grammar school, the British equivalent of the American high school, and it all began because dancing lessons were on the curriculum. Unlike the US today, we were not permitted to choose what subjects we would study and so a class always took the same lessons together.

Naturally, all my classmates suffered from the usual teen self-consciousness, but my angst was exacerbated by being the tallest. Since the student body was all female, my height meant when learning various popular dances I always had to lead my partner. This choreographic role reversal ingrained itself to such an extent that in later years any male daring to attempt to hoof through, say, a valeta with me as his partner found himself in an ambulatory wrestling match set to music because each of us automatically tried to steer the other.

If I say so myself, I'm still not too shabby at Stripping the Willow or whooping my way through the Gay Gordons, but I never quite got the hang of the genteel waltz. I finally wrassled it into submission by dancing it as a slower version of the robust polka, a particular favourite because its faster execution masked any multitude of missteps. Overall, however, while John Dryden ventured the opinion that dancing was poetry of the foot, for me it was mostly a case of putting my foot in it -- and I don't mean while doing the hokey cokey.

The lessons I most dreaded were those devoted to the interpretative dance, which I viewed in the same light as algebra and lab science, that is to say as not likely to be needed after I left school. Which shows how much I knew, since algebra has proved useful when dividing pizzas or apple pies into equal portions, and if I am ever called upon to scientifically demonstrate the effects of creating a vacuum give me a miniature petrol tin and a hoover and I could probably oblige. Just remember when the tin collapses in on itself there will be a loud noise.

In my mind's eye I see again the waxed wooden floor and narrow windows of the echoing hall where morning assemblies were held and dance instruction took place. Memory's ear remembers our teacher calling on groups of three or four to traverse the length of this hall in a fashion conveying the death throes of a swan. It's fair to say my effort, valiant attempt though it was, would best be described as depicting a windmill in full sail in the grip of a force ten gale. The high ceilinged space seemed to take much longer to cover than usual, as if its narrow oak planks had turned into a wooden conveyor belt running backward, and the mournful gramophone accompaniment to our expiring avians seemed somehow...mocking.

But worse was in store.

Not long afterwards, the school's annual parents' day began to hove into view, and my class was informed it was to perform as part of the entertainment. To my horror, our contribution to the jamboree would be...an interpretative dance depicting the arrival of autumn and the fate of falling foliage.

While this now conjures up visions of Millais' beautiful if melancholy Autumn Leaves, unlike the somber young ladies in the painting, most of the class was kitted out in above the knee tunics dyed various shades of russet or mahogany. One or two were dressed in yellow or dark red, while four girls in blue represented the fierce autumn winds which would make us leaves flutter down from our twigs and then blow around on the ground. Finally, two girls in ordinary garb were to appear, sweep the leaves into a pile, and mime setting the resulting heap afire, whereupon we'd all be burnt to a crisp.

Ladies and gentlemen, I say let Lord Byron write all he wants about dancing on in unconfin'd joy. He never cavorted barefoot across the gritty asphalt surface of an outdoor tennis court on a cold, windy day or twirled around in skimpy attire under an overcast sky from which fell occasional drops of rain. Or if he did, he never let on.

To make matters worse, our falling-drifting-burning cues were difficult to hear, between heavy passing traffic, noise from the river across the road at the foot of the hill, and the dissipation of notes in the open air, even though the music was played fortissimo on an upright piano parked on the sideline. The instrument loomed large in the assembly hall, but looked small and forlorn outside, as if it needed a pint glass or two making rings on its varnished lid to cheer it up a wee bit.

Thus that particular year the appearance of autumn was heralded by chords and glissandos. Scads of pinch-faced leaves fluttered here and drifted there on callous winds sweeping in from all directions while puffing mightily and scooping air in grand, sweeping gestures. Brown Leaf Reed, that rebellious scrap of vegetation, gamely leapt and clockworked up and down the court's base line to her own beat, all flailing arms and goospimples, until finally captured by the breezy quartet and swept to the heap of her classmates. There she subtly conveyed her opinion about the entire proceedings by being among the last leaves to perish in the ensuing symbolic conflagration, and even went so far as to leap up for one last flare as soon as the sweepers turned their backs on the supposed pile of ashes.

Saturday night dances apart, this public performance as a disgruntled leaf was my terpsichorean swan song until my co-scribbler and I danced the Time Warp at our nuptials.

Fortunately nobody set fire to us.

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

It's been a quiet couple of months, but we do have one or two items running through the ticker, so let's have at 'em.

SERIES-OUS COMMENTARY or NOT TO BE HIST-MYST

Eric's penned a short article about writing historical mysteries. Want to know why the fiction writer's burden of proof is the opposite to the historian's? For his low down, hie thee over to myshelf.com, where it can be viewed at http://www.myshelf.com/haveyouheard/05/writingthehistoricalmystery_article.htm

NEWS OF REVIEWS or TO THE HILLS! TO THE HILLS!

Those who boast they can always find the legal loopholes sometimes describe this dubious talent as the ability to drive a coach and six through even an Act of Parliament. They might be better served harnessing the horses to flee to the hills upon now reading, as do our subscribers, that Six For Gold will be trundling out into the world next month. Reviews thus far have been glittering, and extracts to hand -- as well as Sixfer's official blurb -- are on the opening page of our website at http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/

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ERIC'S BIT or WHEN I HAD A PURPLE HEAD

In a couple weeks it will be Halloween.

Every year when the leaves start of fall I recall, as a kid, donning a costume to go trick or treating. In my part of the country the Puritans apparently got hold of the pagan ritual and all of us aliens, ghouls, princesses, and cartoon characters had to perform for our candy corn, apples, and liquorice whips. Some sang, or told a joke. I recited the poem Black and Gold, which is all about yellow candlelight and moon and black cats and inky shadows -- pretty much like sixth century Constantinople.

Those chilly Halloween evenings account for most of my public performances. That's unfortunate because these days authors need to be entertainers. It isn't enough for their books to entertain. No, the authors themselves must be witty or moving or inspirational, or sing or dance or pull rabbits out of hats, or so the "reasoning" seems to go according to many. Luckily not Poisoned Pen Press, since this newsletter is about as close as Mary and I care to come to public events.

What does an author's thespian abilities or personal appearance have to do with what's in his or her book? Why would a reader choose a book based on the writer's acting ability? You don't see a photo of the screenwriter on posters for a movie. It's the actors who count. The characters authors create are their actors. When you read a book it's the characters you see on screen, not the writer --- and a good thing too.

I have trod the boards, and it wasn't a pretty sight. As a grade-schooler I had not yet become self-conscious and was thrilled when my friends and I were given the chance to stage plays for the monthly assembly. Adding to the thrill was the gym where the assemblies were held boasted an honest to goodness stage, complete with heavy curtains, spotlights, and even some sheet metal backstage for sound effects.

Our most memorable production was The Mad Bomber. As head writer, I, naturally, portrayed the mad bomber. Who else could I have trusted to bring out the subtle nuances of the character? Even for me it was difficult. Try rolling your eyes, wringing your hands, and laughing diabolically for ten minutes straight. The plot was just an excuse to get to the part where the bomb went off so the stagehands could flash the lights and shake the sheet metal.

I'd guess today you won't see many grade school productions about mad bombers, but it was a hit. Kids will always roll on the floor at the sight of other kids acting like idiots.

Another production featured an alien -- me in my Halloween costume. The plot consisted of earthlings meeting the alien and fleeing in fear, somewhat like the few book signings we've done except at bookstores I wasn't wearing a big, purple papier-mâché head. I only felt as if I was.

You can see why I don't do appearances. Imagine me at Bouchercon. What could I do? Roll my eyes, wring my hands, laugh diabolically, and recite Black and Gold?

Then again, maybe it would sell books.

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AND FINALLY

When Mary read Eric's contribution to this performing arts issue of the newsletter she immediately challenged him to recite Black and Gold. She hereby certifies that he did just that and with minimal hesitation, so if any subscribers should meet him, ask away...

Jane Austen thought pens other than hers should dwell on misery and guilt. As a public service, the well-mannered Orphan Scrivener always tries to avoid such topics and will continue to strive to do so on l5th December, when the next issue will arrive at your 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 at http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, a list of author freebies, Doom Cat (an interactive game written by Eric), and a jigsaw featuring the handsome cover of Five For Silver. There's also an Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Intrepid subscribers may also wish to pop over to visit Eric's blog at http://www.journalscape.com/ericmayer/

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