Paul Andruss, Thomas the Rhymer and more films NOT to watch right now

Tags

#Contagion, #YA fiction, 12 Monkeys, Fairy tales, films, Jack Hughes Books, Newbook, Thomas of Ercildoun, Thomas the Rhymer

 

 

PAUL ANDRUSS.

Firstly thanks for having me over y’all. My favourite apoc-oc-o-liptical movie and boxset of all time might sound familiar. It featured at the top of the list of Shey and the Dudes last post. The visionary Twelve Monkeys. No matter how hard you try, you cannot escape a future already written in your past. Time will always correct itself. Throw in a plague, time paradoxes and Terry Gilliam at the helm (Time Bandits, Brazil and The Fisher King), what’s not to like?

Paul Andruss.

No. I believe in owning any sensitive intelligent creature is tantamount to slavery.

PAUL ANDRUSS

Yes. Absolutely. In fact, they perform a pivotal role holding the whole thing together. But as one would expect from such highly evolved beings they work secretly behind the scenes to sprinkle their magic. And so are not mentioned once. I fully understand you doubt me, and I don’t blame you.. As I’ve yet to say my new books is about fairies …and don’t you have your very own fairy godmother……….

PAUL ANDRUSS

You see??? As for your next question, ‘What drew you to Thomas the Rhymer?’ even though you haven’t asked it yet, as a kid I got a big book of Celtic folk stories for Christmas. I have been mining it ever since. My first novel, where I cut my teeth, was a sprawling sci-fi Irish mythological saga about Finn Mac Cool and that came from reading those childhood stories. Finn is due to be published by Black Wolf Books, once the Jack Hughes trilogy is safely out. The Scottish tale of Thomas the Rhymer and the Queen of Elphame was also in the book. It tells how handsome Thomas follows the queen of Elfland to her home. When he leaves three days later, the lady gives him the gift of poetry and prophecy. He arrives home to find a score of years have passed.

PAUL ANDRUSS

Thomas the Rhymer is based on a real person, the 13th century prophet Sir Thomas of Ercildoune, named in contemporary legal documents as Thomas Rymour de Ercildoun. Thomas allegedly predicted the Scottish King James VI would rule from the English throne after Elizabeth’s I death. The second thing that led to the book is personal. I was living in Turkey after my brother was diagnosed with a brain tumour. We were close when I lived in England. It was a bad time to be separated by thousands of miles. We skyped, but it wasn’t the same. Conversations often turned to reminiscing. One incident always made us laugh.

David went missing at the age of 7. I was about the same age as Jack, funnily enough. Unlike Jack’s brother, David was not stolen by the fairies.

After a visit from the police and a sleepless night. David arrived home with my Gran the next day. Taking umbrage at something Mum said, he decided to run away. The only place he knew was Gran’s, twenty miles across town. David sneaked on a train, avoided the ticket collector, and walked two miles to Gran’s house. By the time he got there it was too late to bring him back. In those days we didn’t have a phone or a car. Few people did. And gran couldn’t afford the taxi fare.

The story got me thinking about what happens to a family when a child is missing. Something clicked. I would like to say the novel flowed seamlessly from that point. It didn’t. It took years to hone the ideas. My biggest regret is David never lived to see it published.

PAUL ANDRUSS

You ask such interesting questions.

PAUL ANDRUSS

This is a whole philosophical argument. How do you define living? A question scientists are asking about viruses, which are nothing more than scraps of DNA. Technically they are not alive, but that doesn’t seem to stop them, does it? Or, do you mean intelligent, or conscious? Alan Turning, a computer scientist, said such concepts are hard to define. How will we ever know if a machine is thinking? Psychic researchers claim some hauntings are simply memories recorded in in houses by a sudden burst of psychic energy such as violent emotion. Given all that why shouldn’t a fairy queen weave a living tapestry to record memories as they do in Jack Hughes and Thomas the Rhymer?

It made perfect sense to me that a culture as ancient & global as the fairy race, largely ruled by women, would choose to pass on information through the ancient skill of weaving. The first evidence of weaving is a 70,000-year-old fabric impression.

 

PAUL ANDRUSS

As an aspiring writer, who am I to give advice? Instead of turning out the same old pony, everyone is sick of hearing, including me, let me pass on sage snippets from a successful published writer, with years of experience. When I started writing I joined a peer review group. The advice mainly consisted of … I would not write what you wrote the way you wrote it. I would write it this way. Of course you would, I thought. We are different people.

An established author confirmed my cynicism in an article. “Beware of taking advice from other aspiring authors. They are in the same boat as you and just a clueless. Take advice from someone who knows the business.”

When an established professional was kind enough to offer advice, I bit her hand off. Don’t panic, it wasn’t her writing hand. It was the other one. I was writing a blog to publicise myself. She said, “Decide if you want to be a blogger or an author.” It took a while to see I was down a rabbit hole, spending all my time writing quality blog and guest blog articles with nothing left to write anything else. When I realised, I knew I had found a gold mine.

Here is some of her advice.

“This is a hard business. You are up against a lot of talent and competition. Take your work seriously, work hard. Have self-belief, coz you’ll need it. Know your market and write for it.” I have seen aspiring writers unwilling to brutally examine their work. Instead they give excuses; clever explanations about why they wrote it that way and who they wrote it for.

How do I know?

I was one of them.

She read some of my draft and said, “Your point of view is all over the place.”

I protested. “I wrote it like a movie where you seamlessly move from character to character.”

“It’s called head hopping,” she replied, “and it’s amateur.”

PAUL ANDRUSS

I knew I needed to listen. But, Goddamnit, it meant rewriting the whole bloody novel! Muttering like Dick Dastardly’s Muttley in Wacky Races, I set to work. Guess what? She was right absolutely totally and utterly right. It put the book in a different class.

My advice for aspiring authors?

Listen to people who know what they are talking about.

 

PAUL ANDRUSS

Work, work, work. Thank God. I need to publicise the book release. So if any of you have a blog and want a good quality barely used post in exchange for publicity, THINK OF ME.The 2^nd and 3^rd books of the trilogy are edited and having a final reread prior to publication.

I have a 100-page novella ready to go. A comic noir murder mystery set in the golden age of Hollywood. I need to Edit Finn Mac Cool and pass it over to Black Wolf for input.Finish the second novella in the series. Porcelain, set during the Glam years. Sort out the short stories for publication with Black WolfFinally, and this will be news for Black Wolf Books, I have a two back to back novels half drafted that are sequels to the Jack Hughes Trilogy.

If you enjoyed this don’t to visit http://www.jackhughesbooks.com/

Explore the story of Thomas the Rhymer. http://www.jackhughesbooks.com/story-of-the-book.php

Download the posters http://www.jackhughesbooks.com/art-gallery.php

Read some pre-release reviews http://www.jackhughesbooks.com/thomas-the-rhymer.php

And listen to some music courtesy of classical composer Patrick Hartnett, who loved the book so much he wrote music for it. http://www.jackhughesbooks.com/music.php

 

Fairies took his brother…

When Jack sees a sinister woman kidnap his bother Dan, he knows his parents will never believe him. Nor will the police. Not when he says Dan vanished into thin air. If Jack wants to see Dan again, he has to save him. And not just him …

 If he ever wants to find Dan, first he must save Thomas the Rhymer from a wicked enemy.

Bravely embarking on a rollercoaster adventure into the dark fairy realm, Jack and friends face monstrous griffins and brooding tapestries with a life of their own, learn to use magic mirrors and travel on ley lines that whip them off faster than sound

 

Even if he returns Thomas the Rhymer to his selfish fairy queen, she might make Jack her prisoner. With the odds stacked against him, can Jack succeed in finding and freeing Dan?

 

 Or will he lose his brother forever?

EXTRACT. The first meeting with Thomas

A moment later Jack turned to Catherine. “Run while I keep him busy.”

“No Jack,” she muttered, horror-struck.

“Jack,” echoed the tramp as if he heard her. “Master Jack, Cracker Jack … Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick.”

“Is he mental?”

“No, he’s fairy,” Jack reminded her.

Ken nodded in agreement.

“Here I am,” Jack said, bravely stepping out from behind the skip.

“No,” Catherine wailed.

At the sight of Jack, the tramp started crying.

“Master Jack, Tom’s a lost. Master Jack, Tom’s a cold. Master Jack, don’t be cross. Master Jack, take Tom home. For I did dilly and did dally, dally and did dilly, lost my way and don’t know where to roam. Now you can’t trust a story like old Jack-a-Nory, when you can’t find your way home.”

Jack stared stupidly at the tramp.

“It’s all right, he won’t hurt you,” Ken shouted.

“You’ve changed your tune,” Jack shouted back.

“I was wrong. He’s not trying to scare us. He’s scared. The noise, the people, he’s not used to it. It’s driving him mad.”

Coming from behind the skip, Ken walked to the tramp with hands held in front of him as if feeling the air around the man.

“He’s living rough. I don’t think he’s had a good night’s sleep for weeks, or a proper meal, been eating out of bins. Oh dear, he could do with a bath.”

“I know he pongs,” Jack agreed.

Putting his head to one side, the tramp smiled.

“There’s something else, he might look older than us, but inside he’s about our age.”

The tramp smiled again, saying proudly, “For a year and a day I grew away, and I grew straight and I grew tall, and I was the fairest of them all, and she did love me, love me do, but now I’m lost. It’s sad but true.”

“Hello,” said Catherine, from behind Ken.

“Good day to you mistress mine, Thomas am I, Thomas of Rhyme.” The tramp gallantly bowed.

“Thomas? That’s what she called Dan. She was looking for you, wasn’t she?” Jack said.

“Aye, that she were,” Thomas wailed. “Though she loved me most, kissed my cheek and stoked my hair, a new Sir Thomas does she boast and on him lavish all her care. And I am gone, like those before, belovéd once, beloved no more.”

“Why?” asked Catherine.

“Though I both complain and moan, ‘tis no one’s fault but my own. She warned me true when she did say not to dally on the way. Off went the court with my good queen too. Tom followed on but what did Tom do?” he shrieked, slapping his own face and shaking his head wretchedly.

“Tom did dilly and did dally, did dally and did dilly, lost his way and don’t know where to roam. Now Tom’s afraid and all alone, and can’t find his way home.”

With outburst over, Thomas blew his nose noisily on his sleeve and smiled a brave little smile.

Available now in ebook and paperback Amazon. Worldwide.

Films and Box sets (not) to watch in a pandemic….

Tags

12 Monkeys, 28 days later, Box sets, films, The walking dead

NUMBER ONE

 

 

 

 

Number 2

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Number 4-series 1-6

 

Number 5

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Number 7

 

Number 8

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Number 10

 

Number  11

Welcome Blithe Spirit. Hamstahs too.

Tags

Blithe Spirit, films, ghosts, New book, Rebecca, Shehanne Moore, The Writer and the Rake

 

https://t.co/lfBIBofFeU

Welcome Blithe Spirit by Shehanne Moore

 Do ghosts wander the face of the earth?

And if they do, would they be welcomed?

I guess that depends on the writer. Noel Coward certainly turned the idea into a farce in Blithe Spirit, when the dead wife turns up. 

 Daphne du Maurier did something quite different with Rebecca.  Rebecca may not appear as a ghost but her presence clings to every scene. And there is no doubt she casts a huge shadow over her husband, Max. 

And yes, I welcome both these ‘spirited’ ladies because I find them much more interesting than the wives currently in situ, although I might not say that if they came to tea.

Ghosts are said to be restless spirits and the interesting thing is that they exist in every culture, ancient ones especially. Look at the idea of Halloween being the Day of the Dead, where  people left spaces at the table for their loved ones who were no longer with them. 

 Ghosts are invariably bound up with the idea of an afterlife—blame the Greeks for the Underworld, and rivers that we cross. But what if we don’t? Because also invariably, ghosts have unfinished business. 

The heroine of my new release

is not a ghost but she does go to bed in 2017 and wake up in 1765. And, after her initial, ‘it’s a dream and think of the book she can write from this, scenario’ she comes to the conclusion that her ex fiancé has murdered her in her sleep, after she moved into his spare room  with a random guy, in a bid to get her name off a joint mortgage. (As you do.) The afterlife, of course, isn’t what she thinks—how do any of us really know what it might or might not be?—but she is certain that the possibility of getting back to haunt her ex isn’t that daft. Just think about the kind of ‘dead’ person you might be here in terms of unfinished business. Is there anyone you would want to haunt and why? 

While there’s not any ghosts in the book, I suppose that the spirit of the hero’s first wife—where did I get this idea about wives?—

hangs over him. I never thought about that when I was writing it. But he never loved her, she hated him. His family insisted on the match when he was too young to argue.

Okay and he’d er… got a servant into trouble.

Because of that he’s gone to hell in a handcart since. Her clothes, her shoes, are all lovingly kept by their son, Fleming, who resembles her in every way and consequently is the daily reminder that everyone holds him responsible for her death. 

As if that’s not enough about  ‘ghosts’ in someone’ s life, because let’s face it, we don’t need to see or feel them, they don’t even need to be there, for the dead’s influence to taunt and haunt from beyond the grave, her sister, Christian, went and married the hero’s old uncle. Why? So she can stop him inheriting what is rightfully his, of course. And not just that. She has the  ’hots.’ 

To say 

is saying how much he is capable of sinning, because he’s plenty sinned against.  

 Here’s an extract from where Brittany, having fallen out a first floor window and broken a priceless Ming dynasty vase in a bid to escape the carriage she thinks had come to take her to hell, does a quick bit of re-thinking.  You can tell that despite the title of this post she’s not welcome….

“Wife? Mitchell?” 

As Christian spoke, Brittany strove to look composed, serene. She’d fallen down the rope, somehow broken that vase, nearly broken her neck, except she couldn’t break her neck. She’d already been murdered by Sebastian. These things were bad enough. Had she mentioned that Mitchell Killgower was transfixed with horror?

“She is not—”

“But she is very, very nice, Aunt Christian, the mother I never had, so we are all getting along . . .getting along quite famously in fact.”

Brittany struggled to her feet, dug in her pocket, fished out her fags. What a bloody awful thing it was being dead. Even her fag was so bent, getting it between her lips was such a mammoth task, it took three attempts. Five if she counted keeping her hand steady enough to ping her lighter and suck long and hard, wreathing herself in delicious, such needed smoke. She sucked even harder, while she considered her next move. It wasn’t biting her nails, or being pushed into the carriage. She’d a new slant on the carriage. The fag was just what she needed to find her cool and face down whatever these things were. She’d already come to think, ‘ghoul one’ and ‘ghoul two.’ Mitchell made it ‘ghoul three.’

 “Are you sure your new mother is nice, dear, only . . . only she looks . . . Well, I really don’t know what to say.” 

“Believe me, darling, the feeling’s mutual.”

Mitchell‘s eyes were icy as polar caps. “May I say, for the benefit of those who are hard of hearing, this woman is not—” 

“Your wife?” The uncle’s shining, silver cravat pin nearly pinged from his cravat. He grasped his cane so tightly his knuckles were white as his hair.  “I should sincerely hope not. You know our terms and conditions on that. If this is the best you can do, then we should redraw our will now. Unless you’re going to try telling us she’s Fleming’s wife?”

“Well, Uncle, now that you come to mention it. At sixteen, it is about time. Half the boys in the county, if not the country, are already—” 

 “Oh, really? Mitchell . . .” Brittany took a deep breath and pinged her fag beneath the withered hydrangea. The afterlife wasn’t what she’d thought. If this wasn’t heaven, or hell, then it was some sort of place of atonement. Look at all these ghostly shrubs and trees for a start and those stone dragons poking out of the walls. 

 Ghosts did wander the face of the earth. These must be the ones with unfinished business who’d managed back. She wouldn’t rest till she’d done whatever it took to do that and make Sebastian’s life hell. Mitchell would know the way. Whatever this was about, put out her hand to the weary traveller and he’d owe her big time. Besides why should she suffer all these stinging cuts to her pride? She was the perfect homemaker. Look at all these rugs and pot plants she’d bought for Sebastian’s. The ones he’d thrown at her when there were rows.

   “All right, you win. So you were right. Your aunt and uncle can’t take a joke, but are you really going to let them talk to me like this? We both know I was locked in that room by . . . by a certain person and that person wasn’t you, my dearest. With hardly any clothes to speak of too? All for a joke? Hmm? Fleming, what do you have to say? Let’s hope it’s interesting?”

   “No, I never. How would I do that?”

     “Very, very easily, darling. Don’t lie to your great-uncle. It’s so unbecoming when he’s such a nice man.”

      “You mean, Fleming, you never had any clothes on either?”

         Fleming flushed scarlet. “Uncle. They took my clothes. They put me out wearing a bed sheet.”

         “But, you just said to your great aunt that your new mother was very nice. Well? Which is it to be? Are you lying to me, boy?” 

        “She . . . she is nice, Uncle Clarence. But, I didn’t lock her in my room. How could I?”

The Scottish landscape is masterless…

Tags

Braveheart, films, Glencoe, Gregory's Girl, Greyfriar's Bobby, Highland, Highlander, His Judas Bride, Kara McGurkie, Rob Roy, Romance, Scotland, Shallow Grave, Skyfall, The Black Wolf of Lochalpin, The Thirty Nine steps, Trainspotting

Let me tell you, as someone who spends a bit of time in it, it sure is.

Huddled in the Boot Bar in Glencoe, last January, having had a bit of a run in with a mountain–a tree  root broke my fall as I sort of contemplated the beauty of the gully a hundred feet below–the party of English climbers we got talking to, agreed re the landscape. Hadn’t they just shamefully spent the day at the Ice Climbing Centre instead, having been forced off an adjacent peak to the one we’d been on.

 

The landscape is also stunning. I mean it even makes my photos look ok. From the remote upland hills of the south, to the mountainous ranges in the north, the landscape is also as diverse as the rolling winds that sweep it. There’s the savage grandeur of wild, lonely places like Glencoe and the sunlit splendour of the low lying Lowlands. The Scottish character is forged in granite..and I’m not talking people here, I’m talking the  landscape itself.

Setting out to write His Judas Bride, I wanted to capture that canvas because it’s not just the country, it’s the history, it’s the very particular breed of people who inhabit this land.

Glencoe must be one of my favourite places on earth. The Glencoe Massacre is quite a  story. I liked the idea of an impregnable glen that all the other clans coveted…

It let me set up a Trojan Horse scenario, an enemy chief sending his daughter as a bride, only she’s not there to actually marry anyone—another wee Scottish tradition.

Why was Lochalpin a place no stranger had set foot on for five years though? Well, that’s down to Callm McDunnagh, the Black Wolf.

And, of course his Brotherhood of Wolves

The fearless band who chuck everyone out on sight….if you chance to live that long…who Callm formed in the wake of that afternoon. having first sold his soul to the devil. 

 

You see another good reason to set a book in Scotland…never mind the gorgeous scenery, the rolling mists, the history, is the superstition, the myths and legends. Selling their souls? Scottish lords were aye doing that

Then there’s the fact you can forge your characters from all these things.  Lochalpin is as much part of the Black Wolf as he is part of it. It wasn’t just enough that he HAD to be drop dead gorgeous for to remind Kara of anything, so she’s troubled even from that very first glimpse of him….

 

She is a woman who can well take care of herself. As the story unfolds she needs a reason to want to be involved with a man again, beyond her initial ruthless motives. And this one offers the kind of safety she’s never known.

All right time to stop the Call-fest.

Scotland isn’t just a great location for books, it’s a great location for movies. It’s purely hypothetical, in long ago Scotland there were no cinemas, but here’s ten set in some way in Scotland Kara and the Wolf might have enjoyed and why.

I’ll be back on Thursday this week with my Wolf Brotherhood quiz.

1. Highlander.

What’s not to like about this film that has Christopher Lambert playing a Highlander with a French accent –there was the Auld Alliance mind you –and Scotland’s very own Shirr Sean playing a Spaniard with a Scots accent?  All this fighting stuff and tearing out throats with your teeth would be right up the Wolf’s street.

2. Braveheart

Okay, so the Dulux face paint isn’t exactly fetching when it comes to fashion statements, that hard strength in leather would appeal to Kara. The Wolf might find Murren’s murder a bit hard to take.

3 Rob Roy Well, the scenery is certainly bonnie. And that’s a fine broadsword Liam sports.

4 Local Hero

Local hero?   Now that would have to be the Wolf.

5 Gregory’s Girl Hmmm. She’s a girl and she’s certainly different from any he’s ever known so this might appeal to the Wolf given Kara is much the same. Also it’s a coming of age scenario which neither got the chance to do.

6 Trainspotting.

Tommy and the gang get off an Intercity train to “get some fresh air” on a hike at Corrour railway station, which is located on Rannoch Moor, not far from Glancoe. Imagine what happens next when the Brotherhood of Wolves spot them…..

 

7 Shallow Grave

Bodies in secret graves in the woods might sound a bit more up my other heroines’ street, but I’m pretty sure Kara and the Wolf might exchange a few glances here about her father.

8 Greyfriar’s Bobby

Oh come on….I don’t know about Callm and Kara, but I can tell you now Dug would just love Bobby. She’d bat her doggy eyelashes no trouble at all.

9 Skyfall

Are you kidding? The above scene was shot in Glen Etive which is just around the back of Glencoe. Although I’m pretty sure that knowing every nook and cranny as he does, the Wolf would soon suss that the bulk of these ‘Highland’ scenes were  shot down south. He’d be happy though that James Bond’s father was from Glencoe. Why did Ian Fleming decide on that? Cos he liked Shirr Sean’s portrayal of Bond.

10 The Thirty Nine Steps

Richard Hannay goes into hiding in Scotland. Okay somewhere in Galloway might not be anywhere near Glencoe, the Wolf still might be giving Kara a few prickling glares here about her sister’s bodyguard hiding out in Lochalpin. Then, of course there’s the sort of ‘bundling’ scene. Two people forced to spend the night together…..

Oh…all right…cue for a Kara, Callm extract.

“Don’t like bundling?” The pile of furs sank beneath his foot as he reached for a dry tunic from the rope-line that dangled above her head. “Damned right I don’t. So don’t you start giving me any maidenly grief that you’re here and so am I. Or how I shouldn’t have brought you. Do you understand?” He snatched the tunic from the line. “Because so far as I’m concerned for tonight, you’re here…bed. I’m over there…chair.”

“A cave. You live in a cave.” She didn’t mean to sound so forlorn about it but he did, didn’t he? An underground cavern, to be precise. How could he? And how could she be so stupid, when what she   needed was to be amenable, nice.

He whistled and Dug sprung up. “And she’s there. In the middle.”

“Dug? Dug? Dug’s a—” Kara swallowed a gulp. Oh, the night was full of surprises wasn’t it? Horrible ones. And now if that glower was anything to go by, she had offended him further.

“Don’t you go telling me you never saw the damn cur’s minus more than a front paw. No one’s that stupid. Not someone here to be married. Not someone who’s got—”

“But you call her Dug.”

He tossed the tunic down. “Perhaps that’s because she doesn’t like being called bitch.”

 

To love, honor, and betray…

To get back her son, she will stop at nothing…

For five years Kara McGurkie has preferred to forget she’s a woman. So it’s no problem for her to swear to love and honor, to help destroy a clan, when it means getting back the son she lost. But when dire circumstances force her to seduce her fiancé’s brother on the eve of the wedding, will the dark secrets she holds and her greatest desire be enough to save her from his powerful allure?

To save his people, neither will he…

Callm McDunnagh, the Black Wolf of Lochalpin, ruthlessly guards heart and glen from dangerous intruders. But from the moment he first sees Kara he knows he must possess her, even though surrendering to his passion may prove the most dangerous risk of all.

She has nothing left to fear except love itself…

Now only Kara can decide what passion can save or destroy, and who will finally learn the truth of the words… Till death do us part.

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