A visit to Mister Murphy's Magickal Potion Shoppe

I've recently become hooked on playing solo RPGs, especially solo journaling RPGs. I am so obsessed that I've written my own!

Mister Murphy is an old, Welsh wizard living in a tiny little tumbledown cottage in the middle of a wild wood, in the middle of nowhere. Every day he has visitors from far and wide. Creatures and beings from all corners of the world come to him to request potions and spells to help them on their quests. Love potions, treasure-seeking spells, strength enchantments and hexes.

This is a solo journaling game - all you need to play is a 52 card deck, a 6-sided die, and a journal or paper to write on.

Download it here.

Interview with Andras

How shall I start? Shall I start with the stars? The position they were in on the morning of my birth? Shall I tell you about the little stone house in the middle of nowhere, where my mother struggled alone through labour?

I remember putting the chickens away, shutting them in against the foxes, and the nights getting longer. I remember the stars in the cloudless sky. Bright, like eyes staring down at me; the moon barely illuminating the path that led into the small woods at the foot of the mountain.

Or shall I start with the position of the stars on the night I was born for the second time? Born into the life I have now led for nearly two hundred years. I was shutting the chickens away, making sure the door to the sty was closed, and I remember the snow swirling down from the dark sky. I knew that the morning would see the farm covered in a blanket of soft, white snow.

Our stew was cooking over the fire, my mother was knitting as she always did, and my two brothers and I huddled on the blankets. Even the dogs felt the cold that night, so we covered them in blankets too. Whenever I see a wool blanket, I think of that night. That's when we heard a knock at the door. It was late, too late for visitors. The knocking came again, more insistent. A voice called out, asking to be let in from the cold.

I was the one who got up. The one who went to answer the door. I often wonder what would have happened if one of my brothers had gone in my stead.

I don't really know what happened next. It's a blur of screaming and pain. I know that he killed my mother and brothers, but I'll never know why he didn't kill me. He left me for hours, on the floor, desperately clutching at my neck to stop the bleeding. 

I could hear him moving through the house, I assumed he was looking for anything valuable. I felt like laughing out loud - we had nothing of value in that small stone house.

He stood over me. His face was dark, his breathing heavy. He knelt down and picked me up as though I weighed no more than a child. I remember being confused, because he held me so gently. I was drifting in and out of consciousness, probably from lack of blood, but I do remember that he spoke to me. His voice was deep and soft.

It was a voice I'd come to know very well, a voice I'd even grow to love.

"Drink," he told me "drink and you'll live." and he held his wrist to my face. I felt his warm blood gush over my lips and into my mouth. I felt it burn as it hit the back of my throat and then as suddenly as my heart stopped and my body died, I felt more alive than I'd ever been in my whole life.

The night sang to me, a glorious song full of lust and loss, decay and fecundity. Everything and nothing. I felt time speed up as the world seemed to stop turning, and galaxies flashed through my eyes - the nebula of my stopped heart filled me, and was me.

Then I was in his arms and the dark night pulsed red and gold.

When authors attack

Having enjoyed the recent meltdown of self-published author Jacqueline Howett, I found that this wasn't an isolated case. Author meltdowns happen not only to self-published or unknown writers, but big names too, like Anne Rice. Sometimes, like with Jacqueline Howett, the situation is funny; other times, like with Victoria Laurie and DeborahAnne MacGillivray, it gets a lot more serious. Laurie reported posters on Amazon thread to the FBI and MacGillivray allegedly hired a private detective to obtain names and addresses for a bad reviewer's family. Not good.

Laurie and MacGillivray both write romance novels, which I am not interested in, so I can't comment on how good or bad their writing actually is; never read and and never will. Howett's book, at least, may have sounded mildly interesting to some people; maybe something you'd have picked up to read the back of. Had The Greek Seaman been a printed book, and I had read the back, I'd have quickly put it back down again. The spelling and grammar of the back cover blurb make it very hard to read. From the Amazon page:
"Description to The Greek Seaman novel.

What is an eighteen year old newly wed doing traveling on a massive merchant ship anyways? Hadn’t she gone to Greece on tour in a ballet as a dancer? These are questions, Katy asks herself while traveling the high seas with Don her chief officer. However, little do they know a smuggling ring is also on board for this ride, on a blue diamond exchange and when explosions and threats to sink the ship also happen, they must try to save themselves.

Getting to know the smugglers, the Arabic and Pakistani deck hands and Don, the Greek Seaman is an exciting sea adventure with enough suspense and romance that will make you laugh and cry. It will take you on a voyage to experience the magnificent soothing wonders and beautiful scenery at sea, dolpins, flying fishes and takes you through storms and hurricanes where Katy finds herself navigating through it with a seasick crew. From Piraeus, Greece, your visit the ports of Lebanon and Libya and enjoy the exotic magic of the bazaar. The love between Don and Katy, in their ordeal at sea makes this a memorable story."

Description to The Greek Seaman novel? She makes a grammatical error on the second word that a reader will read before deciding to buy her book. That's just not good enough. When I read her first comments on Big Al's Books and Pals blog, I sniggered a little, but then got angrier and angrier as I read further down the comments. Some posters gave examples of poorly constructed sentences, such as:
"Don and Katy watched hypnotically Gino place more coffees out at another table with supreme balance."
and her response was: "...what I read above has no flaws. My writing is fine." I watched a YouTube video of her reading an extract of her novel, and I did feel sorry for her. When she reads it, it kind of makes more sense. She pauses, when reading, so the sentence is clearer, but neglects to insert commas into the written text. To me it seems that she is trying to write as she thinks an author should write. When speaking, one might say "Don and Katy watched Gino putting coffees down on another table" which doesn't sound particularly interesting, so she has tried to write it in an 'authorly' way - but it just doesn't work. If she had left well alone, none of this would have been emailed, tweeted or blogged by as many people as it has (me included!)
To the people who say that we should leave her alone, and that this is bullying, I say: no we shouldn't, and no it isn't. She started posting childish and defamatory replies which ended in her telling various posters to "Fuck off!" for that, she deserves everything she gets, and long may it continue. Other posters have pointed out that Al (of Big Al's Books and Pals) has grammatical errors on his own blog, and that he is a hypocrite. Tripe. Al does not charge people to read his blog, so he is entitled to write it however he wants to, bad grammar or no. He is not a hypocrite.

I feel very sorry for Rebecca Black, who some have compared to Howett. I don't think she should have been subjected to such vicious attacks - she's only a kid. Don't get me wrong, I think the song is utter shite, but it's no worse than many songs being played on the radio at the moment, by older, and supposedly wiser, artists.

I will continue to watch this train wreck to see what Howett does next. I think it's appalling that family members posted 5 star reviews on Amazon, and are continuing to do so. That's another reason she deserves all she gets.

Edited: I've been reading more and more blogs saying everyone should lay off Howett, or talking about dogpiles: "Seriously, it’s one thing to righteously smack someone down when they’re giving you a hard time. It’s another to join in on a dogpile. Dogpiles are for cowards and for fascists.
And it’s completely another if you’re a famous author with a million followers to feed that dogpile. For real, NEIL GAIMAN? I’m defending some poor crazy lady from NEIL GAIMAN?"
All Gaiman did was point at Howett's behaviour and say "don't do that". When someone suggests this to the blogger they respond "The more power you have, the more careful you have to be. I can write a whole couple of paragraphs trashing Neil Gaiman, and not have to worry that I’ve harmed him in any significant way; for someone with a million and a half readers, even pointing to something like this can constitute a kind of cruelty." I would agree with the blogger if Gaiman had written somethign horrible about this woman, but he didn't. He pointed at her on his Twitter page. People seem to forget, this is the internet. Everyone can look at it, and comment on anything on it, as much as they want. What Howett did was done on a public forum - it's like she came into a café where I was enjoying a coffee, and screamed in my face. If Gaiman wants to do the same thing, that's totally allowed. It's the internet. It's public. If you don't want to discuss yourself on a public forum, you make a choice not to go to that public forum and discuss yourself.

Man alive!

8 questions

Questions from Annekata (go and look at her lovely, lovely blog)

1. If you could have a dinner with a famous person (alive or dead) who would you choose?
There are so many people both dead and alive that I would love to answer for this question! Alan Turing. He's the father of computer science, and sadly he killed himself because society was so against homosexuals at the time. A great man, and we share the same birthday.

2. Where would you have that dinner?
There's a lovely little restaurant on the Rue de L'Eglise in St Généreux. It hasn't got a name, or a menu - you just get whatever they decide to make that day. Six courses of good French country cooking, vin compris. C'est magnifique!

3. What book written (in the last 300 years) had a real influence on your life?
There are many books that have influenced my life. Here are a few, in no particular order:
Folk Music by Sheenagh Pugh, and
Kirstie's Witnesses by Sheenagh Pugh
Berta La Larga by Cuca Canals
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (yes, really)
1984 by George Orwell
The Poems of Max Ehrmann
The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (it was after reading this, and all his other novels in quick succession, that I decided to concentrate on being a writer)

4. If you could live anywhere, in any time, what place and time would that be?
I like living now, and where I am, is that weird? I'd like to visit loads of different times, I'd love to be a hunter-gatherer living in Wales in the Neolithic (is that when hunter-gatherers lived?); I'd also like to go and visit the 1700s, just so I could wear some fantastic clothes! There are also so many turning points in gay history that I'd like to visit - being a young man paired with a strong Roman warrior as my teacher; learning Polari and visiting underground gay clubs when gay culture was still being created, also seeing it being decriminalised would be amazing; I'd also love to go back to June 28th 1969 to be part of the Stonewall riots.

5. What season would reflect you best?
Autumn. Cold, sunny days made for scarf-wearing, long walks, fruit-picking, blankets, knitting, making dens, hot tea, baking cakes, warming stews, game pie, blackberries, gloves, Halloween/Samhain, fires, fireworks, lots of soup and reading stories. That's me.

6. What do you wear when you don't want to think about what you wear?
Boring. Jeans, t-shirt, sneakers.

7. What does craft/making mean to you?
Literally everything. All the creative stuff I do, whether that be writing, sewing, painting, pyrography, knitting, crochet, sculpting, soldering, drawing, folding, sticking, is a part of who I am. I make, therefore I am. Lolz.

8. If you project yourself into the future. Is there anything you would like to achieve in the next 2 to 5 years?
I want to get one of my novels published. I'm over halfway writing one, and about a fifth of the way through the other.

NaPoWriMo *30th April 2010*

Patterns

Edit: Removed for possible publication.

NaPoWriMo *29th April 2010*

Angel begins with A

Accepted Angelic and have appear.
According also a Seraphim and as another angels are Archangels,
are Cherubim
Ark was like the lustre of burnished bronze
“As for their wings, they were separated:
above, each had two touching those of the others,
while the other two covered its body."

NaPoWriMo *28th April 2010*

This is a dream haiku

I stole all these words.
They'll never know, never miss
what they didn't have.

NaPoWriMo *27th April 2010*

Messenger

Edit: Removed for possible publication.

NaPoWriMo *26th April 2010*

Frowning haiku

I sigh at the time
it has taken to get here.
The day is too short.

NaPoWriMo *25th April 2010*

Craving

Edit: Removed for possible publication.

NaPoWriMo *24th April 2010*

Saturday haiku

A forest erupts
into imagination,
I make wallpaper.

*This was written after I had seen some beautiful wallpaper which had a lifesize picture of a forest glade on it. I want it for my living room!

NaPoWriMo *23rd April 2010*

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum

Edit: Removed for possible publication.

NaPoWriMo *22nd April 2010*

Song

Edit: Removed for possible publication.

NaPoWriMo *21st April 2010*

Wild Rumpus

Edit: Removed for possible publication.

NaPoWriMo *20th April 2010*

Postal

Pending.
Procedure.
Placate.

Property.
Profit.
Profit margin.
Profitable.

Procrastinate.

Normal service will be resumed

My experiment to write a novel in 30 days has come a cropper. There's 6 days left and I'm only halfway through. I've finally stopped beating myself up about it though. I totally chose the wrong month to write a novel: work is busy at the moment and I'm buying a house!

I am very pleased with what I've done so far, but I'm still upset with myself for having to change the terms of the contract. I'm now going to try and write (at least) a thousand words every day until it is finished. I've made sure I've written all the major parts of the story, and I'm now drawing everything together, filling in the gaps, and starting to arrange the chapters.

It's gone off in a lot of different directions, and surprised me in many ways too: one character who was alwasy going to die, didn't. I ended up really liking the character and found it easy to write him - and I want to write about him again, but I wouldn't be able to if I knew he'd end up dead. Also a new character appeared, and I don't know where she came from. She's going to stick around too.

I wish ìt could all have been done in the 30 days, but this month hasn't allowed - but I have the bare bones, and a lot to work with. I should be thankful for that.

NaPoWriMo *19th April 2010*

Paper Hearts

Edit: Removed for possible publication.

NaPoWriMo *18th April 2010*

Tired Today

Today is a tired day, it has sleep in its eyes.
It's tried to wake up, had coffee,
done some light exercise,
to no avail. Its eyes are dark still.

Today has had a long night.
It ran and ran and ran, last night,
lost a shoe, had an argument. Hates itself.
Tomorrow will be better, it tells itself.

NaPoWriMo *17th April 2010*

Lost

Edit: Removed for possible publication.

NaPoWriMo *16th April 2010*

Sunny haiku

Yellow gold, the sky
is a bowl with an egg yolk
or a saffron eye.