Menu.

The Austeritos Gruellery

Menu.

Gruel:
Standard gruel, like your great grandmother was forced to eat.

Gruel, Southern style:
Like standard gruel, but more expensive.

McGruel:
The gruel which never decays

Black Velvet Gruel:
Standard gruel with a topping of delicious furry mould.

Aged Gruel:
From our hearts, to the bottom of the barrel, to you.

Luxury Gruel Meal:
A mixture of all our gruels served with a slice of bread*.


Tell your server whether you'd like your gruel served luke-warm or tepid.


Desert.

Cold Gruel.
Frozen Gruel (only available in winter or when the temperature drops below 0C.)


Drinks.

Water.
Rain Water. A cheeky number with delicate hints of mosquito larva.
Warm Rain Water. (only available when the temperature has climbed above 20c on three or more consecutive days. Suitable for those with a strong constitution.)




*Bread may contain rocks.

Love Poem for my Wife.

Sweet Wife,
You killed the titanic wasp
It blew me from the kitchen
With a buzz of harpy wings
Like Circe, you cast a spell of doom
By our fridge (plentiful with food)
Your spellbook, a cheap romance novel
Transforming wasp to dirty smudge
Wiped away, and placed in the bin
Atop the smoked bacon (gone off.)
I love you.

Monologue: the Morning Prayer of Doris Laybring.

Dear God,

Now, I know it's not my place to complain and I know you have an infallible plan and all but I want to talk to you about the rapture. Mrs Clements from across the road has been raptured during the night. I know this becaus I can see the rapture squad over there now, they're bringing her stuff out in boxes to sell to the poor. They look very smart, they do you proud.

But, God, I have lived a good life, I've never cheated on Mr Laybring or turned him down when he wanted me to perform my wifely duties, even though he usually smells of swarfega and the whole business is rather messy and unpleasant. I've raised three children and they all go to church and vote the right way, if you know what I mean. But I'm still here.

And the people who are getting raptured, well. I'm not sure. Mrs Smith got raptured and I know for a fact before the legislation came in she had an abortion and she was cheating on her husband, and he's a Vicar! But I just thought she was a Vicar's wife so she's probably done her penance and squared everything, I mean, if anyone should know what's needed it's a Vicar right? And he does such good work, nearly everyone in the estate he ministers has been raptured, soon there won't be any poor to sell things to. Which I suppose is good.

But it's Mrs Clements that's really confused me. She had a book on evolution, you know. I saw it, I told the local council officer about it last week. In truth, I'm not even sure she believed in in you, I mean, she went to church but she only ever seemed to mouth the words. I never heard her singing. And she had some very strange friends around, odd haircuts, strange clothes, y'know the types. Criminals. And as for a Mr Clements, well, she doesn't even have any pictures of him and I've never seen him.

But Mrs Clements has been raptured and I do know you have a plan. I do. It just seems odd, that's all, that someone like her should be raptured before someone like me when I do everything that's asked of me.

Anyway, sorry to complain and please look after Mr Laybring while he's plumbing and please let him come home very tired.

Amen.

Not publishing.

I've been reading lots of stuff online about self publishing Vs traditional publishing and I thought I would just put my own, incredibly unimportant*, oar into the water. Also, would stress this is strictly my own opinion written more to clarify my thoughts than anything else.

Now, in the interests of truthfulness I better admit I have self published some stuff. And in the interests of plugging it here's some links – Interment and The Social Diary of a Ghoul- but we'll come back to them and the why's and wherefores later.

I write because I love to. That's the be all and end all of it. There is no other reason. I have ideas and people in my head and I want to share them - give back some of the joy I've had from books. However, there are some problems with this and it's the genesis of those problems that are the reason I would never self publish a novel.

I don't think I'm very good.

At a standard? yes. I have a rudimentary understanding of grammar and a decent vocabulary but what I do is never right. It never matches the picture in my head and I'm honest enough to know that when you write something, of any complexity at all, it's easy to miss stuff. That's not because you're a bit dim it's because, as the writer, you know everything backwards. I might know that 'The Dagger of Misanthrope the Great Unpleasantness' has a magic power that will make my hero grow a massive leg when it's needed in chapter eight but the reader doesn't. It's all too easy to overlook things like that, the little details.

Also, I don't actually know if my characters come across as I intend them to. Beta reading helps, to some degree, but over time beta readers become friends and then there's always that thought in the back of my head – 'are they just being kind'?

For that reason, whatever it might cost me financially to have a professional editor challenge me on what I'm doing and make me think in new ways of doing it is worth it. It can only make me, and my book, better. I cannot imagine anything worse than becoming complacent. Thinking 'I can do it' is at the same time a goal I want to reach for but one I never want to arrive at. And for me to put out a novel myself is akin to saying I think I have it down pat. I don't, probably never will.

Then there's the myths I keep reading, the 'old boys network' and 'publishers aren't looking for anything new.' To be quite frank, bollocks. A major publisher looked at my novel after looking at my blog. No agent involved, you don't get to work in acquisitions with these places unless you love the form. They are out there, they are actively looking. Now, I hear you saying, 'looked, maybe, but they didn't take it did they?' And you're right, no they didn't. But they explained their reasoning, were very complimentary about my writing and left an open invite for the future work. That project just didn't happen to be for them**

Another thing is this: VALIDATE ME. You might think it's weak, it probably is. But the fact someone is stepping in and saying, 'yes, we reckon this is worth paying for and pushing, you just keep on writing RJ,' would be a massive thing to me. I have no training in this, have never been to a workshop, don't go to cons to network and have had to re-teach myself grammar from scratch. I am just a chap sat on my own trying to write a thousand words a day.

Which leads me back to the couple of things I have published. One I was pushed into doing by a friend, the second was nominated for a literature award so I know it has a little merit. Also, they're not novels and are things I'm pretty sure have little to no traditional market.

Lastly, business. I have a two year old boy, he has better business sense than me. On top the fact I'm really, really ill and have very limited amounts of energy then the work a trad publisher would do becomes entirely worth it.

So, those hurried scratched down amid coughing and sneezing thoughts are why I will toddle on in my venture to find a trad publisher/agent. If you're self publishing, good luck to you, I think you're brave but it's not for me.



*was going to say 'incredibly small oar' but it felt like I was insulting myself somehow
**Which is a fair thing to say, I wrote it knowing it was probably a love it/hate it thing.

(Apologies for any errors, am dying of cold.)

If Conan had been a little different.

Conan does not objectify anyone at all. Ever.


The Frost Giant's Son.

He was running with effort now, his golden locks blowing free; Conan heard the quick panting of the man's breath, and saw a flash of fear in the look he cast over his white shoulder. The grim endurance of the barbarian had served him well. The speed ebbed from the man's flashing white legs; he reeled in his gait. In Conan's untamed soul leaped up the fires of hell the man had fanned so well. With an inhuman roar Conan closed in on him, just as he wheeled with a haunting cry and flung out his arms to fend Conan off.

His sword fell into the snow as he crushed the man to his muscled chest. The man's lithe body bent backward as he fought with desperate frenzy in Conan's iron arms. His golden hair blew about Conan's face, blinding him with its sheen; the feel of the man's slender body twisting in his mailed arms drove him to blinder madness. His strong fingers sank deep into the others smooth flesh; and that flesh was cold as ice. It was as if he embraced not a man of human flesh and blood, but a man of flaming ice. The man writhed his golden head aside, striving to avoid Conan's fierce kisses that bruised his red lips.

"You are cold as the snows," he mumbled dazedly. "I will warm you with the fire in my own blood--"

With a scream and a desperate wrench the man slipped from his arms, leaving a single gossamer garment in his grasp. The man sprang back and faced him, his golden locks and thick beard in wild disarray, his white chest heaving, his beautiful eyes blazing with terror. For an instant Conan stood frozen, awed by the man's terrible beauty as he posed naked against the snows.