Curd the Lion – Mumbie’s Feast (how it all ended, originally)

Queen Mumbie-Bumbee’s Feast (the original ending – ended by the editor)

If when you read it, you wonder why Queen Mumbie gives repetitive answer-variants on the same riddle, it is because originally the ‘bemusements’ ended as follows:

  “Scuse me, Queen Mumbie,” Curd suddenly asked, as she led them to her gorgeous six-poster bed, “but when will all your subjects be coming? Isn’t it getting a bit late?”

   He had been quietly awaiting their arrival all evening.

   “They are beecoming as we are beecoming,” replied the Queen helpfully.

   “Oh,” replied Curd, feeling more bewildered than becoming, as he sat on the bed’s soft mattress.

   Seeing his confusion, Pilgrim Crow chipped in: “But how can we becoming if we are Now-Here and NoWhere else, as you said? Where could we be coming from, being here, now?”

   “Yes, Being here we couldn’t be coming, could we,” repeated Sweeney the Heenie, bouncing a bit to test the springs.

  “Aah, the Problem of Beeing,” hummed Queen Mumbie-Bumbee happlily, “now There’s a Question! And you’ll be longing for an answer, no doubt?”

   Before they had time to say, “No,” she began:

“The problem of being.

The problem of being has being.

Here it is: the problem of being.

But to be

the problem of being,

the problem must be without (outside) being.

If the problem is without being,

the problem has no being (in itself).

There is no problem

and the problem of being has no-being.

Thus,

the problem of being

has both being and no-being.

So now there exists a new problem:

the problem of the problem of being.

The problem of the problem of being has being.

Here it is: The problem of the problem of being.

But to be

the problem of the problem of being,

the problem must be without (outside) the problem of being.

If the the problem is without the problem of being,

the problem has no problem of being.

Having no problem of being,

The problem must have either being or no-being,

or it (the problem) would have the problem of being,

which it has not.

Then, what is the problem?

Having being or no-being

the problem of the problem of being

has no problem of being.

But, the problem of being

has the problem of being or no-being.

If the problem of being has being

then there is no problem of the problem of being,

for it (the problem of being) is.

Or, if the problem of being has no-being,

then there is no problem of the problem of being,

for it (the problem of being) is not.

Either way, there is no

problem of the problem of being

But there is.

And this is

the  problem of the problem of the problem of being,”

   “Zzzzzzzzzzz…” All of the Animals had fallen asleep where they sat, except Sweeney the Heenie, who mumbled drowsily as he laid his head on her beautifully embroidered feather-down pillow, “So that’s what is means to be ‘horribly bored by a bee’.”

© Alan Gilliland (“The Amazing Adventure’s of Curd the Lion (and us!) in the Land at the Back of Beyond.” ISBN 9780955548611 - e-book 9780955548642)

[I just thought you ought to know that]

TWITTER and a burst of tweets

The other day I was persuaded to take another look at Twitter, masquerading as ‘OnundTreefoot’ with his ‘Shabby Tattler’ avatar, when I found @mywordwizard who issues wee challenges by starting a ‘poem’ with a phrase. It tickled my fancy to try a couple (having just been told, as I said, that I must learn to communicate through tweeting). So just for fun, I tried a few, learning as I went along that the trick is to @someone before you tweet (or face the darkness of the VOID all on your own!). So here it went (ital was provided phrase):
“They met at eventide, / Sweet water and the salt, / And circled each, side to side, / Until the Moon called “Halt!”
“The sky enveloped / By clouds of white; / The Moon has eloped / with her own ‘Black Knight’” (Onund Treefoot groans)
Suddenly, as if by magic @Litopia appeared following me, so I looked to see what they do, and discovered a request to write a story in 3 tweets:

“They’re up with the lark, / all hunting the Snark. / This elusive Spark that illumines the dark / Can be found in the pound at the end of the park.”
“But they’re searching the Search / Twixt the beach and the birch. / It’s a rod for their backs / Lest they cover their tracks,”
“And the Last will be First / To be gobbled and cursed; / For I needn’t remind them / That the Snark is behind them!”
(But each tweet was too long to allow @Litopia to precede them – so into the Black Hole they went – one after the other) To show Litopia I was not all frivolity and fluff, I offered to add a few Haiku-ish ‘Day To-Day Fragments’ from my ‘Ana Thema’ book of short stories and poems (only @-ting the first two )
“Dawn envelops / the light of stars / in sparkling dew”
“Silhouetted flowers / growing apart / from their greening leaves”

“Ladybird – complementing – this spotless leaf!”
(and so on and so forth)
It was at this point I discovered the ‘@ Principle of tweeting’ and the existence of ‘@mentions’ and ‘Retweets’ which, being a non-notice noticer I had glossed over without a second glance before – a whole new meaning opened up … this is why I only ever saw strange “@… blah blah” snippets of conversation!
Returning to MyWord Wizard my ‘wizened’ eye was caught by another phrase, on the day after the American Superbowl, about which I cared nothing and knew less (or vice-versa) because Liverpool had just beaten Chelsea after they stole Torres!
“@mywordwizard A brilliant splash of colour /  As the Packers clash the Steelers, / But nothing beat the howler / That was Christina Aguilera’s!”
It worked. I got a response and a re-tweet (I had had them before but didn’t know it). And the response carried a challenge: “@OnundTreefoot Very topical, very goooooood! Encore! (color). http://tiny.ly/9jbF Love it!”  Language is at the heart of our trans-Atlantic ‘special relationship’, so naturally I did everything to placate the poor souls:
“@mywordwizard Color’s what U Yanks say / Though never short of a vowel / We’re beaten in tweetin’ in the UK, / Guess we’ll throw in the towel!” [ok. a bit rough but getting close to bed-time]
Between the two, MWW an Litupia, we went on a little longer:
“@mywordwizard Never say never unless your endeavour so originally wrought is bound to be found plagiaristically bound in another man’s tort!”
and, as if by magic, some new followers turned up (thanks to any I forgot to thank).
I learned a little about tweeting and learned another lesson, too:
“Distraction and Multiplication together just don’t Add up to a lot of work done!”

Pre-Christmas signings success

From the First weekend in November (ie. after 'The Flight of Birds' by Alan Howard, ISBN 9780955548628 / ebook ISBN 9780955548666, both £9.99, came out) I have done 17 signings (not incl Sundays - two).
Total (incl. the 2 Sundays): 740 [Curd sold  417, FoB 323].

Average per day (not incl Sundays): 40.4
Curd 22 av (high 33)
FoB 18 av (score rising as I developed ways of selling this one - high 33)
Lower Curd average than prior to FoB arrival due to split attention.
I experimented in Waterstone’s Fareham where I did two successive days
Day one - Curd Curd 27 / FoB 20; total 47
Day two - Curd Curd 13 / FoB 33; total 46
to prove that The Flight of Birds does sell (while not wholly neglecting Curd).

A big ‘thank you’ to all those who kindly bought either book (or both)!

Christmas card – Sorted!

Home sweet home after one night’s snow. Aaah!

Ana Thema _ a book of short stories and poems – Alan Howard

Short stories and poems, loosely linked to the ‘Danse Macabre’ trilogy. 100p £6.99. 6 illustrations. ISBN 9780955548635 paperback print-on-demand available. Held in UK by Gardners wholesalers so can be ordered from bookshops or direct from publisher at same porice for signed, dedicated copy).
e-book version on PRC for Kindle and ePub for other devices ISBN 9780955548659.

I love Lovereading and Lovereading4kids websites!

Here’s what they have made of my new book, ‘The Flight of Birds’:

Lovereading website has made Flight of Birds top of their 'Horror, Fantasy & Sci Fi' section, plus 5th on their 'Mystery and Crime'.
This is their review:

"This is the tale of the haunting, in modern times, of a girl by a ghost exactly resembling her own dead mother. Encountering this ghost imprisoned in the East wing of the Great House Kate is gradually drawn in and compelled to unravel the terrible story of this place.  The reader too will feel utterly drawn in to follow Kate's story through the author's masterful storytelling powers and the two worlds, modern and historical are woven together in to a web in which the reader has no desire to leave but instead continue turning the pages to the surprising denouement.   Through the Tales of Shabby Tattler, a one-eyed vagabond whose power of description seems to bring to life those he depicts, Kate is drawn into a past in which she finds herself a living victim, trapped by circumstance and helpless to alter the terrifying unfolding of events.  This is the first in a trilogy of Gothic tales through which, in a 'Danse Macabre' moves the dark enigmatic figure of the 'Shabby Tattler', the cunning man. Tale-teller and myth-maker is he, or puppet-master of these strange plays, conjuring appearances and disappearances, scenes of tragedy and comedy: manipulator of souls with strings invisible?"

Nice, eh?

Especially after the Waterstone's (Gemma Sealey of St. Albans) one:

   "What an amazing tale! The reader is thrust straight into an atmospheric drama, weaving history and fantasy together in this Gothic Danse Macabre, in parts reminiscent of some original brothers' Grimm tales, and the writing is so addictive there's never a good place to put the book down. As for the ending, nothing prepares you for that!

   I really was not expecting when I started this book for it to have a treasure trove of such depth and diversity, horror and enchantment. It combines the magical twists of Neil Gaiman with atmosphere of Poe or Machen. The author has, like an Elizabethan alchemist, blended to perfection all the vital serendipitous ingredients to make a most original haunting tale."

Book: The Flight of Birds, Alan Howard. ISBN 9780955548628. 400pp. pb. with flaps. £9.99.

Available from all websites and Waterstones also as ebook: ISBN 978095554866 

From Lovereading at:

http://www.lovereading.co.uk/book/5159/The-Flight-of-Birds-by-Alan-Howard.html

AND
My previous effort, ‘The Amazing Adventures of Curd the Lion (and us!) in the Land at the Back of Beyond’ by Alan Gilliland author/illustrator  ISBN 9780955548611 hb. 176pp 80+ illus.,£14.99, has now sold about 6,000
Love reading4kids website made it a Book of Year, Debut of Year and Personal choice of founder last year and widest age-range ever given a book, and are promting it again this year
See quite few kids reviews plus others plus theirs on

http://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/book/3991

The Lovereading comment:
“Reminiscent of the writing of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, this brilliant debut children's novel is completely unputdownable as well as being almost uncategorisable.  The author has succeeded in delivering on a book that incorporates a terrifically funny yet mysterious story, full of larger-than-life highly improbable characters that I couldn't begin to do justice to by describing them here, other than to say they are wild and wacky and completely original.  He's also delivered a story that is full of tongue-in-cheek humour and skilful word-play. It's staggering to think that it was not picked up by one of the mainstream publishers and has instead been published quite brilliantly by a small independent start-up company.   It's 174 pages of pure unadulterated pleasure and was one of our top books of 2009. This is a book that will be loved by anyone from 7 to 107.  It may not be as widely available nationwide as some books but that's through no fault of the book.”

FISHHOOKS! The snow has cancelled two of my signings.

Petersfield today and Woking on Saturday. Both Waterstone’s.
From next Thursday I’ve solid signings (incl. Sundays) till 22nd driving home from Bury St. Edmunds that night for one day off before Christmas. Great!
It’s up to the top of my long wellies this morning but Rufus (my Vizsla) loves it. Disappeared into a snowdrift charging full tilt around the fields.