Category Archives: NOVEL WRITING

October 25, 2022 · 3:41 am

AeroQuest 5… Canto 152

Canto 152 – Ged on Mingo

The Ancient Red Dragon starship  popped out of jump space to find the planet Mingo bustling with activity.  The spaceways around the heavily industrialized planet were crammed with merchant ships of every kind, from gargantuan, cigar-shaped mass haulers to the smallest of independent beetle-shaped personal transports.  It wasn’t that no one noticed the dragon-shaped vessel as it arrived from the complex gravitic web of outer space; it was more a matter of everyone being too busy to care.

Three system defense boats came out to look over Ged’s Ancient spacecraft, but as they scanned it and found it was not alive, they quickly lost interest.  It had no weapons that registered on any kind of detector.  The human signatures on the routine life-scan would tell the transport police that nothing about this unusual craft suggested it was hostile in any way.

“Ged-sensei, we have arrived at the place your girlfriend is hidden,” said Billy Iowa, coming out of his clairvoyant trance.  “I see her in the palace below, the one called David King’s Hall in the Ruined Palaces District.”

“It is a shame we don’t have any computer database available on this ship,” remarked Ged.  “I suppose even if it did, it couldn’t tell us anything about Emperor Mong or his planet Mingo.”

            “We have to get down to that palace and save her,” asserted Junior, looking determined.

“Don’t get ahead of us, Smurf,” growled Alec.  “What are the Ruined Palaces?”      

            “It’s a place where the buildings have all been attacked at one time or another,” said Billy, looking with his inner eye.  “Their damage has been preserved as a part of the decor of the buildings.  David King’s Hall is one of the three biggest ones.”

            “Whoa,” said Alec, half-laughing, “why would they rebuild something and make it look like it’s still ruined?”

            “An evil sense of humor,” said Phoenix.  “It’s like something Bres might do.”

            “You put Bres down too much!” said Alec, suddenly hot.

            “No, he can’t be put far enough down, Alec,” answered Phoenix coolly.  All could see the air begin to sizzle around the Phoenix.

            “Yeah, whatever.”  Alec backed off from the subject.

            “We do have to go down there,” said Ged at last.  “We need to be prepared to use our Psion powers.  We know what rot warriors are, but we have no experience of what they can do.”

            Taffy King, who had only been looking at the back of Rocket Rogers’ neck before, spoke up.  “I grew up around them.”  Her blue snake’s eyes glowed with angry fire.  “They are like robots who don’t work right.  They lurch around and stumble into things, but when they are ordered to fight, they do it one hundred to one.  They overwhelm the opponent with bone-headed force.”

            “What are they really?” asked Sarah innocently.

            “Re-animated skeletons,” offered Rocket.  “I’ve seen them before on Bradalanth Colony.  They are bones and circuits and some patches of leathery skin.  Mechanoids with no brains.”

            “Monsters!” moaned Hassan Parker.

            “Remember, young ones,” said Ged, “they are easily defeated because they cannot think for themselves.  As long as we work together and let no one get overwhelmed by numbers, we should be able to overcome them.  I worry more about what other problems may arise as we try to get past Emperor Mong’s living minions.”

            “Geez, you sound like an old holo-cartoon show!” remarked Phoenix.

            “You disagree with something?”  Ged was suddenly a bit annoyed.

            “Oh, no.  You are right.  It just sounds so cartoonish!”

            “So, what will we do, Sensei?” asked Junior carefully, afraid of rousing more ire from Ged.

            “Sarah?  Can you help us see the distant places Billy can sense?”

            “Yes, Sensei.”  Sarah was capable of transferring images from one mind to another.

            “Jackie, if you see the place, can you teleport us there one by one?”

            The pretty, brown-skinned girl smiled at Ged for the first time in a while.  “You know I can!”

            “Well, then, that’s our way in.”

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October 24, 2022 · 3:22 am

Slightly Feverish

An infinite number of monkeys with and infinite number of word-processors will supposedly eventually type out everything I have ever written and everything I am going to write… As well as everything I will ever write with a random word misspelled or replaced with the wrong word. It would be an infinite mess. After all, infinite monkeys and infinite word-processors would fill infinite space and leave no room for infinite bananas. The monkeys would all starve after the initial typed manuscripts are completed, and any surviving monkeys that randomly evolved an ability to eat word-processors would die from exposure to infinite rotting monkey corpses. The whole thing gets gruesome after a while.

But let’s get serious for a moment. (Something that is generally difficult for Mickey.) Monkeys with type-writers will not solve my essential problem. I will not run out of stories before I run out of time for story-telling. And I find it totally creditable that my time is almost gone.

I am ill again, with a viral infection that gives me headaches, low-grade fever, and a wicked cough. I feel horrible. I had chest pains last night that led to a serious debate yet again. If it had been a heart attack, that would’ve been the end. I cannot survive economically another hospital bill. So, I have to go on the theory that since the last heart-attack scare was only arthritis in the ribs and the strange effect that has on EKGs, this one must also be the same. I can’t afford any other conclusion. And since I am still alive to write this, it was obviously the correct conclusion to draw.

The titles I have listed above, still in my stupid old head, are eleven more books I will add to my growing list. This is, of course, entirely dependent on how much longer I have before the darkness claims me for all time. I have writing to do. No more days off. And if I get five more years of two books a year, I just might make it. But last night convinced me that the effort may end at any time. So, though I am sick, I better get busy and write something.

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October 18, 2022 · 5:54 pm

AeroQuest 5… Canto 151

Canto 151 – Harlequins

Smoky Hardretter and the synthezoid Sorcerer 27 stood over the operating table with a Mechanoid stretched out upon it.  Mechanoids, of course, are deceased humanoids that have been reanimated by robotic implants and electronic reconstruction to make of them what are basically cyborgs, except for the fact that they have not merely been enhanced while still alive, they have been dug up out of graves and zombified by the Mechanoid-making process.

“This body in life was one of the best Imperial Guardsmen we ever had.  He defended three different Triumvirs while he was alive.  He had 500 clones that also served as guardsmen.”  Smoky looked questioningly at Sorcerer after explaining the guardsman.

“This body will be perfect for our needs.  He has been put through the tissue-regeneration protocols that I set up as an automated process?”  Sorcerer grinned, something previous Sorcerers were not capable of doing.

“The nanobots are transforming the flesh now.  It seems he is growing huge muscles as we watch.”

“Oh, yes.  He will be an unbeatable warrior.  He is not only going to be more powerful and more agile than any existing Mechanoid, but he will also be unkillable.  His flesh is natural armor and quickly repairs itself when he is wounded.  He will also be nearly impossible to hit because of his agility and camouflage.”

“Camouflage?  He’s dressed in multicolored clown clothes!”

 “That’s also why he’s called a Harlequin.  He’s acrobatic enough to dodge bullets and plasma streams.  And his combat dress produces strobing and flashing colored lights that will make targeting nearly impossible when the energy dampers are working at full power.”

“So, he will be like an acrobat?  Flipping through the air to avoid being shot while firing his weapons from midair?”

“Now you’ve got the core idea,” said Sorcerer.  “He will be capable of putting on a real show of power.  And imagine how effective an entire squad of these troopers performing in unison will be.”

“I am impressed,” Smoky said.

The Mechanoid suddenly sat up.  His face mask, obscuring the skull-like corpse head underneath, was a grinning, white clown mask.

“I can’t believe I’m alive again.  What are your commands, Lord Hardretter?”

Smoky smiled contentedly.  “I think we need to run some tests.”

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October 15, 2022 · 4:44 am

The Creature I Have Become

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I identify as a humorist, writer, cartoonist, and certified fool (Yes, I have a certificate from the Children’s Writer Institute that proves I once foolishly believed I could learn how to make money as a writer).  But my current novel project is a horror novel, The Baby Werewolf, which I twice before tried to turn into a completed rough draft novel. This time I followed through to the bitter end.  I published it on Amazon.

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Torrie Brownfield, hypertrichosis sufferer and possible werewolf.

In order to reign in the goofiness enough to deal with the issues in this novel, I have been doing a lot of horror reading. I have also undertaken the reading of a very good author examination of the life of Edgar Allen Poe.

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Poe’s life was highly instructive.  You may not have realized this, but most of the giants of American Literature prior to and contemporary with Poe did not make most of their money as writers.  Emerson was a clergyman.  Nathaniel Hawthorne worked as a customs clerk. Poe, the first to try to make a living solely on work as a writer, editor, critic, and poet, was subjected to the horrors of poverty, illness, and want.  His wife was chronically tubercular and ill.  He never made the money he was obviously worth as a creator of popular horror fiction, poetry, critical essays about other authors, and as an editor for profitable magazines of the day.  Other people made loads of money from his work.  Poe, not so much.

It is instructive to a writer like me who can’t seem to land any sort of income from my own creations.  There is no demand because there is no recognition of my work.  I have come close, having my work praised by editors and fellow authors, and being a finalist in novel writing contests twice.  The goal is good writing.  I will probably never see a return on my investment in my lifetime.  My children may not acquire anything by it unless one of them really devotes a lot of effort to it.  Like Poe with his drinking problem, chronic depression, and ill wife, I face physical limitations and poor health, grinding financial issues, and family factors that make it near impossible to put marketing effort into my literary career.

And this novel is a hard journey for me.  I was sexually assaulted by an older boy when I was ten.  A lot of the fears outlined and elucidated in this particular story leap right out of that iron cage in my psyche where they have been contained for fifty years.  Fear of nakedness.  Fear of sex.  Fear of being attacked.  Fear of the secret motivations in others.  Fear of the dark.  And, most of all, fear of what fear can make me become.  Fear of being a monster.

But I have not become any of the dark and terrible things that fear can make me into.  Instead, I became a school teacher, and mentor to many.  I became a family man, a father of three children.  I became a nudist, hopefully not a dark and terrible thing in itself.  I became Mickey.

This novel will become my Halloween free-book promotion later this month. Probably next weekend rather than Halloween.

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October 14, 2022 · 3:13 am

Small Town Inspirations

Pesch Street

I grew up in a small rural town in North Central Iowa.  It was a place that was, according to census, home to 275 people.  That apparently counted the squirrels.  (And I should say, the squirrels were definitely squirrelly.  They not only ate nuts, they became a nut.)  It was a good place to grow up in the 60’s and 70’s.  But in many ways, it was a boring place.

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Yes, there were beautiful farmer’s daughters to lust after and pine for and be humiliated by.  There was a gentle, supportive country culture where Roy Rogers was a hero and some of the best music came on Saturdays on Hee Haw where there was a lot of pickin’ and grinnin’ going on.  There were high school football games on Friday nights, good movies at the movie theaters in Belmond and Clarion, and occasional hay rides for the 4-H Club and various school-related events like Homecoming.

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I lived in a world where I was related to half the people in the county, and I knew at least half of the other half.  People told stories about other people, some of them incredibly mean-spirited, some of them mildly mean, and some of them, though not many, that were actually good and actually true.  I learned about telling good stories from my Grandpa Aldrich who could tell a fascinating tale of Dolly who owned the part of town called locally “Dollyville” and included the run-down vacant structure the kids all called the Ghost House.   He also told about Dolly’s husband, Shorty the dwarf, who was such a mean drunk and went on epic temper tirades that often ended only when Dolly hospitalized him with a box on the ear.  (Rumor had it that there were bricks in the box.)

And I realized that through story-telling, the world became whatever you said that it was.   I could change the parts of life I didn’t love so much by lying… er, rather, by telling a good story about them.  And if people heard and liked the stories enough, they began to believe and see life more the way I saw it myself.  A good story could alter reality and make life better.  I used this power constantly as a child.

There were invisible aliens invading Iowa constantly when I was a boy.  Dragons lived in the woods at Bingham Park, and there were tiny little fairy people everywhere, in the back yard under the bushes, in the attic of the house, and building cities in the branches of neglected willow trees.

Donner n Silkie

I reached out to the world around me as an artist, a cartoonist, and a story-teller and plucked details and colors and wild imaginings like apples to bake the apple pie that would much later in my life feed the novels and colored-pencil pictures that would make up my inner life.  The novels I have written and the drawings I have made have all come from being a small town boy who dreamed big and lived more in stories than in the humdrum everyday world.

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October 11, 2022 · 2:12 am

AeroQuest 5… Canto 150

Canto 150 – Trav Goes Hunting

The reanimated thing that had been Trav Dalgoda was still tinkering with repairing himself using what computer pieces he could acquire in Castle Orpheum’s under-water dome’s marketplaces.

“This goop percolating in the terrarium-thing is actual Trav-Dalgoda flesh being cloned?” asked Dana Cole, staring at the amorphous blob of Traviness as it wriggled with life and growth.

“That’s right, old Dana jester.  I need actual living tissue to create the new me.  But I need some other things as well that I can’t get on this planet without getting wet.”

Dana was a bit stunned.  “You just called me jester?”

“That I did.  You know me.  I always talk like that because nobody else in the universe does.”

“Am I still talking to Tyrrix?  Or is this Trav?”

“Well, now… that’s complicated.  I guess you’d have to say that I am a bit of both.  The Trav part of this brain is very good at absorbing and taking over the Ancient personality.  But that’s because the old brain and the new are so basically compatible.  Tyrrix was the trickster mind in the Crown of Stars.  And the Trav mind fits into that mind like puzzle pieces made of clay that molds to fit into the spaces where Tyrrix is basically missing parts of his old noggin.  I definitely feel as much like I’m Trav as I do Tyrrix.”

“Oh, no!”

“But you love me as Trav, don’t you?”

“Yes, but…  my gawd!”

“Yes, I can answer to that too.  I have big plans.”

“So, what did you mean about getting wet?”

“Well, Dancer is not only a water planet with no dry land at all, it is also the site of an Ancient library.   I am going to have to go out underwater and find the Ancient minds that are archived there.”

“Um… oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.  And while I am at it, I need some more robotic-synthetic parts too.”

“…And you’ll get that from the library?”

“No, I will get the parts I need from Sorcerer 13.”

“He’s here in Castle Orpheum?  This underwater city?”

“No.  He’s out there looking for the same prize I am going after.  We will intercept him.  Kill him.  And borrow his parts.”

“We?  You said we will do it?”

“Oh, yes.  You can’t survive underwater without a pressurized diving suit.  But there are plenty of those in this city.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course not.  That part of Trav is mostly in control of this body now.”

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October 4, 2022 · 2:35 am

AeroQuest 5… Canto 149

Canto 149 – Hassan Parker’s Dilemma

Ged had gathered his best telepaths in the room within the Ancient Dragon Starship that was now designated the “Library.”  The large volume of The Book of Shan’s Prophecy, the one that belonged to Naylund Smith, had been moved into the center of the room and been given to Billy Iowa to oversee studying it with clairvoyance and telepathy.  The sinister Ancient device called the Tesserah also sat in the library, bubbling and percolating in evil greens and purples like a slowly-building pressure-cooker bomb.  Ged meant to also study it with clairvoyance and telepathy, hoping to develop some kind of control over the doomsday device’s malevolence.

“Now, who among you do we generally agree is the most powerful telepath?” Ged asked.

Billy looked at Sara.  Sara looked at Hassan.  Hassan looked at Junior.  Junior looked back at Sara.  Nobody looked at Gyro.  And Phoenix refused to look up from the floor.

“Any of us can interact with the book,” said Billy finally.

“You know that we are not really talking about the book,” said Ged.  “That… thing… that is what we need to safely probe and understand better.  We know it is telepathic.  We also know it is both evil and extremely dangerous.”

“Junior is the one that can talk to artificial minds with artificial intelligence.”  Billy looked at Junior apologetically after saying it.

“It defends itself against me too powerfully,” said Junior.  “I can’t get past the wall of pain.  It thinks in color, mostly green and black.  But that’s all I can tell you so far.”

“I tried to probe it, and it started telling me how it was going to take over my mind and make me kill others, especially those I love,” said Sara, shaking her head.

“Gyro was able to help me get past the wall of pain by manipulating the hydrogen atoms in the device,” confessed Phoenix.  “But it immediately took hold of my pyro power.  It would’ve used my fire force on everybody if Hassan hadn’t used his telepathy to yank me out of the Tesserah again.  I suppose I owe him my life.”

“Hassan is the most powerful telepath among all of us,” said Billy.

“But what if the Tesserah takes over his mind?  We would all be doomed,” said Phoenix.

“That’s my worry too,” confessed Hassan.  “It’s looking for ways to defeat us and destroy us all.”

“My clairvoyance and Phoenix’s clairvoyance have both seen the Tesserah using Hassan to slay us all,” said Billy.  “I can definitely handle the book.  I can find the answers you need there.  But I am no match for the thing.”

“Hard as it is for me to say this, I can’t handle the thing either.  I don’t even think I should be near it when it is being studied.”  Phoenix looked morosely at the floor again.

“I think we have to work together,” suggested Sara.  “Alone none of us can defeat it.  But Phoenix and Gyro together were able to briefly get in using combined powers the thing wasn’t prepared for.”

“I’m pretty sure I can be of help to whoever leads the effort,” said Junior.  “But I’m not a potential leader of the effort either.”

Hassan looked squarely at the bubbling Tesserah and then turned his gaze towards Ged.  “I think it has to be me that takes the lead.  But I will definitely need Junior, Sara, and possibly Gyro to help.  And anything Billy can find in the prophecy to help would be greatly appreciated.

Ged looked at the handsome, naked child standing there resolutely before him.

“Yes, Hassan.  I haven’t read very far in the book and understood hardly any of it, but I believe you are the one the book says can defeat the monster of ultimate destruction… or whatever the damned thing really is.”  Ged reached out and clapped the willfully nude boy on the shoulder and smiled at him.  And he also felt the boy enter his mind to verify that he was not lying as he said it.

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September 27, 2022 · 1:26 am

AeroQuest 5… Canto 144 (revised)

Canto 144 – Raising the Walls

Outpost was abuzz with activity.  The airless world had only limited defense from attack, but that was swiftly changing.  The primary protection had always been the secret of its location.  As an airless world, the surface could easily be lasered or bombarded with no atmosphere to interfere with the destructive force. 

But now a new technology had arisen from an unexpected source.  Tron had ordered the mirror fields raised, hoping that some laser fire could be reflected into the surrounding darkness.  This, by itself would’ve been very little help from the orbital bombardments that Admiral Tang’s military space fleets were capable of.  But his little Peri Space-Elf friend, Hassan, had invented nanite armor that could adjust instantly into whatever weapon or defense system the wearer could command.  And he had recruited the silicon-based alien lifeform known as the Lazerstone Collective to wear this incredible morphing armor as the Lazerstone Marines.

Lazerstone then raised a million alien troops from the harmonic stones the planet Outpost was amply blessed with.  They practiced relentlessly with the new armor, when the original Lazerstone suggested they use more of the harmonic stone to raise and lower mirror-defense walls for protection against beam weapons and diamond force dissipation shields against all physical and nuclear attacks using the nanite technology to create the walls.

 It was an amazingly effective defensive weapon.  The original Lazerstone could raise and lower walls to counter the practice attacks of ace pilots Elvis the Cruel and Apache Scout.  He did this with the skill and style of a master pianist playing the best of Mozart on the piano.

“I’m beginning to feel like we have a chance to win when Tang shows up,” said Tron.

“It is looking good on the defensive side, I have to admit,” said Admiral King Killer.  “But whether or not we can get the space forces coordinated and capable of fighting is another problem all together.”

“What’s the problem, King?”

“Well, we have all these dinosaur-shaped starships built with the Ancient technology that Frieda provided from the new shipyards in Don’t Go Here.  And they’re massively powerful, but the rookies flying them are practically hopeless as pilots, let alone space warriors.”

“What about the Nebulons and the Lupin corsairs?”

“They can be a bit of a hassle too.  The Space Smurfs have those living space-whale cruisers, and other space-fish-shaped crafts that are actual creatures too.  And they don’t cotton too well to the giant dinosaur-looking things they have to fly near.  The poor Nebulons have had to deal with some of their spaceships having complete panic attacks.”

“And the Lupins?”

“Effective fighters in small packs against solitary vessels, but completely chaotic when you try to get them to coordinate with other non-Lupin fleets.”

“We are old veteran star fighters, you and I, King.  We get out there in the glorious heat of battle, we can defeat any enemy that rises against us.  Just like the old days.”

“In the old days we had nothing to lose.  We fought every battle like we would be killed to the last man.  And we did get our behinds licked by the Faceless Horde before we left Pan Galactican space.”

“Yeah, well…  There was too much we just didn’t know about that enemy.  You know we killed a lot more of them than we ever thought we did.  They were just evaporating when they died.”

“Yeah, there’s that.  But this could be the final battle this time.  And we might not live to have a next one.”

“Don’t worry, my friend.  It may be the end.  But we’ll give them a fight they won’t soon regret… err, I mean, forget!”

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September 20, 2022 · 3:54 am

AeroQuest 5… Canto 148

Canto 148 – Of Rocks and Men

The hills of Outpost had come alive with construction projects.  The Lazerstone collective had found enough harmonic crystals to form ten million new rock men.  They all looked like the original Lazerstone, but once separated from their original, they quickly developed personalities and intelligences uniquely their own.  Lazerstone himself explained that the content of the native Outpost crystal, various minerals and odd bits of elements, made each crystal man different from the rest, just as snowflakes are unique from each other.  The result was a vast and capable workforce who could build spaceships and defense installations in an airless environment without complaint.  They were also highly capable of manipulating the planet’s rock formations to construct what was needed for defense.

“It is unbelievable!” swore Tron, “these rock men may have saved us from Tang and his Imperial Fleet!  Arkin, I can never repay you for this.”

“I am lucky to be alive and glad to be able to help in this fight,” declared Cloudstalker. 

“You got that right!” added the head of Ace Campfield bitterly. The head of the deadly bounty hunter and skilled assassin was all that remained of the Mechanoid menace.

“Shut up, Ace,” said Cloudstalker.

Tron, Arkin, Hassan the Elf, and the head of Ace Campfield were watching the intensive creation of defense facilities from the edge of the transparent dome that covered Tron’s pirate city. 

Tron’s scarred face drew up in a sneer.  He looked at the still-living Mechanoid head. “I don’t know why you keep that thing around.” 

“He was someone to talk to on the trip here.  Besides, I may be able to learn something about the enemy from him.”

“Yeah,” growled the head, “When the stars all go out.”

“If it were me, I would drop-kick that thing out onto the surface.  He can talk to himself for a thousand years.  How do you know he’s not secretly broadcasting everything he sees or hears to Admiral Tang?”

“Well, I guess that’s why I only kept the talking part.  It’s small enough to scan completely and inside out.”

 The head fell into grim silence.

 “These rock men fit my armors perfectly,” said Hassan.  “They will be a formidable fighting force.”

Arkin looked at the Peri intently, really noticing him for the first time.  He marveled at the clever way the little child-like man had redesigned his artificial leg to operate like a Swiss Army Knife, with forty-two extra pop-out devices including a mini drink mixer for martinis.  He also noticed how charming the creature was for being a genetically manipulated freak.

“You are quite an arms designer,” Arkin said to the elf.

Hassan smiled an extra-broad smile and looked a bit sheepish as he answered, “I don’t really like weapons, you know.  The Peris believe that every story, no matter how much adventure and risk it has in it, should be about love.  All life is a page in the Great Story.  I don’t object to making things that might save someone in battle or prevent a serious injury.”

“Hmm.  I see.  I don’t know how necessary the defensive part will be to Lazerstone soldiers.  They are pretty much impervious to harm as it is,” said Arkin.

“Well, the armor allows the wearer to fly and protect against plasma bolts,” said Hassan.

Arkin nodded.  That was a very good thing for his side in the upcoming battle.  He was glad this creative little goober was on their side.  The elf was not a great warrior or anything, but he was a good little man to have on your side.  Arkin couldn’t help but feel something paternal towards this child-like little man.  He was reminded of his own son, Devon, growing up away from his father on the distant planet Arriseah.  It could easily all end very badly.  Even with the help of these crystal soldiers, Admiral Tang had the resources and strategic genius to wipe out all of these pirates.  He knew he could die here and never see his family again.  That had never stopped a good idea before, though.  He meant to see this through, no matter what the cost.  He smiled at the brooding head of the assassin, Ace Campfield.

“We are gonna win this, Tron,” said Arkin.  “I know we will.”

“I wish I could have your optimism,” Tron answered.  “Any realist will tell you, we are probably doomed.”

“We can’t fail,” said Hassan simply.  “The good guys always win.  The creator made it so.”

Arkin nodded as he looked at the elf.  It was the way he had always felt put into words.  Let Admiral Tang come soon!  He wanted to see how this would play out.

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September 14, 2022 · 2:08 am

Character References, Part 3

When choosing whose picture to publish of all the many made-up people that live in my head and my fiction, I often wonder, do I have an accurate sense of who is important and who is merely minor?  I offer now some characters I don’t feel comfortable leaving out.

Mazie Haire

Mazie Haire

One of the Haire Sisters, rumored to be a witch, and proud to prove it to you, Mazie is a severe and highly focused individual with a knack for seeing and convincing you of the truth.  So, maybe she really is a witch.

She appears in;

Snow Babies

When the Captain Came Calling

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Milton John Morgan (Milt)

I can’t tell you about the witch without mentioning the wizard.  Milt Morgan is the Merlin of the Norwall Pirates (an adventuring gang and 4-H softball team).

He is one of the founders of the gang and the one who got them into the most trouble in the 1970’s.

He appears in;

Superchicken

The Baby Werewolf

The Boy… Forever!

The Wizard in his Keep

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Torrie Brownfield

Torrie is the hair-everywhere boy with hypertrichosis, the werewolf-hair disease.  He was genetically doomed to life looking like a werewolf.  He was discovered living in hiding in Norwall by the Pirates’ gang who decided they simply had to make him a member.

He is, of course, the main character of;

The Baby Werewolf

And also appears in;

Recipes for Gingerbread Children

Harker

Harker Dawes

Harker is a clown-character based on a real person living in the real town of Norwall.  He buys the local hardware store and runs the business into bankruptcy.  He is not only a ne’er-do-well, but he also is a truly loveable fool.

He plays a key role in;

Snow Babies

He is also in the upcoming novel;

Fools and Their Toys

dils1

Dilsey Murphy

Dilsey is Mike’s slightly older sister who seems to be in a lot of my stories.  She is a tomboy and a Daddy’s girl.  She is also beloved by her irascible Grampy, Cudgel Murphy.  Mike Murphy both hates her and loves her, but mostly just depends on her.

She is in;

Magical Miss Morgan

The Bicycle-Wheel Genius

and a large number of upcoming stories

cudgels car

Sean “Cudgel” Murphy

Grampy of the Murphy Clan, Cudgel is the meanest old man you’d ever want to meet.  He is excellently suited to the job of teaching kids to swear.  And he only drives his Austin Hereford, “The finest car made anywhere in the whole goddam world in 1954!”

He appears in;

Snow Babies

The Bicycle-Wheel Genius

Crooner

Francois Martin

Francois, the French orphan, is the main character in my novel,

Sing Sad Songs.

He paints his face in clown paint and sings beautifully enough to save his Uncle’s business.  I am halfway finished with this new novel.

So, now I feel like I have exhausted myself in character introductions and will probably eschew a “Part 4”.  But with Mickey, there are no guarantees.

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Filed under characters, humor, novel plans, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney