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You know those Bic four-colour pens?

A blue and white pen with four clicky buttons to choose black, blue, green, or red ink?

They’re still around, and Bic is still selling millions.

Back in the day, they were a minor status symbol in school. Either you were one of the cool kids with a Bic 4 Colour, or you were a lug. Unable to attend parties and other social occasions because you were too busy hauling four separate pens around.

I want one.

I still want one.

I hadn’t thought about them in years before internet research dangled one under my nose, and I’m only slightly exaggerating when I say I can’t think about anything else.

You remember them, right?

That strange click when the chosen colour clicked into place.

Do you remember that the top of the pen was a ball?

They added that for dialling rotary telephones, and it’s the only bit of the pen that’s changed in all these years. They replaced the ball with a hole for a lanyard.

Here’s something you already know:

Those pens would never win style awards.

But when you’ve got a Bic 4 colour, people are aware.

Those pens have character.

What writers call “voice.”

For me, that’s the most important part of a story.

If I don’t like the “voice” – the way the writer writes – then I can’t read the book.

And if I love the book, I don’t care what it’s about.

I just want to hear the story.

And I like to think my writing has a pretty unique voice.

You might not like my books.*

You might say they’re badly written.**

But you won’t mix them up with anybody else’s books.

Even though mix-ups are a huge part of the reason Professor de Glube and Mrs Sniffacre find it so difficult to get together in The Squared Circle, available here now!

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

*Help me out. Buy them anyway.

**They’re not. Even the mistakes are deliberate, probably.

Terry Pratchett taught me that names have power. In doing so, he put me right off a lot of fantasy.

Specifically, high or epic fantasy.

Because I can’t stand the names.

You know, like K’rniluf the Doomswerver.

If I’m reading a book with a name like that, I’ll look at it once and never read it again. I’ll just skim it, relying on the shape of the word to get me through.

Part of it is laziness.

How do you pronounce K’rniluf? And why do I have to work it out, when the author couldn’t be bothered?

(I would guess it’s pronounced “Korny-love”, but could be wrong.)

And although the author must have thought it looked cool, it’s just a muffled wet sneeze to me.

But the main reason I dislike those names is the lack of history in it.

Every Smith you meet is (at least historically) descended from an actual smith.

The same for Carters, and Wrights and Baileys, and so on.

One occupation sadly missing from the list is Taxi-dancer.

These weren’t people who danced in – or with – taxis.

They were mostly women who charged per song when men wanted to dance with them.

Big at the beginning of the twentieth century, when they emerged around San Francisco’s Terrific Street (and isn’t that a terrific name), there aren’t many now.

So you’re as likely to meet a John Taxi-dancer as a Billy the Doomswerver.

The point being, I feel strongly about getting names right, and put a lot of effort into finding the right ones for my characters. Names are descriptions.

Take the Reverend Gresstart, for example. I spent ages looking for the right combination of syllables. The petulant, sniffy “Gress-“ and the fussy, old-fashioned “-tart.” Together hinting at a previously well-to-do family, now somewhat come down in the world.

That’s what I think, anyway.

Make up your own mind by reading The Squared Circle here now.

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

Have you ever thought about mind control?

Because this week I realised I have none.

As Georgia prepares to leave spring behind, we’ve had huge changes in the weather from day to day.

Which means migraine headaches for Morgan. On Thursday, they were terrible. Because I got them at night, and my mind, it seems, couldn’t get enough of them.

I spent most of the night in a doze, at the mercy of my own mind.

Here’s a reconstruction of the crime scene:

Let’s say I was dreaming a duck was hammering railway spikes into my brain.

I’d start to drift awake to go get a paracetamol.

So, to stop me getting a paracetamol, my mind would change the dream so the duck was hammering melted chocolate into my brain. Softer, you see?

To make me think the pain wasn’t as bad, and my gullible brain would drift off again.

But the pain wasn’t getting better. So I’d start dreaming that Einstein was throwing encyclopaedias at my head.

Start to wake.

My mind would tell Einstein to throw triple-ply toilet paper at my head. Toilet paper is softer than encyclopaedias, so they tell me.

Drift off to sleep again.

Start to wake, etc.

So I have to wonder why?

Sheer masochism? Or does my brain work for someone else?

Who?

That’s what the people of Hawkinge-By-Hythe want to know when the town’s statues start sneaking about on some mysterious mission of their own.

Who’s behind it all?

You can find out The Squared Circle!

And there’s never been a better time to buy. That good news I teased? I’ve dropped the price of The Squared Circle from 4.99 to only 3.99!

​Get it now, before I change this damn mind of mine…

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

Raise your glasses to the masses!

This week I smashed past a massive 100,000 words of the latest Alumière adventure, The Cat Wore Black!

100,000 words is about the length of To Kill a Mockingbird.

And I’m only about 80-ish% through the book.

Don’t worry, though. I’m a messy writer, and this is the first draft.

Once I pull out the Red Pen and start deleting, that word count will come right back down again.

I reckon the finished Cat will clock in at a respectable 75,000-80,000 like the others.

Overwrite, then over-edit.

That’s my motto.

For example, I’m currently 18,000 words into a short story, for which I only need about 4,000…

Words, it seems, are a lot like rats…

They’re happier in packs.

Or, to be precise, in mischiefs, which is the collective noun for rats.

And there’s definitely mischief afoot in Hawkinge-By-Hythe, when rats descend upon the town to answer a dead witch’s call for revenge.

Who can the townsfolk call to save them?

The three Alumière sisters: Colette; Victoria, and Gertrude.

By the way, the correct collective noun for Alumières is an intrepid of Alumières.

​Find out why here!

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

You think you’ve seen it all…

I’m friends with the stray dogs in our local park.

The people working in the park feed the dogs, and I supply the tickles (and additional treats).

Then the bloody birds ruined it.

What should have been a win-win situation has turned into a catastrophe.

The dogs get food – and tickles. The blackbirds get whatever’s left.

But the birds wanted more.

So they started pecking at the oldest dog, who only has three legs, to hurry him on before he’s finished.

They sneak up behind and peck his bum.

Wait. It gets worse.

They realised I also bring treats, so they started arriving as soon as I showed up.

But this week they reached a new low.

It was well past breakfast time, and I had stopped to dispense tickles to the deserving on my way home from bringing Nadine to work.

The three-legged dog was enjoying the sun.

And an ugly blackbird – I’ll admit I’m not impartial – plonked down and started pecking the three-legged guy for no reason!

He – or she – stopped when I gave them my honest opinion of their behaviour in a loud voice laced with plenty of, er, French.

What’s next?

At this stage, I fully expect them to kidnap my pals and turn up disguised as dogs themselves by the end of next month.

And if you stop receiving these emails shortly after that, you’ll know they’ve come for me…

And that’s birds.

Imagine how terrified the people of Hawkinge-by-Hythe must be when a plague of rats descends upon the town in answer to a dead witch’s 400-year-old curse.

​Or just read about it here!

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

We want to try every restaurant in Tbilisi before we leave this summer.

I can’t recommend last night’s restaurant.

The food tasted fine, but the decor included a film projector projecting some old Georgian film.

I know it’s Georgian because 90% of the action was people eating and drinking.

The walls were stuffed with pictures, paintings, and various vintage bits and bobs, so they projected the film across the top of one wall and part of the ceiling.

To be specific, the actors – mostly sitting down and stuffing their faces – were projected onto the wall to just above their eyebrows.

Everything above that was projected onto the ceiling, with the ensuing distortion giving them enormous foreheads and hair.

I found it distracting to pay attention to my beautiful wife while I needed to watch those glowing monstrous figures to make sure they weren’t staring at me and licking their lips.

Waiting for a chance to reach out of the film and gnaw on my bones.

Surprisingly, none of the restaurant’s reviews on TripAdvisor mention this at all!

Well, I won’t say anything either.

Maybe the Bighead Monsters only eat the people who make a fuss or leave a bad review?

That’s like the situation in Hawkinge-By-Hythe.

When a dead witch’s revenge unleashes rats on the town, there’s no denying there must be witchcraft involved.

But everyone would rather deal with the rats than the consequences of mentioning witches within Gertrude Alumière’s hearing…

Find out witch which fate awaits them in The Phoenix here now.

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter