My NaNoWriMo work looks set to complete.

Well, with November drawing to a close it seems I can indeed manage to write a work of literature that runs over fifty thousand words in a month.  I am not going to pretend it is easy.  I am definitely not entirely happy with the literary standard I have set (and what I have written is a rough first draft, not a polished text).  BUT I seem to have very nearly done it.

I'll admit to being a tiny bit proud of that.

The about nanowrimo link on the right will take you to a site where the entire work is hosted, or you can click here if you wish.

There are no comments allowed directly to the text there - so if you would like to say anything about it then please do feel free to comment on this post.  I'm very open to any comments or criticism.

Greetings from Fehrnzeit

Hello World!  I am sure many of you reading this will know me , or know of me.  I am Anton Ferhnzeit and of course with a name like that if you have met me you will not have forgotten me!  But then, you would not forget me anyway, would you?  I have such a lively, engaging, and frankly quite brilliant mind and such charm and wit combined with my devilish good looks.  I know modesty does not become me, you would only detect the false misplaced sentiment behind it if you knew me.

So - to those that know me - "Felicitations! You know what to expect and can enjoy my presence in the Blogosphere just as you have in my more mundane, everyday circles"

And to those that do not "Greetings!  You have come to the right place to be stimulated and amused! I intend to lift the quality of the blogosphere to new heights"

How much further should I introduce myself - well I have given this some thought.  A picture could be misleading and make you judge me to be vain, so you shall find none.  A lengthy description is unlikely to do me justice either.  My reputation precedes me if you know me already, making such a thing unnecessary.  If you do not know me, then with my charming wit and repartée you soon shall and will be a richer person for it!

On to matters more interesting than myself then!  Yes there are some, even to me!  Of course now that I have deployed my not inconsiderable intellect here I need a subject and a blog post to start this blog rolling.  Speaking of which - impress me sufficiently and I shall award you the honour of a space on my blogroll - but for now it is gloriously empty.

The subject of the moment is POSSESSION.  You may find that a little odd for me, you may have noticed my generous nature.  But there is more to possession than that.  For example I possess a great deal of self-composure.  I believe the Devil posesses the souls of those that do not hold on to their own.  And last but not least I have found that when I meet a member of the so called "gentler" sex they invariably seek to "possess" me!  Incidentally there is an excellent book of that name by A.S Byatt.  I commend it to those readers who have not already enjoyed it.

They say that possession is nine tenths of the law, and there's good reason for that.  I say that if we took the observation that "the love of money is the root of all evil" and changed it to the "desire to possess" (for surely if money is anything it is a tool for the purposes of mans' possession?

Of course, myself I am fortunate enough to possess more than ample resources to possess more or less anything I desire (including a member of the fairer sex if I set my mind to it!).  But I may surprise you if I tell you that I aspire to relinquish the DESIRE to possess.  Certain fundaments I insist that I not only possess but have complete dominion over, these include my wits and my sanity!  Certain others I insist upon shunning and have a desire to dispossess, such as trouble and strife (and these are chosen with a view to the Cockney rhyming slang also, since I cherish my bachelor status!).

I must leave you for a moment now - my manservant is drawing me a bath and I do so like it to be at the perfect temperature.  Please could my fledgling audience consider what they possess and what desires possess them - I shall return when bathed and fed to consider further...

Adios!

... Returning to my screen after a splendid repast.  I find my possession of my senses most necessary!  And I am mindful of a poor chap who owes his life to the wonderful RAF emergency service.  I just heard on the wireless that he suffered a stroke mid-air and lost his sight!  Believe it or not he survived despite being alone.  Coming to his senses (sans sight!) the poor chap radioed for help and an RAF crew were scrambled to intercept him at altitude and "talk him down" this they managed to do.  The man was heard to grumble that he was concerned his landing was a little bumpy!  But he did thank them for saving his life!

There is a good tale to end my first blog posting on - so fellow readers of the Blogosphere, retain your senses and relinquish your possessions I say to you!  It is clear which has the more value, to me anyway.

Until tomorrow - Anton.

Excited to write! (Why?!)

This post will be brief, because the writing I am excited about is not blog posting, but more a little light coding and then NaNoWriMo (or nano as I sometimes call it for short).

The coding part is putting the finishing touches to this new "blog" site I have set up for my book! (I want to remove or lighten the sidebar for easier reading).

I know one person who will be thrilled to see this appear at least.  But what confuses the bejeezus out of me is why I am excited about it?!  You see if a publisher came up and offered to publish anything I had written (not something I believe to be even a remotely possibility!) then my reaction would be trepidation, suspicion, and vague concern (lest I become widely read, celebrity is something I would not wish upon myself or anyone dear to me, unless they sought it out as part of their nature).  So the only explanation I can offer myself is that the internet readership is a different ballgame, you retain anonymity (or is it the illusion of that?).  Your audience is selective and you can be too (it is technically possible to restrict the content and then ban people you do not want to see it, only those you trust can see it).

Also, to be quite frank the coding does interest me more than the writing - so there is that.  After this it is the last possible online activity of any length I should allow to be a distraction from my nano!  I hope you like the link, I'll put it on the "About NaNoWriMo" page too and until I have done that coding it may have mickey mouse content, but soon enough it will get (daily?) updates to become in December my nano novel online!   It runs on the latest and greatest chyrp release too (RC3), so I feel good about that.

The plot thickens

This morning the reason my NaNo word count jumped is I finally managed to thrash out some sort of a plot outline with a few sketchy details.  In the process I realised where I planned to intersperse some of the blog posts that fit into the book.  This is where it gets interesting...

It occured to me that in addition to the main character(s) blogging or emailing I would also involve some comments from the blog.  So dear readers this means that in future you too could become part of my NaNoWriMo novel!  I have not thought it through - perhaps I have to add an "About Nano" page with all sorts of disclaimers that I retain rights to use comments... I am not sure if that is required, have to look into it if I have time.  Of course no comments may come - then I shall have to create my own log ons and make "faked" ones!  Oh what a tangled web we weave!

I had to dash then to practice the Elgar - on returning I descended into many matters geeky (reformatting external Hard Drive, finalising laptop recovery and more which I forget)... Before I know it now it's the wee small hours and I am still awaiting the format of the drive (well, it is 320GB!).

So far as I can see the idea still holds water... I shall make a page and paste the writing I have so far into it - this will have notes so that you can get the gist of it.  Of course i should warn you that if you intended to read whatever I manage to produce then the notes would give you a pretty good idea what is going to happen!

Rather than pages I could put all the writing to another blog at a different domain (effectively using the blog as a publishing engine of sorts).  This idea flies better then pages (although i shall make ONE).  BUT it will take up valuable time to implement and I really need to try to focus myself into my writing far more.  It is bad enough that I have to drive to Derbyshire to sing the Elgar this weekend, though I'll take the laptop and try to snatch what moments I can for writing (and, of course, making a blog post!).

- maybe even make a page for the Nano book - but that would need some sort of "read more" function built in and i am not at allsure that can be done at page level....

Displacement activity

OK well, so I sang the Verdi and that was great fun.  The best part is that unlike the first time where I went through months of weekly practices learning the piece and practicing (along with some singing lessons as I was new to singing then) this time it was one rehearsal a week in advance, then a rehearsal in the morning and sing my heart out for the concert in the evening!  What fun!  My stepmother says I am getting a "repertoire" and I tell her that is pretentious nonsense!  But it is lovely to get the chance to sing something you enjoyed again.

That recording is from a personal MP3 player with on board mic that I slipped in my pocket at the last minute - highly experimental and I am amazed I got ANYTHING!  There were mics all over and I'll probably HAVE TO buy a couple of CD's for family and friends (they'd kill me if I didn't).

But all of this is displacement writing!  I am MEANT to be making a start on my novel writing month!  You would not believe the things I have found that I just "have to do" before I sit down with the document open and type!  I have taken the rubbish out (early), done three loads of laundry (one a half load), formatted a laptop for a friend, burnt a knoppix DVD for testing, tidied my cable suitcase and filed a laptop charger...phoned a friend... emailed Quaker friends! All of these things I would normally leave for a more appropriate time or leave until they HAD to be done.

And now I am writing to my blog, because I have the dual excuse that this is also NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) where I am supposed to post daily for November.  That will not be hard to do (look at the count for October in the Archive!).

Oh yes - I also wasted time changing a poem to "draft status" and seeing if I could install the Chyrp extension so that I could link you guys to a file where I'd put my novel to date - luckily for you that is broken but I may still do it by hand... esp. if there are more than a couple of comments expressing interest in that.

Last but not least at Quaker meeting I was (finally) able to take responsibility for the website! And I even repaired a linkback to it from London Quakers - so some of my displacement activity has been useful.  That site will start to get overhauled as soon as I have come up with content and it has been approved by the elders.

But enough keystrokes blogging - they all need to go to my novel really!  I have a name for the lead character - he is going to be Frederick Allsop, but he will prefer the Pseudonym of Anton Fehrnzeit!  So when things look weird on here with some blog entries if those names feature (or Lydia Dypchyk, the comic love interest!) then you can guess it is a "novel" blog.  I shall tag them all Fehrnzeit - if that helps...

A little light religion (honestly!)….

Has it really just been a week since I last made a “religious” post?, It seems so.  This is quite a time of change, and the clocks moving from BST to GMT accentuates that to me.  But I want to share a couple of aphorisms and a context that gives them a more serious context.  So again this will be one of the more (gently) didactic posts. 

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To start with the light side - two jokes:-

What do you get if you cross a Druid with a Bhuddist?

a. Someone who hugs trees that are not there.

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There is a Bhuddist monk on vacation in New York,  He goes up to a Hot Dog vendor and says, “Make me one with everything”.

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OK three jokes technically!:-

The hot dog salesman takes the £100 bill the monk offers and passes him the hot dog with all the trimmings.  The monk waits and then says, “Where’s my change?” to which the vendor replies, “The only change can come from within”.

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Now, I share these not just because I think they are very funny, but to make an observation.  I think I may tell both these jokes to someone next time they ask if I am a Quaker.  If they laugh at neither I shall not try to answer their question, but enquire as to their spiritual progress.  If they laugh at the Druid one only I shall proceed with caution.  If they laugh at both I shall enquire which they prefer, and should it be the Druid one I shall proceed with caution, but if they prefer the Hot Dog joke I shall observe that our humour is as one and they may be closer to Quakerism than they know!

On a seperate subject I apologise for the number of posts which were purely about the site breaking - and I am going to set a lot of them private now - so the detrirus may no longer be visible.

There are also to be some odd posts coming in Movember connected with my NaNoWriMo project, but I have decided to separate these by making them an unusual time - so more than three years away from the here and now, that may confuse you at first, but hopefully shall become clear!

Addendum:- My plan seems flawed in it’s thinking having told the jokes to a number of Quaker acquaintances with varying results now!

So, here I am, maybe....

This posted despite;

Fatal error: Call to a member function title() on a non-object in /home/wrighton/public_html/didactic.me/chyrp_2.0rc1/includes/helpers.php on line 656

So it seems I have (maybe?!) set up the necessaries to blog. I always feel like writing "Trent settled nervously into his seat..." at moments like this, but I am not sure many people will necessarily "get" the reference, nor am I prepared just yet to go off hunting out the relevant Youtube clip assuming it can even be found.

I hope my blog will hit moments of being truly interesting or entertaining, but as to whether any entry is likely to be truly Didactic I have my doubts. So the domain name I purchased was largely tongue in cheek - I spent several days mulling over what might make sense for a Blog domain name, and when I saw this was free I sort of jumped on it. No doubt that says something about me, but what I am not sure. I suspect a more suitable name could have been "eclectic.me", but it does not have the same ring to it for me and would implie my blog could shoot off in any direction without any unifying theme or purpose.

After purchasing the domain name I was, of course, committed. Money had changed hands. Not exactly Faustian, but it was enough to spur me onwards to enquire with my good friends over at OSNN and rapidly narrow down the choice of tools to either Wordpress or Chyrp!. I decided to go with Chyrp on a particular recommendation, because it was younger, because it aims to be lighter and more nimble, and because so far it seems to do just what it says on the tin!

I'll later work around sorting out how I add blogrolling and links and when I do I shall have to revisit my "home" domain and update the "about me" sort of information. But if anyone does just wander across me here in cyberspace be patient and you should see this blog become more "worthy" with the passage of time and growth of my networking.

Perhaps one of my first trackbacks or whatever will be the one I have added here - a friend I am hoping to meet for the first time on Wednesday for lunch to chew the cud and no doubt blogging will be a large part of what we chat about. Just learnt this is not a trackback - have to work harder...

Other things you may hear about soon are:-

My participation in a possible "human piano" on BBC2.

rehearsals of/performance of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius (I sing first bass with a choral society).

And last but not least the upcoming "NaNoWriMo" in November. This was a driving motivation in the background for me to start blogging - I wanted to loosen up my "literary voice" and get comfortable here so that I can blog my progress and revert to bouncing ideas around should I suffer any temporary blockage in the process of attempting to splurge out a novel in a month. Of course, if all goes terribly well that could also mean you simply see no Blog entries for November because all my keystrokes are devoted to the effort.

Anyway, let's see how it goes.

Whether I know you or not, all comments are welcome and for the moment only Spam will be filtered out and deleted (more on that subject to follow also!).