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 |   Maybe meandering, possibly peripatetic and indisputably irregular. |
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So here it is.. a blog. Repository of some of my present musings and interests. Sometimes things pop into my head that should probably stay there - it is possible I shall share at least some of them here. (Naturally I shall filter out the ones about my sordid obsession with the culinary dark arts, one has to protect the innocent!) Please feel free not to take this too seriously, much of it could wind up being snippets of things that amuse me. Yesterday I came up with this: Few politicians can be considered first class, but not a few are number twos. What can I do with it? Nothing springs to mind, except perhaps blog it. Perhaps in some other life I'm a failed stand-up comedian. I have the beginnings of an idea to introduce another player into the Mr Moonlight story, a nice visual has occurred to me, and a summoning gone wrong seems appropriate. When I finish up here I shall literally put pen to paper. I find writing at least initially longhand helps my ideas flow. When I type up what I've written, I give it a first revision at the same time, and as a bare minimum check my spellings and grammar . I do want to keep tabs on my current reading here. I usually have several books on the go at the same time. Currently I am working through 'Pyramids' by Terry Pratchett. I reread Pratchett's books over and over - usually at work where they provide much needed amusement whilst I eat breakfast. 'The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle', by Stuart Turton was loaned to me by a friend who shares a love of murder mysteries, (especially Agatha Christie's works). It is a new take on the genre and very very clever. The protagonist occupies different bodies - a selection of the guests at the house where Evelyn is murdered. Each day he spends in a different guest, and he has been tasked with discovering the murderer - or maybe saving Evelyn from actually being murdered, it is hard to tell. The book twists and turns and is quite intriguing. 'New Science - Principles of the new science concerning the common nature of nations' is an English translation by David Marsh of 'La Scienza Nuova' by Giambattista Vico, published in 1725. Not far into this yet, I had to find a copy of the frontispiece online, as it wasn't included in the Kindle edition. The first part of the book explains the idea - and uses a detailed description of the frontispiece to convey this. So being without it would have made things somewhat harder. 'The Complete Works of Michael De Montaigne' is again a translation, this time by Donald M. Frame. Montaigne's Essays are famous, I kept reading about them, so treated myself to a nice hardbound copy to dip into - usually just before bedtime. So there we have it - a blog entry - enjoy! (whispers almost inaudibly 'Bon Appétit). |
| Someone has nominated my portfolio for the Quills, (in the best new portfolio category) I have my suspicions, and thank you whoever you are, much appreciated. The Great Groundhog Merit Badge Giveaway has been an astonishing success, though I couldn't possibly have committed to giving away so many badges without (considerable) help from Schnujo is Late to Lannister   and Richard ~ Shenanigans INC.  . Their generosity has been amazing, and I'm keen that it should be fully acknowledged. I have been planning to do the giveaway for weeks, and am thrilled that folk seem to like getting free merit badges. Why didn't I see that coming?  January has been a fairly busy month. Usually the shop sales drop as new year kicks in - people go on diets, and feel the pinch from Christmas spending. For whatever reason, that hasn't happened this year. This is good news, but I've also been trying to get the accounts up to date, so I haven't had much energy for writing. I'm hoping this will change as we move into February. I definitely want to get back to doing reviews as well. |
| Beware of stereotypoes. Ever wondered where new words come from? They are sometimes created by authors and poets. On a related note, would an infrequent and vague collection of herbs be somethymes? I hope ideas burst upon your unsuspecting minds. Today at work I started sniggering. One of my staff, who knows me well, looked at me and invited me to explain. (She also writes and I am working on her posting on WDC). I had seen/imagined a mugger demanding an old man's wallet, which elicited the reply, "My wallet? Oh yes..." as he reached into his coat, "I keep it here, right next to the large knife I carry." as he draws a knife that wouldn't shame Paul Hogan. I'm going to post what I've written of the Air Hobos, and see how it is received, before writing any more of it. I suspect writing a sustained comedic piece is actually rather difficult. I am planning a Groundhog Day giveaway of Merit Badges in February, and am looking forwards to it a great deal. |
| Ever had one of those mornings where your Snap, Crackle and Pop sounds like a Michael Bay movie? No me either. Reaching out a bottle of the good stuff I took a swig and swilled it around my mouth. As usual it grabbed me by the throat and made me feel freshly squeezed. God I love orange juice. I used to think I was a lady killer, till a friend explained that women stating that they would rather jump off a cliff than spend time with me doesn't mean that at all. I was going to add that I'm silver tongued, but I'd probably get banned, so I won't. I tried being one of those stalkers that you hear about in the news. Much harder than I thought, I bought a bunch of flowers, cut all the heads off and arranged them in a vase. I couldn't see what all the fuss is about, they looked really boring. In the Wild Wild WDC, you're only as good as your last merit badges. The last two I got were for Horror, and Dark Poetry! Yeah, that's how badass I am. Speaking of cereal, for no reason at all this morning I was remembering Mr Burns looking thoughtfully at a box of Count Chocula and reflecting that the character looked a bit like him. This led me to recall Crusty the Clown's horror when he swallowed one of his "Crusty-O's'. Idly I wondered if anyone would be interested in the fact that the Simpsons has at least twice used cereal to comedic effect. Following a conversation with a fellow writer this morning, I was considering a discussion to debate the advantages and disadvantages of Batch Silliness versus Free Range Silliness. This in turn reminded me that I plan to write about a wig farmer at some point, (Down on Barnett Farm). On my mind at the moment is whether to continue with a piece I have begun about Aeronautical Hoboes. It started well enough, but I am wondering if the humour is sufficient to sustain it further. As a serious point, which I do occasionally make, I wonder how other writers deal with things they have part written and then decide is not really working. Do you park it, and hope inspiration will strike in the future? Or perhaps persevere and finish it anyway? Having used the Materials in October preparation for MaNoWriMo, I am convinced that I could breath new life into some of my abandoned projects. There would be if nothing else a satisfaction gained from actually completing a few of them, even if they are never published. I am planning to use a really detailed examination of a poem by Northern Lights  to try and compose a poem for the Poetic Traditions Poetry Contest this month. I have gotten as far as working out some themes I would like to braid together, so we will see what I can make of them, (a sonnet hopefully). I came across the examination via a Read and Review, and was deeply impressed.
Bit of a plug for myself, I have submitted a flash fiction for the Weekly Screams Contest, I am really hoping that others will also enter, so here is the link:
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| I think that one of the best things about the Internet is YouTube. The reason I think this is I love music, all sorts of music, from all sorts of genres and several different countries. YouTube allows me to hear things that rarely or never get played on UK radio, and besides I like music videos too. I was a little surprised last week when the BBC named 'Wet Leg' as an up and coming band for 2022, I already have bought 3 of their MP3s. For some reason amazon wants me to pay £8.00 a month for 'unlimited music'. They don't seem to notice that I am a dinosaur, I actually buy music, and I pretty much always spend more than £8 every month, it isn't hard when one album alone costs more. Back to YouTube. I can find old friends, things I haven't heard in years. There is a reason I call myself Adherennium by the way, I have an excellent memory. I'm sorry, what was I talking about? Oh yes, memory. Old adverts, musical intros to shows, records my parents played, the music on the radio at my grandparents, I remember them all. But as well as loving deeply the music of my past, I also love to listen to music that is new to me, and since the rise of YouTube, I've been able to listen to music from Russia (I have an album by a group who's name I cannot pronounce and who's lyrics are in a language I don't speak, it is brilliant); from France, several rather wonderful artists from France; Japanese Metal bands; A Norwegian singer/songwriter of extraordinary ability, you get the picture. I'd swamp this blog with links if I thought anyone wanted to listen, but I suspect I'm doing well if I'm even read. (ooh my cynicism is showing). Okay one link, just one. This is my most recent purchase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45D9NiOimt8 |
| That bit about this blog being irregular is particularly factual. I was too busy in November, trying to write 50,000 words, which I just about managed, but since then I have felt rather 'written out'. Still, after a break, I am now feeling ready to continue writing. I've been made a Preferred Author. This made me extremely happy. After I'd read the email informing me, several times, I was bouncing about in my seat and rubbing my hands together. Yes, I do get childishly excited by things like that. It made my day/week and month, and also felt like Christmas had come early. Most importantly, it made me want to write. To write more, and to write more often. I felt that I learned quite a lot of useful things from the combined October Preparation, and NaNoWriMo itself in November. One thing is having goals. I badly wanted to succeed in the goals I had set myself. WDC has a Weekly Goals thread run by The StoryMistress, and since beginning the October Prep, I have been trying to use that as a means of focussing my efforts. Not that I have set goals every week, but I am trying to do so. The October Prep month put together a set of tasks designed to get a novel planned out and ready to write, it also created a superb atmosphere of support and friendly interaction. From it I produced an A5 folder with separate sheets for each important scene that I wanted to write. This allowed me to determine that dependencies and consequences were followed up. Useful for avoiding plot holes and errors. Yet when I started writing, the story took on a life of its own. My bad guy wasn't, requiring some rethinking of how I'd achieve some of the plot. I grew to hate the story. Largely I thought it a mess. Having had time to reflect on this, I have reached a theory as to why. I was writing too fast. Getting to 50K was a good target, I have never managed above half that before. But what I have written is awful. I take a lot of care with most of my writing. I will for instance search to find the correct brand of cigarettes would be smoked in some particular time and place. I have investigated drapers shops in London in the early 20th Century, or whether there are ebony goth girls, (there are and they look fantastic). The other problem I have is that having reached 50K, I stopped. The story isn't finished, but I haven't written any more of it this month. But. I am going to. My Weekly Goals next week will reflect this. Firstly I need to get a grip on what I have written, put it in order, and link that to my outline I found not being able to easily find what I'd written a pain in November: What day did I write about that? What did I say then? Because everything was saved with only the date, I might spend ten minutes reading back, trying to find the particular conversation I needed. I will address this, when I continue, and when I next use the preparation method, because I'm convinced of its usefulness. Back to the writing too fast bit. I think the solution might be to set my targets differently. I'm considering a week on, week off idea. Spend one week with a word count goal of 10K words. Then a week reviewing and revising that, and tying it in to the planned out novel, tweaking as required, then another burst of 10K, and so on. Writing something I read and think 'uggh! this is execrable' is not good. I need time to follow my researching impulses. That's where I add the detail, and often get some great ideas. Did you know that Sir Francis Drake was thought to be a magician in league with demons, and that Spanish sailors thought he had a magic map that showed him where all their ships were? That fitted perfectly with my planned novel, but I found it checking some facts about where he had travelled and when. Changing the subject, I have been enjoying giving out Merit Badges as my own wonderfully inverted version of an advent calendar. Each day I pick a recipient and send them a seasonal merit badge. Fifteen down and ten to go. I haven't preplanned who will get one, so each day I get to choose. Why do I enjoy this? Ahh! that would be telling. |
| Today's October prep assignment was about identifying my market, and my 'brand'. I'm of the opinion that my novel will never be published. My 'brand' includes my complete disdain for social media, I have no presence on any platform, nor do I wish to have one. As this nowadays is seen as an essential to get published, I accept that as a consequence anything I write is for my own satisfaction. Neither do I have a large family, and my circle of friends is basically at zero, by choice. I'm sure I sound very unpleasant, but I'm very introvert. I expend all the energies I have for interacting with other people on dealing with customers in the shop I run. Outside of this I have minimal interaction with anyone other than my immediate family. Oh I say 'hello' to the neighbours, and can be perfectly pleasant to people I encounter when shopping, but basically I am not a social creature. So if I self published, I would have no one to sell to, and no I'm not going to say "would you like a copy of my novel with your breakfast?" |
| I've been sort of blogging my progress in the October Preparation for NaNoWriMo in the Messages of the challenge page, but I don't think a day by day progress is required or necessarily appreciated, so I have decided to stop. Today's challenge was theme, and I stared at a list of universal themes for quite a while working out that non of them actually are the theme. Once I'd done that I identified the theme I am following, which is 'Transcendence', and finished off the challenge. The preparation has definitely been useful so far, 'Theme' being the bit I'd rate least useful though. There are several good writers working on this preparation, and reading their short stories about their protagonists was fun. The story hasn't quite become all consuming, as I have found time to enter a couple of poetry competitions. |
Ah! progress, well sort of. Today I decided to bite the bullet and book a few days holiday in October. That done, I then signed up for NaNoWriMo, and then for October NaNo Prep Challenge.
Trying to write a whole novel of 50,000 words in a month is a daunting challenge. I am looking forwards to it. I decided to use and develop a story idea that I've had for several years. The setting is England in the late 1500's, but this is an alternative history in two key points. Firstly Queen Boudica defeated the Romans in 60 AD, and what we think of as England, Scotland Eire and Wales were subsequently united into one Celtic entity, (working title Albion, but I'm still thinking about this). Secondly, the main religion of Europe is Mithraism, as spread by the Roman armies. However just as with Christianity, there has been a major schism, and Europe is divided. Both factions seek to destroy the other and assume absolute power. Both factions hate the Celtic people, who follow their own pagan gods. The story is also a fantasy. The Celtic people have nurtured their psychic powers. Some are clairvoyant, other more actively effect the world around them. Both European factions independently decide to use these magical Celtic people to break their own power deadlock. The psychic abilities tends to run in families, and it is from these families that the rulers of Albion are drawn. Each King of Queen remains so whilst they are the most powerful psychic of all. Their power is balanced by a council drawn from all of the families with above average abilities. When a new monarch assumes power, they have a three year period of grace, during which no one can challenge them. During this time one of their most important personal tasks is to construct a Mindwalk Pavilion. This is a mentally constructed protection that any challenger must defeat in order to become a replacement King or Queen. The Pavilion can be added to throughout the life of the monarch. The heroine of the story is Boudica III. She is a descendant of Queen Boudica, and is considerably gifted physically. The story opens with her taking a psychic challenge to entitle her to become Queen. Unusually the Mindwalk Pavilion she is attempting to defeat is that of her half sister, who has died. This adds to the danger of the task, and it is imperative for the Celtic people that someone succeeds in defeating the dead Queen's construction. Boudica naturally does become Queen. The European leaders see this time as an opportunity, and send emissaries to try and win over the new Queen, and a third force also appears, that of the Ottoman Empire. Suleiman sends his son Bayezid to challenge the Queen. Boudica struggles to find her feet, to deal with the political and romantic manipulations, and to lead her people to new strengths. |
| There was a time when a staple of every waiting room, and not a few charity shop bookshelves, was the magazine 'Reader's Digest'. Usually I read these in a very specific order, based upon the assumption that I would be interrupted by my actual appointment at some time whilst reading them. I'd begin with 'Laughter The Best Medicine', because I love jokes. Next I'd read 'Humour in uniform', which usually was a little less funny, but still okay. Then I'd look at 'It pays to increase your word power'. This was a quiz where unusual words were printed with several possible meanings, only one of which was correct. Depending on the issue I might do reasonably well at these, but of course the other attraction was learning new words. Someone reviewing one of my poems said that they 'didn't use those silver dollar words' themselves. I was rather surprised by this. The poet should always be learning new words, and we should also be using those words in our poetry, and our conversation. A poet, like a shaman will ordinarily have a much wider vocabulary than the majority. Someone I was very close to told me that I played with words. This was a compliment, they meant that I used them like toys, rather than I am a liar, (at least I'm pretty sure that's what they meant  ). I have written poems where the sound of the words was all that mattered, (at least one reviewer I respect hates that, but thankfully those poems aren't posted yet). Often when I write, I can hear the words following a tune or a flow of words. I'm considering recording some of my poetry and putting it up on YouTube, if I can work out how to do that. I suspect I will have to buy a webcam. |
| Coconut Ice is a really easy to make sweet (candy). Basically it involves mixing together desiccated coconut, icing sugar and condensed milk. Press the mixture into a suitable receptacle, I use a square casserole dish. Cover it, I wrap it in cling film, then let it set in the fridge for 24 hours. Cut into bite size chunks and store in a sealable container. The recipe I use gives the measurements as 250g (9 oz.) condensed milk 250g (9 oz.) Icing Sugar and 200g (7 oz.) desiccated coconut, different sources give slightly different measurements. The icing sugar needs to be sieved when you use it. So I made some, but the cans of condensed milk are 379g (about 13 oz.). I had no use for leftover condensed milk at the time, so I recalculated the other ingredients accordingly, using the proportions 5:4 for the amount of icing sugar/condensed milk to desiccated coconut, which meant I used 300g (11 oz.) Ah!, but I wasn't finished. I bought some glacéed cherries, which i halved and laid out over the set coconut ice. I also bought two blocks of milk cooking chocolate and a carton of single cream. The chocolate I broke into small pieces, and melted in a Pyrex bowl over a saucepan of warm water. When it was melted, I stirred in cream, a little at a time. I also added a small shake of icing sugar to the mix, perhaps an ounce. When it was a homogeneous liquid, I poured it all over the cherries resting on the coconut ice. I was glad that I'd bought two blocks of chocolate, because It covered everything perfectly, the cherries just submerged. Now it's sitting, again covered in cling film, and will shortly be departing for some more fridge time. Tomorrow I will cut it up and try it. Looking forwards to that. |
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). I mostly reject that. I'm eating rice with an egg this morning but Pannya just brought me chocolate milk from 7/11 (bless him; I really don't need it).
