Good day all you who are fond of Penny's Anmarian Universe.
You are probably aware that I maintain all the Appendix information as well as write a few tales there too.
Well, in the lockdown, I turned my attention to those Appendices, thinking that it would be a great opportunity to maybe tidy some things up, streamline others and so on.
BOY - was that ever an enormous task. Far, far larger than I anticipated.
I just realised that time is slipping ever faster past the normal 'ken'.
After my emergency surgery last September and the finalisation of my move from one country to another, I have been somewhat selfishly absorbed in many things.
New country, so new doctors. So new routines and new tests and checks.
Let me commence by saying that I have a new birthday - 18th September.
For about the billionth time this year, I drove (this time accompanied by my beloved) from the UK to Switzerland. As we left the house in England I thought; "That's funny. The left side of my mouth is all tingly." We drove on and then I got a tingly sensation in my left hand, outside fingers.
All my stories that I post use exactly the same HTML preamble, with just the changes made to the titles.
Every single other one I have posted displays our "Anmar Grakh" 'logo' we use to alert readers. For some reason my latest (#90) does NOT display this on the Story Teasers page and yet DOES display it when you click on the story title and go there.
let me start by telling you the news that will probably make some of you giggle but I would ask you to try not to!
As you may be aware, I have been in my 'new' house in the UK for nearly three weeks of this month. The intention was to do very little but get Julina through the rains.
Those of you who follow my tales of Julina know now that she is about to interact heavily with characters created by Penny. My next chapter or two are in the final stages; they are outlined, the next one all but written completely, but not yet finalised and proofed, and so on. They will take us through another mad dash as the rains loom ever closer. A new Anthology (an increasingly obvious misnomer hanging over from the early chapters) shall cover events in the rains, and possibly after.
well that's one fortnight gone that I am unlikely to forget.
But first off, let me assure you that Julina is not far away --- just one, maybe two, more scenarios to add in (blame this on needing things to think about whilst driving on French motorways) and the next episode will be complete. It currently sits at 6235 words, before revision and proofing, and therefore I hope to have it posted by the weekend.
We now have a house in the middle of the glorious Kent countryside and in which we have (tested and working) Broadband, Telephone and TV connections.
my Tuit collection has a few octagonal ones, some hexagonal, some square, some rectangular and some triangular.
But now I have one that is circular.
I had a very hectic morning of dismantling furniture, lugging it down three flights of stairs, out into the hallway and then, finally, into a moving van.
Phew, that one small phase of our move is now over. All I have to do now is find spaces to replace all the contents of the cupboards we just 'got rid of'.
Today is Wednesday, it is afternoon.
I have to go and dismantle some furniture and carry the bits down to the underground parking here in this block of flats, load them into my car...
I have to cut some sandwiches (Brets - *grins*) for our journey tomorrow
I have to pack suitcases
I have to clean up the kitchen, thoroughly.
I have to have an afternoon nap too.
Let me first get the debate about that word in my heading out of the way:
Back in 2009, the following was posted:
"Oxford Corrects Spelling of Weird
Posted on April 01, 2009 by happysteve
Oxford University just released news that the word WEIRD has been misspelled in the Oxford English Dictionary for quite some time now and has been corrected to WIERD. ..."
Someone recently posted on one of Penny's (excellent, of course) contributions suggesting that the small writing at the top with the keywords such as 'SEE' or 'JoB' or 'Somewhere Else Entirely' or 'Anmar' is too small to actually grab the attention of readers. They requested an Anmar logo or symbol to make our stories leap out from the page more.
Penny has selected such a logo / symbol which I reproduce here:
well this has been a VERY eventful fortnight (that's two weeks by the way).
I went along to the UK in my car; it seems that nowadays I can readily predict that that journey takes very close to 12 hours in each direction, allowing for check-in times for the tunnel or ferry.
So I was in the UK for a birthday party and for house hunting. I saw a few houses but there was always a something or somethings wrong with them, so I drove back to Switz on the Sunday, exactly a week ago.
It is suggested that Ernest Hemingway, a writer of some repute, won a bet by writing a tragedy in only six words. Now there is considerable solid evidence that suggests that in fact the story had been around since before EH was born, and a version, less succinct, was published when EH was merely 10 years old.
Nevertheless, the story, in its entirety was as follows:
Yes, the next Julina is 'ready' - but not polished. It is currently sitting at 25,679 words and will probably end up being close to 30k by the time I polish...
Penny will help me decide how to break it all up. As the author, I find the 'parts' of it too short to be posted alone, but too integrated to just split at natural narrative gaps. The big crescendo to which it is building might be diluted if it takes a few chapters to get there.
These - and many other thoughts - have been racing through what passes for a brain sitting atop my spine.
Many moons hither, a friend - to my delight - gave me a present of a bra, one which was designed to assist with what would otherwise be an atypical flatness for a female. I loved the curves this bra gave me.
Somehow, it ended up at the back of the drawer and the white straps were gently fading into yellow, and one of the hooks of the hook and eye pair needed sewing back on on one side, and so on and so forth. So said bra gradually dropped from my list of favourites - plus it didn't really sit well with the prosthetics I eventually summoned up both the courage and the dosh to buy.
I have had some kind messages, enquiring about things.
Thank you for worrying, but everything (well most things anyway) are fine. The sick one in my family is the car.
As you are probably aware, I am entering into a long drawn-out phase of moving from Switzerland back to the UK. This process is planned to take a year or so. I have found a flat in Tunbridge Wells and have agreed to rent that for at least a year. As I (we) had no credit history in the UK, then we had to pay an entire year up front!
Ok, my life has entered what I believe to be the 'final' phase.
The last piece of inheritance from my father (who died in 1973) has been sold.
My brother was in charge of all the negotiations and so on, and ripped off my sister and I, so there is a major change in my relationships. I will never have any other major injection of funds in what remains of my life. I am beyond retirement age, and my SO (Diana) will achieve that milestone later this year.
I have simply cut and pasted, The following is taken from an FB post ...
I just commented this on a transphobic post that was all like: "In a sexual species, females have two X chromosomes and males have an X and a Y, I'm not a bigot; it's just science."
here in Europe, each bank account has something called an IBAN - which stands for International Bank Account Number.
If I wish to make a transfer to someone, all I need is the recipient's IBAN and I can on-line transfer funds. This has worked from Europe to Australia, to South Africa and within the Eurolands as well.
I must publicly thank Kimmie for an excellent job (so far - hint, hint dear - please carry on)
She has undertaken the task of wading through my scribbles again, and has agreed to point out any little errors that might have crept in - despite my many re-readings and the other proofreaders that have been employed.
Anyway, Kimmie pointed out that sometimes I refer to Trumpa (Julina's frayen) as a doe, but on occasion I refer to 'he' and 'him'.
Book 2 instances appear to be in #46, #54 and #62. So these will be updated soonest.
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
