The A-Z Alphabet Challenge

Here's what I've started working on this week.  

As you may or may not already know the A-Z alphabet challenge is taking place again. You can find proper details and sign up at Tossing it out but it boils down to over the month of April the goal is to make a post on your blog each day and work your way through the alphabet. 

This year I've decided to take the precaution of actually writing a few posts ahead of time, which is to say most of them, with any luck I should only have to clear up the odd spelling mistake make a slight change here and there.

I promise that this year I will be more proactive [1] in visiting the other blogs in the challenge. I wasn't able to get around to a lot of them due to time constraints [2]

The subjects that I chose the last time around were wide ranging and some were clearly spur of the moment nonsense [3], this time around I've decided on a more organized approach to each post.

The topics themselves will still be chosen more or less at random from the various dictionaries and lists of obscure words out there in the internet but the questions that I ask will be the same on each one.

The new questions:

1. What is it?
   Clearly a few paragraphs describing it can only ever be a good thing [4]
2. Where do you get it?
   The howtos and wherefores of obtaining one for yourself. The exact whys are left for yourself to answer,
3. Using it in real life:
   It's all very well having one but what do you do with it and is it supposed to be that shade of blue?
4. Using it in writing:
   Sometimes I pretend to be a writer, it's like being an author only the pay isn't as good.  Nevertheless I'll jot down a few ways that the subject of the day might be used in a story.

What has been left in from last year?

• I'll be keeping the jokes and also the actual useful stuff, for people who like that sort of thing.
• Footnotes that can only be seen by really cool people.
• Obscure references that require you to have an extensive repertoire of knowledge before you can even hope to get the joke.
• Homages, dedications and a lot of other fancy words that boil down to mean “shamelessly stolen from Monty Python”
• Shameless plugs for Harts Change
• Singing, Music and a fun time to be had by all.[6]

PART TWO:

Not content with finding strange words and terms to overanalyise.  [7] I'll also present a few words about an author and their work.

Notes:

1. Also to lower taxes. Naturally these promises will be forgotten once I'm actually elected
2. Roughly translated this means that there were so many blogs and I needed to sleep and go to work at some point.
3. But they do say to write what you know
4. and an indication that I won't be doing anything from Lovecraft since half of his bestiary are indescribable horrors. That is, if you don't count the fact that by labelling them as indescribable you have, in fact, just described them. Oh Cthulhu Fhtagn!
5. Oh by the way I'm writing a book. I might have mentioned it once or twice.
6. Ve vill know if you are not havink enof fun. Ve vill be vatching you expecially.
7. Also because I finished the first couple of articles and they were a little lacking in length.