MY BOOKS AND STORIES PUBLISHED!

Over the years I have written a huge amount--millions of words of one sort or another--ranging from professional writing in information technology, business and science, to children's and adult fiction, to legal opinions, to blogs, etc. The fiction has covered a very wide range, from fantasy to horror, from romance to humour, from metaphor and environmental activism to classic tales reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm and Tolkien.

Some of my stories are very short, some are full-length books; they vary in length from a mere 360 words on a single page to over 33,000 on 84 pages. But 360 words can be just as compelling as a much longer work. The length should be whatever it comes out to; it should fit the story. The 360-word work is a horror-story, whose brevity heightens the horror (and the black humour).

None of my stories have been published (on paper, I mean), either because I made no attempt, or as was the case with my first book, a fantasy called The Wing-Friends, because although the publishers liked it they declined it. They liked it because their reader, the famous Dorothy Butler, recommended it, but they did not think there was a big enough market in my native New Zealand to make it worth their while. The opinions of publishers are the bane of author's lives...

How many times in history have books been declined by publishers, or only published in very limited numbers, because publishers did not think they would be successful, but then were runaway best-sellers, never out of print? The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Lord of the Rings are two of myriads of examples.

To get round that, the ideal is be your own publisher but traditionally that has meant a large initial outlay because of the cost of a print-run and marketing. Print-on-demand publishing, in which copies are printed only when ordered, opened large cracks in that obstacle, but although the outlay was not as large it was still not an easy road, especially if you had a number of works to publish.

In the past few days I have discovered, rather belatedly to my chagrin, that Amazon has swept away all obstacles with free services, both ebook and print-on-demand. The ebooks are published via Kindle Direct Publishing; the print-on-demand are published via a part of the Amazon empire called CreateSpace. The Internet has radically changed the author's world. Yay! No longer do publishers have the whip hand, or any hand at all. Now the author is in charge, and has a direct line to readers. Which is how things should be.

So I have started publishing a number of my stories myself. The shorter ones are or will be in ebook format, for reading on an electronic reader or a computer. The longer ones will be in print-on-demand paperback format.

To find my stories go to Amazon and enter my name in the search box: Nobilangelo Ceramalus, or just Nobilangelo, or click on this link. As the days go more and more will be there. so far I have published seven ebooks. Soon I shall publish my first print-on-demand book, The Wing-Friends. I also plan to publish an environmental book, The Earth-Guard, via print-on-demand, as well as other things in both formats, about a dozen all together perhaps.

The exclamation mark at the end of the title of this posting is therefore an indication of my relief at being able at long last to get my stories out into the world where they belong.

I hope there will be people who will enjoy them.

EIGHTEEN!

The title says it all. This morning eighteen doves were waiting at the feeding-place. So much for my reckoning that there were seventeen. The scrum of birds round my hands when I held them out full of cheese was amazing.

To make a most dovish start to the day even more special, about an hour later I went outside for a short dove-break and held up one hand with food in it to the trees. Down came a dove, paused on the edge of the roof, then on a perch beside me, then hopped to my hand and fed there. To my delight it was the most lovely one, the bird I had thought it would be fitting to call Guinivere. Pure white, lovely eyes surrounded by fine grey circlets, beautiful feet...

MULTIPLYING! SEVENTEEN AND COUNTING...

Good grief! How many doves are there? Late this afternoon I counted seventeen in the feeding-place. They are multiplying... At their present rate of increase we shall have to move out of the forest within a year. ;-)

The sixteenth one that appeared the other day but was too shy to come down to the ground turned out not to be an adult, as it she had seemed at a distance to be, because she has since been down a couple of times and as the pink ceres of a chick. She is very timid; she trembles with fear, and hardly knows how to eat, so she is noticeably thin. I expect she will copy the others and gain in confidence.

I do not think she was one of the seventeen, so all together there may be eighteen.

This morning there were thirteen doves gobbling bits of cheese from my hands, and the blackbird chick came very close to one hand, which suggests that she is a female, although her singing suggests the opposite, but till proved otherwise I shall think of her as female. I tried to her get it get her to eat out of that hand, because she was only centimetres from it, but she is not yet that confident, and the scrum of doves would have been daunting. However it she is now happy to hop about the porch feeding close to my feet, if there are no doves competing with her. She gives them competition too; she clacks her beak at them if they try to take 'her' food.

OLIVIA TWIST? AND SHY SIXTEEN

It seems, to indulge my tongue-in-cheek naming faculty again, that Mrs Housekeeper's personal name is Olivia Twist, because this morning she taught me a new word in Dove. 'Coo' uttered in particular way when you are a dove hunting about someone's office floor for something to eat and foraging everywhere, including under his desk, means 'More!' Or perhaps it was 'More, please!' I am not quite up on the details of dovish manners yet.

Her colleagues must have had the same thought, because the entire fourteen turned up when I was taking a lunch-and-dove break early in the afternoon. The speed at which they descended out of the trees and gobbled up the first bit of food showed that very plainly. So I fetched more. Of course.

After the Board get-together I arrived back to find to my surprise that while I had been away the doves had multiplied. The fourteen that had been there at midday had become sixteen. One, an adult, is rather shy. The closest it came to joining the others was to hover above them at the feeding-place, then go and sit in a tree, so it must be new to this part of the forest. I wonder what the final count will be. I shall try to avoid Board meetings. They are obviously dangerous; they cause multiplication...  ;-)

BEETHOVEN AND A BOARD MEETING

Thirteen doves greeted me this morning when I went outside at seven o'clock, on this the 241st anniversary of Beethoven's birth on the 16th of December 1770. To my surprise most of them look a lot cleaner than they did yesterday; some almost have their pristine whiteness. I wonder how they do it. Whatever their secret, the newest chick has yet to learn it. She still looks as if she has been stained all over by strong tea. I expect it was rain dripping on her through the great epiphytes that they like to roost under.

The present Waiheke Island Board has invited the incumbents who were elected in the previous local-body term to a joint meeting this afternoon to consider various matters. Obviously they cannot do the job without us and need a bit of help. ;-)  I shall raise the matter of introducing electric vehicles to the island ASAP, starting the Nissan Leaf. I talked to the managing director of Nissan New Zealand yesterday and he is happy about that proposalt (a pity it cannot be <a href="http://www.estarcar.com">the EStarCar,</a> but the next best will do very well in the meantime). I expect that will get a good response, because the present chair is environmentally aware, and one of the members has just been elected to Parliament as a Green MP. The Council should be taking the lead in the move from the Black Stuff to electrons, and I shall push that hard.So today my work work is going to be very compressed, squashed between the clock and a double Board.

But first things first... Beethoven's anniversary must of course be celebrated in grand style. So my working day is beginning to the majestic sound of his Ninth Symphony, the Choral, played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert Von Karajan, the recording made by DGG in the 1960s that formed part of their prize-winning set of all Beethoven's symphonies.

The whole performance is magnificent, but I particularly like the way Karajan brings out the slow movement. There is a moment after the two themes are resolved together that no other conductor that I have ever heard does in the same way. Only a few notes, but it lifts the soul to a wonderful, unimaginable place.

The choral finale, of course, is the supreme movement, reaching a heaven-storming climax on the words 'vor Gott' in the line that in English means 'and the cherub stands before God.'

Thus a day blest by God: beginning with doves, Bible readings and Beethoven's Ninth. Then work, then off to the joint Board meeting to think about ways of making wonderful Waiheke Island even better.

Now the choral finale is beginning its divine thunder across our office, so I shall publish this, and luxuriate in Beethoven's genius. 

COO! RAIN! MRS HOUSEKEEPER!

It rained all night and all day, so the forest is sodden. The poor doves! A white bird in the rain and dirt of a soaking-wet forest is not going to look its best, so it was a bedraggled and muddy flock that greeted me when I went out this morning. Then most of them huddled on our porch all day or crept under the floor of the building to try and keep dry. It was no day to be 25 metres up in a tree under a dripping epiphyte.

But the female that I have dubbed Mrs Housekeeper because she scoots inside whenever she gets the slightest opportunity, or can make one, managed shortly after midday to elude my attempts to stop her. I closed the door to keep the rest out, and she spent a while 'doing the housework' round our office, exploring and foraging everywhere, including under my desk, pecking up whatever little bits I dropped for her, or that her sharp eyes could find of what I might have dropped in fetching food for her companions earlier. She was quite happy, despite the closed door.

I went on with my work, to the accompaniment of the occasional coo under the floor from the birds sheltering there. Then a loud coo close to my chair caught my attention. I looked down and Mrs Housekeeper was looking up at me. 'Coo!' she said again.

'Oh, you want to go out?'

'Coo!'

So I went to the door, she did too, I opened it, and out she went.

Dove, I find, is a very easy language to learn. The vocabulary is one word, the only variation is in tone. It can be pleading, contented, disappointed, angry, etc. But the message is always very clear. Doves tell it like it is.

Later in the afternoon I opened the office door again because I needed to go outside briefly for something, and of course Mrs Housekeeper was inside in a flash. Other doves flew at me, wet and muddy, so I had my hands and feet occupied cutting them off gently, and could do nothing to stop her or get her out. I did not want to leave her inside by herself, and she refused to be tempted out of my cosy office by food, so in the end I had to pick her up and carry her out.

But, nothing daunted, when I came back to the door a few minutes later she tried everything to scoot past me. This time it was me that won. So the scores are even. At the moment...

FOURTEEN!

This afternoon my reckoning was confirmed. There are indeed fourteen doves living in my part of this forest, because for the first time all fourteen came to the feeding-place at the same time. Doves everywhere! :-)

I had to laugh at another time today, because I opened the outer door of my office and a female dove that likes to scoot inside whenever she can showed every intention of doing it again, so I closed it till there was very little space even for her to get through, then cautiously opened it, blocking her way with a strategic foot. But she blithely dodged round it and rushed in. At the same time a dove flew into one hand, then another flew into the other, and two or three others charged inside after the bold female. Then a third flew to one arm. So I had three doves on my hands and arm, two or three rushing about inside, no way of getting my hands back to get the invaders back outside, and having to watch my footing because others were crowding round my feet.

It was a hilarious few minutes, and a very nice way of taking a break from some intense work.

TWO NEW CHICKS TODAY

One a dove, the other a blackbird.

I saw a dove in the trees yesterday, so I had a total of thirteen in view at once, but the one in the trees did not come down to join the twelve on the ground. It seemed nervous of me, despite seeing that the others were constantly flying to my hands and pecking about at my feet. But today it came down out of the tree and perched on the edge of the roof, then finally decided to come down. It was still nervous, and went up and down between the ground and the roof of this building for a while till it became more accustomed to me and realised that the tossing movements of my hand meant food, then it stayed down, although it kept rather to the edge of the group.

So again there were twelve here, but not the same twelve as yesterday.

The arrival of the second blackbird chick was not a surprise, because I had seen its mother flying off somewhere at the same time as the father was feeding the other one, the one that can now feed itself. The second is smaller than its sibling, and not as advanced in its feeding. But both chicks, because that is all they have even known, are much more comfortable with the doves than their father (and with me). They are a little wary of them,, because they are bigger and inclined to be possessive about their food, but the first blackbird chick generally will feed close to a group as if he belonged and the second one is becoming the same.

I hope the blackbird chicks, and their mother, will become as tame as the female blackbird that I used to call Mrs Friendly, the one who ate cheese from my hand for many years. She was the mate of the male who has fathered the two chicks this season. He was much younger than her, and blackbirds mate for life, so her first mate must have died, so she continued with the new, younger one, then earlier this year she must also have died. Otherwise she would have responded to my whistle, as he still does. But she has not responded to it for many, she did not have chicks last season, although she normally had two clutches, and her former mate has a new mate (I assume a much younger one), so that must be the sad explanation. I miss her. She was truly a wild bird made tame.

Her mate also took cheese from my hand, but not nearly as readily and has not done it for some time. Perhaps I shall tame the whole family. The difficulty will be feeding them without the doves noticing. with them about, some cheese in the hand means that no other creature can get near. They are all over it in a trice.

SUNDAY DOVES AND PLUTARCH

My Sunday day of rest was much blest with many doves, and continuing to read Plutarch's Lives.

There were eleven doves when I first went outside at seven o'clock, then twelve when I went out shortly after eleven. The second time BigFeet1 decided to fly up to roost on my left arm and work through his feathers, and LightFeet followed suit on my right arm. Other birds came and went to my hands, to my shoulders, even to my head. Twice there were four on me at once.

Even BigFeet2 landed on one hand briefly, the first time he has done that, and Smudge attempted to more than once but was deterred by other birds, so I expect that both the newest chicks will soon be doing what all the rest do.

I wondered how long BigFeet1 and LightFeet would stay roosting contentedly on me, so I determined to stand there till they decided to go. LightFeet stayed for two hourst! BigFeet1 only lasted about an hour and a half, but that was only because F1 came and scared him off.

LightFeet likes perching on my shoulders, moving back and forth between them, lightly nibbling my ears, my hair, my collar. And perching on my arms energetically nibbling my buttons. She is fascinated by my buttons, and tugs at them energetically. M1 now does the same.

The blackbird chick has found that if it stands by my porch and sings its feed-me song I will come out will probably feed it. So it does, and usually I do. All blackbirds look like females at first, but I suspect that it is a male because of the amount of singing it does. We shall see.

It is wonderful and very special to have these birds bestowed on me, especially the doves, but whenever we are dealing with animals we must never let them become more than they are. We must always avoid getting into the situation rightly decried in the first paragraph in the chapter on Pericles in Plutarch's Lives (Plutarch lived about 1900 years ago; he died circa 120AD):

'Caesar once seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome carrying up and down with them in their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and monkeys, embracing them and making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask whether the women in their country were not used to bear children; by that prince-like reprimand gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind. With like reason we blame those who misuse that love of enquiry and observation which nature has implanted in our souls by expending it on object unworthy of the attention either of their eyes or their ears, while they disregard such as are excellent in themselves, and would do them good.'

Wise words.

A DATE OF SMALL SIGNIFICANCE

I noticed that today marks the seventh month since the date wild doves first ate from my hand. It was on the 9th of May this year that two on the ground ate cheese from an outstretched hand for the first time. And it was nine days later, on the 18th, that for the first time one flew to my hand to eat.

We have come a long way. Now fourteen wild doves eat from my hand, and most will fly up to it from the ground or some other place and stay there till they have eaten all the food they find, or are shunted off by another bird. Some will fly directly to my hand from high in the beautiful trees of this forest. Doves fly to my shoulder, my head, my back, my arms, my hands.

So now my work is now interspersed with delightful dove-breaks. I usually need only to open the outer door of my office to find one or more doves flying at me, seeking an outstretched hand--preferably one with food in it. Or trying to rush in the door.

The male blackbird also became a little tamer today. For the first time he joined doves on my porch to peck up the ground grain that was falling from my hands as two doves ate from them. And his chick is obviously fairly comfortable pecking up ground grain in company with doves.

A TRUSTING WILD DOVE

Latish this afternoon I went outside, and found half a dozen doves on or near my porch. One was the female that I have previously called Light-Feathered Feet, because she has only a few small feathers high on her feet. Some doves have no feathers anywhere on their feet, some have a few small ones, some a few medium ones, some, like BigFeet (aka BigFeet1) and BigFeet2, have so many and such long ones that their feet are almost invisible.

I must think of a shorter version of her name. Lightfeet. That is poetic enough for such a beautiful bird. And she is lighter in weight than others, especially F1 and M1, who are bigger and noticeably heavier. After a while she flew up to my right hand to eat the ground grain that I kept offering her, and when she had finished she went to my left hand to eat that offering too.

Then to my delight she again showed that she is not on my hands just for food, because she settled down on my hand to work through her feathers, and to roost, even relaxing so much that she stood on one foot for much of the time. As I stood there, with her contentedly being her dovish self only a few centimetres from my face I wondered how long she would stay. About three-quarters of an hour was the answer, then she flew quietly away round the corner of the building to do something else, perhaps to have a drink from the small jars of water that I have provided for them.

A wild, young bird, only weeks old, trusting me that much. How wonderful! Would that all of nature had no reason to distrust us, because we were not busy wrecking it!

A CHICK ON MY SHOULDER

Yesterday (Tuesday the 6th of November) at about a quarter to two in the afternoon I was having trouble with slow Internet displays, so while I was waiting I chopped up some cheese. When I went outside I found a few doves near the porch, including BigFeet2, Smudge and a couple of others. The group of birds included another of the first three chicks to appear this spring, the one with the slightly feathered feet, a sibling of BigFeet1. The blackbird chick being fed by its father was also there.

So I started tossing bits of cheese to them from the porch. The blackbird chick, which is still pretending to its father that it needs to be fed, when its father is there, by going through its pleading routine, proved that it can look after itself perfectly well by eating all the cheese I threw to it. It no longer flees at the sudden movements of my hand, so is starting to be reasonably tame. Then its mother came along and she also did not flee when I tossed cheese her way. I hope both of them will end up eating from my hand.

I tried to get one or two of the doves to fly up to my hand by bending down but holding it so high that they could not reach the cheese I was holding. LightlyFeathered Feet finally got the message and jumped up. When she had eaten all the cheese in my hand I went inside and fetched more, but this time held it much higher not bending down on the ground, and it did at last fly up to it. And when it had eaten all the cheese it stayed there, perfectly relaxed, attending to its feathers, then it walked up my forearm and roosted in the crook of my elbow.

Then F1 flew up to the same hand, which happened to be my left, so LightlyFeathered Feet retreated up my arm to my shoulder. F1 kept coming and going to and from that hand, as always ever hopeful of finding food there, while LFF stayed on my shoulder. I wondered how long she was going to perch there. She was quite happy, taking a close look at me and sometimes nuzzling my collar. After five minutes or so she made her way across my upper back to my right shoulder and roosted there for several minutes until she lost her grip and fluttered down to the floor of the porch.

That friendly trust from a beautiful wild bird, a bird that was an egg up in the trees only a few weeks ago, made a wonderful five to ten minutes.