Protected: COCO 12 (Part II)

I’m just going to type complete bollocks in here, so anyone reading the comments doesn’t know what I’m on about lalalala…

Host, since you like the number four so much, there’s a four-lettered word for you that expresses my feelings right now perfectly. I think you can work out what it is.

Half of me is browned off beyond belief – at you – but at myself also.

The other half of me knows that this is absolutely freaking brilliant…or, rather, it would be, if only it had happened to someone else…

We must have been typing in tandem – I just took longer. you – me – facebook – debrief?

I would, but I’m still at work.

I’ve now read this twice, spent an hour scribbling cryptic words on random pieces of paper, road an uncontrollable wave of emotion and now walking around as though someone has hit me over the head with a blunt object.

Right now, I am feeling as gutted as one of Olaf’s tuna and waiting for all the other regulars to find their way out of their beds and to here.

And to think I hammered out 4500 words trying to finish off my own novella before the deadline.

Take solace in the fact that your story is tremendous.

Kudos Chris. One nice solid piece of solace in all of this.

Whatever the outcome of this “contest,” I am really looking forward to reading the end of your novella!

For starters! Neither disappointed or surprised. Need to read it all again. But basically I like it all.
Do I feel a fool? No.
Do I feel cheated? No.
Has it made me think? Yes.
Have I enjoyed the journey? Yes.
Does it carry a message? Yes.
Do I understand it all? No.
Do I feel ignorant? To a degree.
Have I experience something new? Yes.
Do I wish you success? Yes.
Was it an interesting experiment? Yes.
Does it deal with a burning issue(s) of life today (complexity of truth, of choice, of right and wrong)? Yes.

I assume it has not all be rigged and that the vote was randomly selective of your ‘selves’ or was the whole thing premeditated?

I hope the follow up for us mere mortals continues constructively – after all you gods are just a creation of our confused minds – you don’t exist in reality.

As is my wont, I responded prior to completing the final submission!! Hestia, you put a polish on things and answer some questions. You also add a feeling of warmth.

As I say, need to read it all again – hope I find time to do so! I’m sure that now what I believe has been revealed has been, things will take on different meanings throughout!

And how does your family fit together – still have not grasped who is who!!

JDEvolutionist, I don’t think I could say it better than you did…

**As soon as I’m able to close my mouth, I’ll reread this… O=

For now, Bravo!!!! 🙂

Love,
jake

Life is not a destination but a journey. Well said host, you are blessed, you are a modern Antiphon and I’m sure your defence will be as good as your journey will. I am simply amazed of such a talent! Long live Coco (and all the others!)

I want to know how you dealt with my messages in Russian to Coco? I was TOTALLY CONVINCED she was real. I was almost convinced she was a real prostitute, too. Where did you learn to do Russian English like that?

And Nora. I was positive she was a tight-ass, opinionated matron with a secret penchant for raunch.

In fact, I don’t believe any of this. I think you’re tricking us again. I’m not saying another word…

YES.

Coco’s hinted-at personal problems.
Omar’s lost bag.
Rhae’s essential misunderstanding of the entire competition.
Host’s shittiness with Tuck after his eviction.
Nora’s crabby, cranky bitchiness – and THAT challenge!
Utah telling me (ack) that she wasn’t from Utah.
And, oh, about a million other things.

Brilliant. Cruel, yes, but brilliant.

hahahahahha

Conz, you sure did decide to carry a cross with this one…

p,s, Nora, i’ve used your “to the hilt” a few times now in telling conquest stories. thanks for that

Tony, I’m very disturbed by the word “conquest”. Is that why you have all those scars on your arms?

Yes indeed. In my youth a beautiful girl broke my heart and slew the fallacy of harmonious eternal love. My body in all its previous majesty became but a carcass for base sensual pleasure; my scars are a constant testament and reminder.

Oh God, the No Idea bar. Now I get it. Soooo funny, Host…

*headdesk*

oh, and LIttlestar, the No Idea bar was a happy accident. That’s actually the bar I work at. 🙂

well, sigh…that at least sounds like the constantine i know.

One more comment (my mouth is still open!):

Has anyone seen the movie Identity??

Now I’m wondering… Are any of you commenters real? Are the Outside Participants (besides me) part of this charade as well?

Well I’m real.

I think. *pinches self*

Well, hell…It’s like “Sixth Sense” only better.

I’m just popping in and popping out, but rest assured, the vote was NOT rigged. Every one of your votes counted to determine the victor.

Well Done Kotcho!

Its Christmas and Im a Christmas tree!

Kotcho could be the name of a man or a woman. Its a mans name, but, you know, here in Cyprus things can get mixed up…

A girl I know is called Kotcho. Her real name is Ioanna. I wont get into all that right now…

Too much mythologizing for me to read in one take.

All I can say, in memory of the old beard who wrote the Aeneid, is timeo Danaos et dona ferentes…

Kotcho you old goat 🙂

Yes.. clearly I need to read up on Greek mythology! Does this make Host… Zeus? My my… is it just me or is it getting hot in here? 😉

Beware of Greeks promising six or so months of free entertainment?…my thoughts exactly.

Ps. Renata, I may or may not be real. I post, therefore I am.

PpSs. Don’t worry. I’m progressing from one of my points of view to the other. Host, you can stand down the bodyguards (c:

PppSss. So who was the guy with the face, then? In the challenge?

Tip o’ the hat to you Host… tremendous finale.
Humbled & amazed at the genius of it all!
Fiction with a capital ‘F’, at its absolute rawest and best.

Abones.

yah, you know, the more i think about it, as things become clear, it truly is quite an impressive feat. remarkable in the massive scope its covered.

(and I’m betting he’s real glad it’s over!)

Imagine if Omar had won! Or Fido?

I think this was brilliant! Some famous writers have used heteronyms to express their thoughts about anything surrounding their society, work, family, city and environment. It is believed that Fernando Pessoa probably established 72 heteronyms! He is today acclaimed for such a capability on the diversity that intellectual exercise requires! Just think about the achievement and not the game on itself. Are you upset at your parents because they made you believe for so many years Santa Claus existed? That was a game and we enjoy it! Yet… they never told us that it was a game…
Host, if my mouth is open it’s because nothing else than admiration! I wish you could come back to the Fourth Night blog and continuous Coco novel. Do it PLEASE!

WHAT? First this, now you’re trying to tell me Santa’s fake, too!? Aaaaargh!! (c:

Whoa! Both are real littlestar!! 🙂 BTW I think your great.

Love,
jake

Perhaps because I did not take part in this as actively as others, I’m better able to step back and just marvel at the audacity and skill involved in this. As you know Constantine (it it was you behind the “contestants” on the Twitter account) you got Igor’s regional English twang spot on because I commented on it! I even had someone in mind as being Tuck, after you said that the contestants picked their own pseudonyms, so you had me wholly convinced that these were 12 flesh and blood writers.

To convincingly create 12 different voices, keep them consistently talking, arguing, and keep your own identity above them all is a hallmark of genius or madness – I’m not sure which side of that line you come down on yet!

But in an age where increasingly “reality” TV is not about real people but those seeking fame, where staged events are passed off as real, why should anyone have honestly trusted 12 anonymous entities known only by pseudonyms and the words on a screen? Those pixels have no independent reality, other than the trust that people gave to them.

In truth, we did see a reality show over the past 5 months. But the contestants were the unwitting outside participants. That’s the only logical next step for reality shows, turn the audience into participant as the only remaining true “reality” there is.

Of course, this now makes for an interesting dynamic, that the commenters who engaged each other in ferocious exchanges to support or pillory different contestants were really praising and denigrating the same contestant.

A headf*ck of gigantic proportions, and enjoyable for that reason!

Well said Paul.

“why should anyone have honestly trusted 12 anonymous entities known only by pseudonyms and the words on a screen? Those pixels have no independent reality, other than the trust that people gave to them.”

That’s the same for all writing everywhere, and maybe that’s the message that JDEVolutionist mentioned. But we (at least some of us) did trust them. So maybe that’s the message. *head explodes*

I second Vasia.

I third Vasia.

Is third a verb?

I fourth myself.

Now you can see a point to the previous post.

Something even I had not realised when I wrote it.

Where does this put my concept of relating the story line both to the characters portrayed and to the author?

Who is this elder sister of many characters?

I know I’m real, Renata, and I think you must be too but, as you say, who else is really here?

It’s not that reality does not exist, at least it does for me, its just that what we make of it is based solely on the content of our minds, based on the prevailing state of out brains. Problematically, the state of our brains is dependant of the representations created by our experiences and the interpretations that we make of them; both are easy objects for manipulation.

This Phenomenal Universe, the universe of mind, is the potentially most significant advance that evolution has so far made and is the first to be inherently prone to error. Seeking truth lies at the core our existence and its purpose.

JD you have me itching. I want to respond to your comments. Unfortunately I dont have the luxury of time and words.

Being a sceptic I assume that reason can uncover falsehoods, if not discover truths. The scientific method is very good at substantiating points using evidence to prove/disprove statements. However my romantic leanings would say that the deepest truth is felt. And my anarchic side would say that the whole discussion is a construct of language and is irresolvable.

What has this got to do with 4th F? I suppose the truthfulness or not of an experience need not be the determining factor in how we evaluate it, whether it is worth its while. Maybe its a bit hard to say more.

As you like, or what you will 🙂

Hi Tetra. Its interesting that truth can exist based on falsehood – much of what we think of as true is in fact so based. You can question then whether what we think is truth is actually true. For me truth is a dimension, its validity changes with the course of evolution and this is unavoidable.

FourthFiction has captured some of this dichotomy (truth – lies) and captured it well; better perhaps than we yet realise. I think we have to express gratitude for that; any disappoint, slaps (Jodi), frustrations, feelings of being deceived are superficial to the primary objectives (whatever they may be) and, if we have them, they are our own.

I’m still don’t know if Constantine is the source of all that is FF or ‘just’ the messenger. But, whatever the truth of that, all involved have done a terrific job and done it at many levels.

Host,

I have just a few things to say. I love it, one of the best rides of my life. I meant every good word I said too you which ever mask you were wearing, I have told no lies here. I believe you are one of the most brilliant people I have ever know in this life. With 13 voices in your head I don’t know how you didn’t go mad, but you kept it all together with out showing it was just one true voice. (I didn’t know, that’s for sure!) Anyone that can’t forgive you now for the video’s being late is an ass. LOL I feel like you should get a prize but I have nothing to get you, expect for my blessings, so I leave you with 13 of them.

May GOD bless you with:

Isis – Enlightenment
Fido- Laughter
Fyor – Hope
Igor – Happiness
Tuck – Victory
Omar – Joy
Rhae – Justice
Tess – Love
Nora – Completion
Olaf – Clam
Utah – Peace
Coco – Serenity
Cons – Oneness

With Love and Joy,
jake

Ps Renata, I am real. My facebook is linked to my Eros tag now. 🙂

eros, or jake, are you insinuating that Olaf’s role was that of a bi-valve? seems a little strange…

LOL…Sorry, that should be Calm… Thank you so much for pointing that out Seldom.

love,
jake

Hey Constantine. Absolutely brilliant. From the beginning I thought you would be one of the contestants. But GOD!!!!!! Never in my mind I thought you would be all of them. GENIUS. You must be absolutely exhausted! Plus cycling all over town for crazy videos. I hope you enjoyed as much as we did. The last text I felt like I was reading Fernando Pessoa. Loved it. Good luck for the future. When am I going to have the privilege of reading one of your novels? Cant wait.

Oh yeah and:

“She also told me man who give you his heart too quickly is either too stupid or too clever. Either way trouble for you.”

Very illuminating. Thank you. 🙂

Still thinking and I THINK some truth has been uncovered. But THE truth.
I don’t know!

Like Anna I need to read up on the mythology.
Each goddess, god a modern character and Hades?

Got to go and sleep on it – see you in the morning, looking forward to more comments coming in over night.

So… I have visitors right now and can’t give this final post the thorough examination it deserves, but my initial reaction is mixed. What a tremendous amount of work, what versatility in the writing, the stories, the voices, and what dedication. A superb effort, Host. Successful in so many categories. And you have found a way, in this shallow world full of electronic strangers, to catch our attention and keep it. I wonder if you’ll now write a book about this experience, complete with quasi-philosophies derived from the whole social experiment, and try to publish that.

On the other hand, it is weirdly egomaniacal. I hate the lie. It’s certainly a betrayal– there’s no semantic argument, it was always supposed to be about 12 contestants. It took me a while to warm up to the idea of commenting and being a part of this “contest” and I can’t say the result has inspired me to take the chance again. I have never, ever wanted to be a part of one of those reality shows where there’s a twist at the end and the joke’s on the audience. Yet here I am. Woo.

I’ll be glad when your, um, ritual cleansing and vow of silence is over and you can let us all know “Why?” And also, “What next?”

When I started to read it this morning, I was absolutely mesmerized with the story, and at first I thought “man, Coco is really good, and a generous person – she’s asked Utah to finish her novel inside her post… that’s genius!”… then the others, and I was like “Whadafu…?”

Just then I went to the instructions and find out the challenge… Then my mouth opened and is still this way! 🙂

But it is open in surprise! Cause I think it was all so freaking brilliant, so absolutely difficult, so incredibly exhausting… Boy, you must be completely shagged! It’s really hard to believe that just one man could’ve done it all!

The kind of compromise that a task like this demands is way out of my league… If you’re not the brightest person, the new Fernando Pessoa or something like that, than you must be schizophrenic! 😀 Perhaps both! (c:

*then

if I was a doctor I would plumb for multiple personality disorder.

which is what I always say to my fourth self. hehe

Oh, and it’s a relief to know you’re all real! ufffff!

Oh, and it’s a relief to know you’re all real! ufffff!
🙂

Jodi,
you’ve had a day to mull it over. i wonder where you are with it all, and what you’re thinking. You’re furious, i think, and also amazed. which emotion is winning out?

Seldom – thanks for thinking of me – strange how this brings out interesting and previously unseen dimensions in everyone.

I’m neither furious or amazed, nor oscillating between the two. I’m taking some quiet time away to process all that this has dragged up… and to try and finish off projects which need my attention.

When you believe with great intensity and passion (gullability?), and invest time and effort in something only to discover it is just a mirage (no matter how amazing or beautiful), the slap of reality is painful.

I will be interested to hear what Constantine has to say when he’s interviewed by Cyrus on Monday night.

Being gullible probably means two things. First that you are a nice person, prepared to trust that people are who they say they are and, secondly, that your experience in life has not left you cynical. Two things to celebrate and cherish.

I could never get rid of that niggling doubt, probably because, whilst the “first” may be true of me, the “secondly” isn’t. I know my own real Coco, and while she sounds a lot like Coco when we talk, she writes like this “shi lofs abaut .mayby you dance like this.is beter shi see you.wen you can”.

Were those who have met Constantine, or know him well, like Vasia or Anna Bones, taken in? I doubt it.

I wonder whether Coco won because her voice was the least familiar to the particular audience and so it was easier to convince people that her voice was authentic. She played into the stereotype of the whore with a heart.

Coco’s writing bothered me for a long time. I figured anyone who had taken the time to learn English so carefully and still had the exact same tics that never went away, like “hole” rather than “whole,” was faking something. I just didn’t get what. I wasn’t even *close* to guessing what was wrong with the picture.

I have a lot of thoughts. I am currently collecting them into a big bundle of thought-ness. Then I can work out what to do with them all.

When I stop with the *headdesk* that is.

To those of us still (rightfully) feeling a little hurt, I’m wondering if perhaps I should have taken Coco’s advice and kept my shiny heart inside my blousa in the first place.

Or maybe Tess’ advice from round two re: videos… *is nervous*

I have my suspicions as to who around here is in on this, but, like Kaylie, I’m just going to shut up and see what happens next.

I had an epiphany (that’s a Greek concept, you see) today, when I realised that, although I was fooled, that doesn’t make me a fool.

as a fellow Aussie you’d appreciate this (which was the thought I had driving home when I read the post for the first time) … you can be “had”, but it doesn’t mean, for the most part, it was your fault (or that you are a fool!)

Now I understand “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do”

And Jen, some of Coco’s tics have bothered me too, because they sounded like Portuguese, not Ukranian… I can’t remember an example now, but like you, I wasn’t even close to see what was coming!

Guys, look at this:
“Infirmities: Recovering egoholic who in moments of weakness lapses into former delusions of self-grandeur.”

This is part of Constantine’s self-description! I think it fits perfectly! lol

And I also think he’ll have to start the 12 steps all over again! 😀

From what I can tell in the mix of emotions is that the women feel hurt and the men in awe. It seems to me like the real Greek tragedy is taking place very much in real life.
This the beauty and power of fiction, to experience revelations and truths through made up stories, and the writers in the house should feel inspired and empowered with the knowledge that their craft can provoke the extreme ranges of emotions displayed on this page.
This isn’t a testament to our gullibility, it’s a testament to one person’s talent, genius and hard work. Anyone who knows Constantine will confirm that yes, he is brilliant, possibly one of the most brilliant people you will ever meet, yes, he has dedicated his entire adult life to writing fiction, often making choices few of us would consider. And yes he is completely schizophrenic.
We should feel humbled, not hurt.
I have no doubt that much to his surprise, he forged real relationships and friendships along the way. And for a technological caveman like him, a person who disliked even his photo being taken, being a 24/7 twitterer, facebooker, blogger and Youtube celebrity, was indeed truly a feat.
But rest assured, those 12 characters were very real, and I challenge anyone to tell me otherwise, I’ve had to hangout with all 13 (12 + host) simultaneously on many occasions, they just happen to all occupy one same body.
You think you got taken for a ride? It was Constantine who got taken for a ride, and by association all the people who love and care about him. And having been a part of FF since the beginning (and knowing Constantine’s fiction, we’re all just skimming the surface of all the inter-connections of this project), I was just as exhilarated, amazed and heart-broken at the finish line as everyone else.
… I know I’ll be waiting, luggage in hand, for the next Fourth Night train ride.

-Abones

PS: Kaylie, you *will* want to know about how he was able to respond in Russian to you in that one comment! In fact, I hope many more stories get revealed…

Abones,

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and though I have many words of my own to offer, I’m inclined to wait for my brother to make his appearance for fear that I’ll be considered his “representative” – and he clearly can speak for himself. I will offer my perspective once the dust storm settles a bit. In the meantime, I sympathize with those of you who are hurt, but also hope you can eventually recognize the greater gifts that FF has bestowed, including the formation of a literary community of once strangers now engaging with a level of intimacy and emotion that is lacking in most face to face interactions.

-Vasia

“We should feel humbled, not hurt.” – That’s the truth. I can’t even speculate as to whether or not I could pull something like this off because I couldn’t have conceived of it in the first place. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the scope of it all. I think hearing the behind the scene stories will be just as fascinating and entertaining as the contest itself.

Good to hear your comments Anna; I for one feel a sense of being privileged to have had to opportunity to have been around for the ride and certainly don’t feel that I have been conned in any way.
Hope to see you on that next ride!

Okay, I’m reading this late and I’m just … speechless. Well done, Host! I truly didn’t expect such an ending. I’m in awe right now, not because of the unexpected twist, but because of having been able to see fiction in thirteen different angles, like having seen fiction through the eyes — and hearts — of different writers … but most especially that I got I caught a glimpse of what fiction meant for you.

But I just can’t get over how brilliant this whole thing was — great plot … like it was all a story and we were all characters in it. Everyone.

Host, this was such a wake up call — more like a reminder — as to why writers are writers, and the relation of fiction to reality: that it is different for each individual — how they perceive it and how they create it — and that it is first a form of expression before it is a “contest”; that’s how I think fiction was created, at least.

You made the past few months fun with Fourth Fiction, so thanks. I have a much wider perspective of fiction now than I had 5 months before.

*headlaptop*

genius |ˈjēnyəs|
noun ( pl. geniuses )
1 exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability : shewas a teacher of genius | Gardner had a real genius for tapping wealth.
2 a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative, either generally or in some particular respect : one of the great musical geniuses of the 20th century.
3 ( pl. genii |ˈjēnēˌī|) (in some mythologies) a guardian spirit associated with a person, place, or institution.
• a person regarded as exerting a powerful influence over another for good or evil : he sees Adams as the man’s evil genius.
4 ( pl. genii ) the prevalent character or spirit of something such as a nation or age : Boucher’s paintings did not suit the austere genius ofneoclassicism.

Constantine’s work perfectly fits in it. Is he a great person in a broad sense? I don’t know, most probably not, he is like all of us with hidden crazy (schizophrenic? Ok, why not!) devils but with more intellectual genius than many of us, most of us, all of us!!! Being a frequent reader of his Fourth Night blog I can sense that Constantine has very deep feelings and that make me believe that he did not meant to hurt us, at all! His intellectual strength forced him to do something totally different that had required, as we saw it develop, so much energy that none of us would dare to do, could not do! Like a monologue it requires talent, he has it all and only a very small percentage of living intellectual souls are able to do what Constantine did.
I’m sure he is reading all our comments and not laughing at it but I’m also sure his defence will be of a man of honour. Some of your comments are hurting him more than he intended to do to us. Think twice before you crucify his FF work because the ones who are drifting away from his geniality may regret. The train many times only stop one time, it is up to us to grab the opportunity to catch it.
As for me my admiration to his work and courage make me ride on the train and I’m sure one day I will buy a book dedicated and signed by Constantine Markides. And I will be very proud of it!

With that thought I’m done and I’m heading for holidays and the lid of my computer will be closed. On my return on 13th of January the Fourth Fiction is most probably closed (I would wish not!) and therefore I take this opportunity to say that it was a pleasure to “meet” you all and to read your comments along the way. I wish you a Merry Season and a New Year plenty of health and readings!

Take care Host and after your well deserved rest please come back with your writings in the Fourth Night. (Pssss, bring Coco along ;))

Assuming you did shut the computer Joan – I hope you had a Very Happy Christmas, New Year and holiday.

Good sentiments in your last entry.

This reaction is pretty amazing. The whole Fourth Fiction event *must* be art, because only art can evoke this much of a reaction while the artist is so noticeably silent.

Silent, Jen, but overwhelmed. I’m humbled and awed by the scope of all this. Fido’s bowwows aside, it hasn’t been a one-man show. Fourth Fiction is bigger than me. It’s a richer and greater work because of all of your involvement. I’m grateful and thankful to you all for that.

At the end of his Tractatus, Wittgenstein writes, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.” That’s how I feel at the moment. It’s not that I want to remain silent; it’s just that I’m having trouble speaking now that the contestants are gone. Host never had much of a voice. He was a bit flat. Very unzeuslike. I hope this temporary identity crisis will be ironed out by tomorrow when I start responding to your questions and comments.

Please take some time to look at the writing of the Outside Participants: http://fourthnight.com/outside-participants. The five of them, who are in the process of finishing their novellas, live in Australia, Cyprus, the Philippines, Germany, and Brazil. One of them is a 16-year-old in Manila who was simultaneously writing a novel (NanoWriMo). It just goes to show that there’s more here to *headdesk* and *headlaptop* over than the “uncovered truth.”

Oh, and please don’t forget to congratulate Eros. It was his mother, after all, who won Fourth Fiction’s golden apple.

Thank you Cons, I am very happy that it was mom that won. It goes to show my core belief, Love always wins in the end. Love, Eros(jake)

Ps Thank you also for writing her so well!! 🙂

Thanks Conz for finally speaking up and putting an end to all the dick-sucking you were receiving. We’re all proud of your efforts and it must have been quite some climax for you.

I wish I could honor the ‘outside contestents’ but it will have to wait while I slowly lose all meaning as I vomit up a paper on a nietzschean view of the brothers karamazov.

But next time I see you we’re going to laugh over a few drinks and i’m going to punch you in the nuts and make you the butt of a few of my own jokes before we’re even-Steven on this one!

Hmm.

I keep dropping into the FF site, as if Im lonely.

Lets not get sentimental tho’. We have Christmas for that! (dread, dismay, stoicism etc)

For the record, I was aware of who the participants were (or was, if that is permissible grammar), which was, I may add, just a coincidence, a happy one at that.

I only visited the site because the tales were great yarns told in serial format which made me want to return to read the next installment. I was a fan of Nora, Tuck and, in the end, the fisherman and like any avid reader I wanted to know what happens in the next chapter.

I really liked the idea of “live” writing. I like to imagine the Victorians, who would read many of the popular novels in serial format, as they came out.

And that is what for me is important, that I actually enjoyed the unfolding of tale and persona and the way the stories took direction and momentum from the challenges posed. I was personally involved.

Whilst the underlying idea of FF is clearly a conception of one person what interested me was the execution of the idea. The challenges, especially, gave a spontaneity and unpredictability to the way the rounds developed, as did the voting!

Let me say I did not mention to anyone my special knowledge. My wife was somewhat annoyed/upset when I told her a few days ago as I have over the past months animatedly recounted various events in the stories or discussion thread interactions with the participants which I liked. She would wait for me in bed while I would write a comment or read a post before retiring. She realised it was important for me.

I am fairly sure I would not have contributed otherwise, which is in a way ironic. I am a fairly private person and uncomfortable with the internet per se and talking to anyone I dont know if I cant see them!

I like that the competition stayed on track all the way and didn’t peter out.

When Host/C. mentioned FF I asked
– well, what happens at the end?
That was in the summer. Now here we are.

I have enjoyed many of the discussion threads and comments (many of which I was not in). I think that all you other followers of the contest are great.

Long live stories being told and shared, long live the human conversation.

tetra

“Whilst the underlying idea of FF is clearly a conception of one person what interested me was the execution of the idea.”

Let me just develop/unpack this a bit – I meant a few different things. I mean that the contest does not in fact exist without readers, the audience, us. We influenced how it took shape and gave breath and life to its existence. It was, fundamentally, interactive and organic.

I have the feeling that the care and dedication of Host/the contestants was vital, responsive and involved – in a deeper sense – an exceptional and rare type of artistic integrity.

And this, now, is what perplexes me, that I have no doubt whatsoever that a great artistic integrity was required for FF to happen and to succeed, yet this inspired, crackpot idea necessitated deception of audacious proportions.

I believe that it was the ancient Greeks who first formulated the idea that fiction was created to entertain and instruct.

Speaking for myself Ive enjoyed being a part of this journey. Now as to what it might mean, this is for each to decide. And that is also very much the case in literature, and this is one of the conversations and activities I so love and have enjoyed sharing with you, in all its modern, chthonic glory all.

t.

I’ve been waiting for you, Tetra…

I worked out the other day that you must have known about this. The knowing tip of the hat in the video? Makes sense now.

And I keep coming back here too – because, strangely, I actually MISS them all. Coco and Utah and Tess and Omar…yes, even Tuck. For me, they were all quite real.

In my thoughts, I’ve come full circle. The *headdesk* is over. Now, I’m actually laughing.

(I’m not literally laughing right now, of course, I’m at work on a Saturday again…which is why typing this is taking me for-ev-er…)

At first, I was outraged because this whole thing made me feel so incredibly stupid.

But now, at the end of it all, right now, I actually feel enlightened. More intelligent. Yeah, I got duped – but so what? I got duped by a master.

And I’m actually better off for the experience.

I had an amazing time over the past few months. Absolutely amazing. Getting you know you “attractive, crazy” people has been great. Even if twelve of you didn’t exactly exist (c:

Host – my official apologies for the initial mistrust/accusation/stupidity. And a tetra-esque tip of the hat.

Patiently waiting your next masterpiece.

Seems like many of us keep returning to check up, or check in, or maybe just to see if it all really happened. I’m as guilty and helpless as the rest of you. However, during the course of the last few days, in which the place i live has been racked by hurricane force winds, 20′ seas,while the boat owners haven’t slept, and going outside is more an adventure in idiocy than it is normalcy, i’ve been up to some thinking. Sadly, while this is not a strongpoint, it happens. Sometimes without my even knowing it. My conclusions are as follows:

1. I have been a devoted reader of fourth fiction since day one.
2. I will miss it.
3. There may, and i repeat, MAY never be all the answers that i’m looking for.
4. As a fisherman myself in the gulf of maine, i wondered just who, exactly, was this “Olaf”?
5. I’ve realized he just is. He may not exist in skin and blood and emotion, may not cross gaffs with me, may not set his fishing gear across mine, but he’ll always be out there, fighting his battles. In that sense, we are all out there, fighting our battles. I can attest to fisherman being a different breed. Sounds like writers are as well.
6. The “ultimate challenge” is not to uncover the truth about what has been done on fourth fiction. what it is, is to be always out there, fighting life’s battles. I say, “is this not life?” whom among the 12 did not? was not? is not?
7. The fact that Constantine was all 12 of the contestants simultaneously, for months on end, does not mean he is a genious, as some of you have said. It does mean he’s worked hard, harder than we ever may know. But in my mind, hard work doesn’t equate to genious status.
8. At the same time, this fourth fiction thing has been a totally original enterprise and for that fact, coupled with the style in which he’s pulled it off, he’s earned his place in what? what do we even call it? that is for wiser heads than mine…
9. As for the “regulars”, i’d just say that no matter what video footage shows you to be, i’ve formed my own portraits of you, physically and mentally, and i’d just assume be left with those. though tetra keeps me wondering…and Renata makes me want to send her flowers…
10. I don’t feel the need to overthink it. As annoying as the phrase can be, “it is what it is.”
11. As good as the writing was, and you all know i did not care for some of it, it was the commenters that made this what it is. If nothing else, i believe this was the intent, and hope, that Constantine had. Indeed, without all of us, what was it?
12. and that is my point, i think. without us, the readers who were eliminating the writers, what is fourth fiction?

so, goodbye.
its over.
good while it lasted. all of us will be linked to it forever, or fourever, which ever comes first.

Sometimes you’re really a gentleman, Seldomseen…!

🙂

Ms. Renata, you have NO idea…

I do wish I was privy to the all conversations going on between those in the know. There was a time around Challenge 8 or 9, I think, when everything seemed to go quite for a while and I seriously questioned whether I was being conned in some way. But the action started again and that direction of thought was boxed up.

I’ve moved on from ‘conned’ now but I do seriously question to what extent this whole concept has been an experiment. I sense a scenario in which a group of intelligent young people get together for a drink and someone (host perhaps) plants that seed created in the phenomenal universe – a meme – in the fertile minds of those present. Although communicated in the physical world it germinates in the phenomenal, unrestrained by the limitations of reality.

What would happen if we did this? No one knows, no one can know, it can only be tested, tried out. The meme starts to grow and with it the excitement spurred on by the inquisitiveness of youth and the intelligence of those present. Where? London, New York, Cyprus, No Idea?

As the project progresses all sorts of new ideas enter the minds. Minds that are forming their own specific element of the phenomenal universe combining together to form a subset of the universal consciousness.

Bear with me!!! I’m just letting it pour out. I too have been thinking and I’m not sure Seldom Seen is right when he says its over – it should be perhaps but then again perhaps there is so much more to be uncovered. Littlestar has been thinking too. And where’s Jodi? Was she, is she privy to things some of us don’t know? Oh! Wow – ‘A headf*ck of gigantic proportions’ to quote Paul? No. I don’t think so. An Experiment, yes.

An experiment born of that early meme and developed to a stage at which it was ready for putting out into the real world, the evolving one, the one of cyber space. Like any scientific experiment the expectations would have been there but the outcome was unknown, unknowable. This was a journey to seek greater truth, more knowledge; to test in reality the ideas of the mind.

Are we just at the beginning of the real scenario? Has the experiment only yielded the data so far? Are the ‘scientists’ only just starting their real voyage of investigation and discovery?

Am I just full of shit!?

Even if I am totally wrong, Fourth Fiction has taken place and will have made an impact on Existence. As Littlestar says ‘… I’m actually better off for the experience’ – aren’t we all. Fourth Fiction has been and is a part of Condition of Existence and as such has contributed to, influenced, the course of evolution – by how much remains to be seen.

I am still here JD and I can assure you the only thing I am currently privy to, that the rest of you are not, is my own feelings, which have for the past few days pretty intense and all consuming.

I have always been aware the words, once written down and shared publicly, cannot be taken back so I have kept as much of this to myself as humanly possible while I walk a path which I certainly did not expect at the end of this contest.

My interest and passion for Fourth Fiction over the past five months (I think I wrote about it first in a June column) has run parallel with creating my first anthology for Chinese Whisperings http://chinesewhisperings.com (you don’t mind the plug do you Constantine?) which itself has been a ride which at time looked was going to end prematurely and is about to culminate in publication on 1st Jan 2010 – so I can only begin to imagine what an effort (Herculean!) it has been for Constantine to keep this running at such a high standard.

So I am still here, reading, processing and trying to drag myself through to next Tuesday night when my “work” year ends. I will have more to comment, any insights etc, when my feelings are less raw and perhaps it cools down enough to string together some decent sleep. Until then, I am learning much for your observations and am grateful, especially to the beautiful Anna for her words. Thank you!

Hi Jodi – good to hear from you and to know of your position. Have read 12.1-12.5 now – all great stuff, lots to absorb! As with so much of late really need to re-read and read again, usually don’t expect that of novels, but meaning has a way of needing to be extracted.
You guys all impress me with how much you manage to get done. Keep it up, you will reap the rewards.
Awaiting you future input, here and in your own endeavours – the world expands.

While writing Fourth Fiction I was able to cover rent, groceries, and etceteras by working as a swim instructor with the school Imagine Swimming (if you look at the posts, you’ll see that on most days nothing was posted between 2pm and 7pm, except on the July Twitter month, when I’d jump out of the pool for ten seconds to post a pre-written tweet from my phone). I spent, and still do spend, three hours daily in the pool with children, some as young as two, many of whom struggle to keep their heads above water. I learned to commiserate with them because the past five months were precisely that: a desperate effort to keep my head above water. I had intended, before the launch, to write at least the opening paragraphs, or at least the opening sentences of each contestant. But I’m lousy with advance planning and I didn’t have time for it. It was all on the fly. There were some gasping spaces, like immediately after I posted a video, and after the final post in each round. Those were the days in which I had the luxury of six or seven hours of sleep.

As a result, it was an intensely physical experience. In many ways, writing this was just one giant effort to stay awake. It wasn’t easy to stay healthy and keep it together after sleeping four hours a night for the past four days (for purely symbolic reasons, of course…) and to have a kid with serpentine boogers hanging out of his nose sneezing in your face for the duration of the 40-minute lesson. At 11:30pm on December 8th, my heart was hammering as if I’d just sprinted around the block, my hands were shaking so much that I was having trouble finishing the formatting, and I was on the verge of tears. Not exactly an exemplar of the cackling conniver.

As a result of all this chicken-with-its-head-cut-off goings-on, I had little time for deliberate reflection. The spurs were fear, adrenaline and nerves. And having come out of this long nightmare – because as wondrous and surreal as the experience may have been, it was mostly just a lucid nightmare that I was trying to pull through – I’m now feeling a bit lobotomized.

The comments, however, invigorate and revive. The unveiling now comes from the commenters, whether it’s about themselves or about Fourth Fiction. They have outshined the contestants. I’m not surprised. The Olympians were always pettier, bitchier, and more human-all-too-human than the mortals. The stories that we remember and celebrate and suffer are not those of Apollo and Artemis, or of Aphrodite and Ares, but of Odysseus and Penelope, of Achilles and Helen. The Olympians just happened to be the lucky bastards in power who got to write the history books. Of course they’d place themselves center stage.

In his greatest preface, Joseph Conrad once wrote “My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything.” (worth reading the entire preface: http://www.classicauthors.net/conrad/Narcissus/Narcissus1.html). Your insightful comments are helping me to see Fourth Fiction in ways I couldn’t before. In new hues and dimensions. Thanks for the eyes.

littlestar – the hat is from travels in Cuba. I just like it and I dont know what to do when a camera points at me, so took it off spontaneously
(or maybe that was my husband. hehe)

JD – I must have spoken to Host 15 minutes since the start of the show. Usually to say Nora was wonderful and outrageous, complain that I cant figure how to post my writing on wordpress because I am tech-retarded or to ask if he was ok (healthwise) because I wasnt sure if his body would stand the strain for so long and into winter. I think his mind has constantly been on FF, usually in 12,11,10,9 etc places at once.

I know Host/C. through his writing more than in flesh and blood.

Im here because I like it and because it is a welcome change to the routine of work and home which I look forward to! Now I have to go and shop and my better half is patiently, as ever, waiting for me!

T.

Intriguing Tetra. Trying to relate that last sentence to my own better half – I suspect that men are more patient that women. I’m continually getting into trouble if I keep my better half waiting!!

Like many of you, I’ve become a frequent visitor of this site. In fact, I was thrilled to find a corner in my parents home (which remains stubbornly rooted in the 20th century) here in Maine where I can steal a wireless signal from the neighbors. I must say I’m a bit wary to write considering you’re all so incredibly bright and articulate and have poured forth such insight in the past few days.

(Disclaimer: I’m a visual artist)

There’s much I want to respond to but feel very overwhelmed by the emotional storm of this orgiastic cyber-love affair. Maybe I’m living vicariously through my brother, whom you have all left speechless, which I can safely say is a first. Bravo! And because he has told me that he’s not effective at articulating his feelings in writing, and because it’s okay for me to make a fart out of myself, here it is:

Constantine’s affection for you all is epic.

I could continue but it would be nauseating…

When this project was in the initial stages of conception, I was doubtful. I found it problematic for obvious reasons, and couldn’t fathom the proportions it was capable of reaching. I don’t think Constantine could either. But the more I sat with the idea, the more I started to see its beauty, magnitude and potential. Also, what didn’t exist then, was all of you. As time went on, you each became a character in the greater story (as some of you have pointed out already). As Tetra (who’s expecting this month, by the way) said, you all “gave breath and life to its existence”. There would be no Fourth Fiction without all of you. After all the sleepless hours Constantine put into this endeavor in the past few months, I can’t imagine the devastation he would have felt if it was a flop, and that would have inevitably affected all of us who are close to him – for that I sincerely thank you all.

I think FF has tapped into the greater challenge of art today, which is to do away with the
stoic artist as god-figure (and therein lies the irony of Host as Zeus) and puts the magic wand in the hand of the audience. Great art engages, enlightens and enervates the participating audience who in turn become indispensable enzymes for the creation of the work.

Do I think it’s over? No. In fact, JD, your suggestion is not so far-fetched by any means. I was just pondering the idea with Constantine the other day of organizing a party here in New York where we all meet face to face. Another possibility is to start a Fourth Fiction online writers forum that lives beyond FF.
(Jodi – I’m eager to check out your work!)

I look forward to reading and participating in the continued stream of messages that will come in.

In parting, I’d like to pose a question for debate: Were there really ever any “lies”?

Well said Vasia, I think you are wrong though, you do have a way with words, too. 🙂

In answer to your question about the “lies” I would have to say my answer is simple NO!

OK maybe that is too simple. lol As I see it the first thing I remember Constantine saying in this whole thing was that it was a no holds bar competition. Which was true, and would it have been fair if that only went for the contestants? No it wouldn’t and I realized that from the start. The second thing I remember is that there would be 12 contestants and at least one of them would be a published author. True and True. All 12 my have been Constantine but each was truly their own person in every way, in every right and he is a published author. Last but not least was that it would be entertaining and that it most definitely was and I would have to also add here enlightening.

I do hope this keeps going in some way and if (no) when it finds it new format I will be there with bells on.

Love,
jake

Good of you to assume it, Eros, but not true. In the Round 1 Video I said that one of the contestants was a “reputed published author.” That’s a lie. I’m neither reputed nor published. I thought it might generate interest so I said it. I regretted saying it. That’s why I barely said another word about it the rest of the competition. Pretty suspicious. If I did have an acclaimed author on board, I probably would have been making a fuss about it. Then again, I wasn’t a stellar promoter, which may have served to my advantage.

Fourth Fiction allows no luxury of editing, so the phrase had to stay. Similarly, I regretted writing in TESS 1 the word “lies” (which comprises part of the Round 12 challenge: “After all of the lies…”). I wonder how different some of the initial impressions may have been if the Round 12 challenge instead opened “After all of the fiction…” Probably not much.

So the reputed published thing was definitely a lie, a regrettable one that I tried to bury. As far as the claim that there would be 12 contestants who would write pseudonymously and whose identities would be revealed at the end, the truthfulness – or as Colbert would say, truthiness – of that depends on how one takes one’s lies: medium rare or well done.

Reputed = supposed to

Published = to issue (printed or otherwise reproduced textual or
graphic material, computer software etc.) for sale or
distribution to the public.

Author = 1. a. The writer of a book, article, or other text.
b. One who practices writing as a profession.

So I was completely wrong, right. Nope. I think this definition fits you very well. I take my “lies” like my meat, so well done that it’s almost burnt. So I really don’t see where it is a lie.

I don’t think the change to TESS 1 would have made much of a difference to people. It might have hit a little softer, but it would still have the same base meaning to people.

Oh yeah I almost forgot! STOP being so hard on yourself. LoL 🙂

Love,
jake

Cyrus Webb of Conversations LIVE! Radio will be interviewing me about Fourth Fiction this MONDAY, DEC. 14th at 8pm EST (New York time). You can listen live to the interview online at http://blogtalkradio.com/conversationslive or hear it via the switchboard at (+1) 347 426 3645.

The interview will run for an hour and 45 minutes into it will be opened up to the listeners at (+1) 347 426 3645. I hope that many of you do call in to ask any questions or to comment. I asked Cyrus to make the call-in part as long as possible.

You can see more details in this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZLDX9ATiF8

I’ve posted a countdown in the sidebar to make it easier for people in other time zones to figure out exactly when the interview will take place. Talk to you soon, and I’m very happy I can say this in a literal sense…

Our chance to get back at you ?? 😉
Good luck.

It has been great getting to know the various sides of Constantine and all of the readers throughout this process. I am excited about the opportunity to talk with him and as many of you as possible during our primetime discussion on Mon. Dec. 14th. I will be folding some of the comments into the discussion. We will also have our chatroom open for you to continue the dialogue in real-time during the interview. http://tobtr.com/s/792389

Man. I so missed the main event here. I had a quick skim of the final post in Google Reader on the 8th, but seeing the size of it I thought it best saved until I was free from distraction. Only got time this morning, with the family off Christmas shopping without me.

Having had the luxury of reading everyone’s comments before posting I am, after the inital shock of the revelation, impressed by the hosts ability to churn out all this stuff in the time frame. I barely have the time for one internet presence, let alone 12.

I feel a bit gulled, but then you have to admire the scope of the trick. The fact that it has taken such effort on the part of Constantine says that it is more than just a trick to make folk feel stupid. Who would go to that extreme of effort for a simple trick.

Hell, I still haven’t found time to finish one novella, while Constantine was writing 12. Though the whole charade does explain the low word counts at the beginning. NaNowriMo burnt me out a bit, and I am spending December recuperating. I plan to deal with my novella in the new year. The irony that my story is about a guy who makes up whole fictional life stories about strangers in photos isn’t lost on me either.

And I have to go back and re-read my litcrits and see just how badly I embarrassed myself there. I can’t work out whether I am glad I didn’t have time to write any in the later stages of the competition or sad. Probably a bit of both.

One fact in all this fiction is that Fourth Fiction was fun while it lasted.

Be interesting to see what the host has to say come Monday.

Still processing some of this so if I have any other thoughts I’ll pop back and share later, if anyone’s still here.

Great to hear from you, Dan. To respond to a few of the earlier questions and comments:

Kaylie, you asked how Coco was able to reply in kind to your Russian comments: I know some elementary phrases and the Russian alphabet is similar to the Greek so I could respond to most of them with some googling. As for the more elaborate comment you wrote, I’ll recount that story tomorrow in the interview (if I forget, someone please remind me in the call-in portion). As for the Russian English, there are many Russians, Ukrainians, and Eastern Europeans living in Cyprus, so it was just a matter of recalling their speech patterns.

Adifferentvoice, I take it by your comment – http://www.fourthnight.com/2009/12/coco-12/#comment-4782 – that you’re suggesting you are a nice person (i.e. a trusting one) who turned cynical because scurrilous characters like host have repeatedly betrayed your trust over the years. Hence your suspicion. Fair enough. To answer your question, I don’t know of one person, friends and family included, who discovered the identity of the contestants on their own. Now I have a question for you? Just how familiar are you with Ukrainian prostitutes in Cyprus, or with prostitutes anywhere for that matter? If very little, I urge you to go spend some time with them and listen to their stories. Then we can compare notes. You may just discover that, like you, whores too have a heart.

Jen, I too wondered whether Coco shouldn’t maintain tics like ‘hole’ instead of ‘whole.’ But because Coco was a careful writer, I thought she would also be consistent in her misspellings. Having said that, she was careless with her use of ‘their,’ ‘there,’ and ‘they’re’ so it just goes to show that even careful writers can be sloppy…

Littlestar, the guy with the face in the challenge is an architect friend. For Fourth Fiction purposes let’s refer to him as Sancho or Hymie, whichever you prefer. There was a very bright kitchen light hanging directly over his head when I took that photo. Flattering, isn’t it?

As for the question “What next?” I’d rather throw that back to all of you. Any ideas?

What next? Fourth Fiction in book form – Vasia’s comment was a throw away comment gifted to you from the Universe. The “good universal flow of energy” moves in mysterious ways. Who here would buy this amazing literary adventure in book form (digital or paper copy)

And after all the anticipation – I’m keeping the rest of my “what next” ideas for our conversation after Christmas. I think it is about time you got some antici-pation payback (though obviously my ideas will be far less sweated upon or joyously awaited.

Constantine, I guess you feel attacked by my comment. It was aimed at Jodi, who strikes me as a very nice woman. I felt upset for her. Not for myself, because I felt no surprise at all at Coco’s revelation, and had always wondered if you were all the writers. Doesn’t make me clever. Perhaps it does make me cynical, or perhaps, having met you once, I thought you were capable of being all those voices. Nice, me? Not for me to judge: I doubt you think so. Betrayed? Yes, but not by everybody, and not by anybody that matters to me.

As for my Coco, she was traficked for prostitution to Greece (under guise of marriage)and her daughter is my god-daughter. Now she lives elsewhere in Europe and is training to be a nurse (which she was already in her country of birth). I’ve also lived in a rather famous red light district for more than twenty years so I may even have seen more prostitutes than you …

I’m sorry my comment grated, and was out of step with most of the others (Host = genius). I’ve enjoyed reading all the instalments, even if I did get a bit tired of the Bukowsi-esque titillation of some of the earlier rounds. I could never have written as you have, and the fact that you have taken so many people in must be gratifying evidence of your ability to conjure up authentic voices. Kudos.

I don’t think this is specifically about individual characters, real or fictional, (except perhaps host). Nor do I think it is about being ‘conned’, it has far deeper meaning than that.

I think that, to a significant degree, it is about an individual being able to express a range of modern day concerns, dichotomies, questions about the meaning and purpose of life through stories relating to fictional characters created and told by 12 different fictional characters all of whom, while emanating from a single source, had their own very believable personalities and characters. A fantastic double layering of fictional creation presented not once but 12 times.

I for one felt varying degrees of bonding between myself and the writers and this influenced my take on their stories, which varied as I formed my opinions as to just who the ‘individual’ authors were. I don’t feel ashamed of this in the light of the revelations for me it speaks only of the success of the creations.

All of this done over a very short period of time and subject to the distortional influence of challenges, exhaustion and what was that drink? – I’ve forgotten. PLUS the creation of quite remarkable video footage, which was enjoyed by all, AND on top of that the management of a website. Hey criticisms are out of the window!!. I’m just in awe and, in the light of all this, minor weaknesses, often seen only in the eyes of individuals, pale into insignificance.

Ditto! Plain and simple.

“I know my own real Coco, and while she sounds a lot like Coco when we talk, she writes like this “shi lofs abaut .mayby you dance like this.is beter shi see you.wen you can”.

Were those who have met Constantine, or know him well, like Vasia or Anna Bones, taken in? I doubt it.

I wonder whether Coco won because […] She played into the stereotype of the whore with a heart.”

Your last sentence makes me think you don’t think whores have hearts. Is this what you concluded from your years spent in red light districts?

Unlike Jodi, you don’t sound like a very nice woman, your second comment being just as snappy and arrogant as your first one.

“I’m sorry my comment grated, and was out of step with most of the others (Host = genius).”

Waiting 5 months to post a comment that plays down Constantine’s project (and invoking mine and Vasia’s feelings in the process) is rather petty and lame. Your critique is neither insightful or interesting: saying it crossed your mind that he might be all 12 writers, complaining about the initial installments, making sad remarks about Coco’s writing and prostitutes… the all too obvious cheap-shots.

I suppose you could now invoke whatever relationship you think I have with Constantine to justify my retort, but that would also be uninteresting and cheap.

Whatever you say, Anna. I watched, and formed opinions which you don’t agree with. I expressed them, but I can see that my comments are quite out of step with yours, with the majority, so I’ll go back where I came from and leave the floor to you.

There are no dancing queens here only a king with a will to express his creativity and soul. Cant people just accept that. I am glad I was somehow part of this experience. Best Cons

yawn

i think the best way to get at Host/C. is to phone in on the radio program and give him an ear full, which is what I should do now as I live in another time zone! No chance Im going to listen in tho’.

Call me a purist but its the writing that speaks. Now Im not calling it literature. What matters is that it had enough pulling power and go and the necessary mix of ingredients to make me return for more.

As for our merry circus in the comments, well, we are like the worms dancing over the corpses.

I like adifferentvoice speaking and Im no boot licker myself. Sod consensus politics.

Having said that I was about to say that ADVs post lacked a certain generosity of spirit and rather took the attention away from the achievement (dubious perhaps) of FF. However I re read the post and I think that ADF just has a different voice and there is nought wrong with that.

Do you think worms like Christmas trees? Myself I prefer them to corpses!

Im going out to have me some fun and that could involve trees and lights…but no more worms!

On that note I am thinking of throwing in the towel and becoming an ex poster.

Its been fun. I enjoyed this scattered carnivalesque conversation. The net isnt the horror show that I expected although it is no refuge from the horror of mundane life either.

Let me say that it more like a series of one off affairs, exciting but lacking the true consummation I find in literature and books and, less so and sadly with the passing of time, friends. Let me say however that a suitable motto for Tetra would be : keep travelling, stay foolish.

So fare thee well

Life is knocking at the door and I have to go and open it.

Tetra

Before you disappear Tetra – if I understood Vasia correctly, Congratulations are in order! All the best and have a Happy Christmas.

In the early days of electronic communication and before the advent of email, Telex was often the main form of business communication. You could send telexes or you sit at a terminal and communicate by typing with someone sitting at another machine at the other end of the phone line. We thought it was pretty good but, like telegrams, there was a shortened, clipped way of expressing things. It was easy to get the wrong end of the stick, to take umbrage at what was printed out – often for totally the wrong reasons. Some people were much more sensitive than others and it often amused me to hear people express their feelings, which in my opinion were often quite unjustified; perhaps I just was not sensitive enough!!

Some of the latest dialogue has made me smile. As Tess would say LOL.

First of all hi to you all,

second of all I personally think we don’t need to defend Constantine for Fourth Fiction because its not something that needs to be defended, or its not something that anyone should feel offended by. Myself as being one of the people who knew the `secret` of all this, and despite having read couple of his novels before and loving them, it never occured to me that Constantine could really manage to create all these characters and brilliant pieces of fiction all by himself and have even me who knows him for sometime to really forget that all of the contestants were him.I had moments of extreme detachment from reality and amazement after reading a post and trying to picture person who wrote it. Most of the time I did forget the man who wrote it. Anyway long story short, it was an unbelievable journey for us all and I kindly invite everyone to reread Hephaestus`s words …

‘Once it was the publishers who rejected you. Now you’ve cut out the middle man and just let the readers slag you off. You fancy the rejection, don’t you? It affirms your enduring place outside the mediocrity of popular opinion. Yet even that steel armour you’ve forged around your self-belief has taken a battering. Sometimes you’re bloody close to losing your rag. So you design a contest where you can at once be rejected and approved, be both victor and loser. And you justify the rugger to yourself by claiming it’s what the times demand.
You’ve gotten a taste of the attention you’ve always craved. You’ve put on a good puppet show. Smiling to the camera, strewing about exclamation marks, having a laugh, chitchatting about bugger all. But the stroppy, misanthropic veins still run strong below. Every exclamation you type also makes you go a little agro, doesn’t it? You tried to bin me – your rubbish lame, unsightly son – but I’m still inside you. At the end of the day, infidelities aside, I’m the bloke wedded to the Fourth Fiction winner.

AND REMEMBER WHO WROTE THIS ONE AS WELL.

VERY BRAVE OF YOU CONSTANTINE, TO BE ABLE TO FACE YOURSELF LIKE THIS AND TO BE ABLE TO WAGE A WAR AGAINST YOUR EGO, WHEN YOU WERE MOST STUCK TO IT AS ZEUS.
BRAVO! LET THIS TO BE AN INSPIRATION TO ALL of US WHO STILL MIGTH BE LIVING SO ATTACHED TO OUR EGO AND CANT ENJOY THE BEAUTY, CREATIVITY, MYSTERY, IRONY AND THE FUN OF THIS JORNEY AT THE LEVEL IT DESERVES.

Bravo Beran! Well said!

You’ve articulated things I couldn’t manage to put to words, such as the fact that Host was simultaneously lashing at himself over and over and over, receiving 11 rejections throughout, and I know that wasn’t easy. Ego had to be out of the equation here. When else will a writer have a chance to receive such raw, honest critique of his or her work by the (semi-anonymous) readers? It reminds me of a time once when I strongly insulted a painting I was looking at without realizing that the painter was standing next to me. After the initial embarrassment I began to think of how useful it would be to have someone be so honest in their critique of my work, and how rarely that happens. FF allowed for that kind of open exchange to occur, and I’m sure while on the one hand a boost to Constantine, simultaneously humbling.

Very insightful comments!