Tales from the Raven

On this beautiful Independence Day I’ve had the chance to see firsthand that our advances in artificial intelligence and robotics have come much further than most people realize.  These robots are able to walk and move much like human beings, and even do a pretty good job of talking like real people.  They’re good enough that I wonder if the [...]

By tomorrow night I need to be 100% ready for an early morning flight to Yellowstone.  As a sensible individual, I’ve taken some steps to get ready.  My preparations include:

An empty suitcase with two items of clothing laid on top.
A batch of wet laundry.
A tentative confirmation from an untrained friend willing to watch our fish, chickens and cats while [...]

This was supposed to be the post in which I announced how wonderful it is to be editing.  When friends such as Pat Esden talked about how much they enjoyed editing and re-writing their WIP, I wondered who their dealer was.
But I’ve really been loving round two.  It’s been nearly six months since I typed the [...]

Our chickens are no longer innocent chicks, convinced that the world means them no harm.  One of their number disappeared right about the same time I spotted a red fox in a nearby field…and she left behind a ball of feathers.
Her roommates weren’t too happy about it.  They’ve been acting more cautious–especially around our dog, Zeke–and have [...]

Tuesday was an interesting day.  First there was the news that my story had bombed out on the wotf front.  That took several large gulps to get down, but has since been digested and accepted.
In searching for a submission backdoor I chatted with James Maxey and found that he and authors David Drake, Mark L. Van Name and [...]

There’s more than one use for a flower pot, as this picture shows.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This is Apricot’s favorite place to curl up, which gives me an excellent excuse to put off planting some mundane variety of flower!

It’s been raining for days, maybe weeks.  This morning when the sun came out, we all went outside and stared at the big yellow thing in the sky and debated over where it had come from.  After rubbing away the after image, we scraped off the green scum that had grown on us while we huddled [...]

I’ve been accepted to bootcamp! After watching the mail for a week, I almost missed the email when it came.
I can’t wait to meet my fellow students, and I’m totally stoked to spend a whole week focusing on nothing but writing. Oh, and it’ll be cool to take classes directly from Orson Scott Card, too. [...]

I planned to come up with some cute story featuring my elusive hacker, but by the time the site was up again, and I faced its homely regression, I found myself feeling less charitable toward Mr. Hacker and have cut him out of the story.
Instead, I’m going with the quick catch-up news blurb:

We’re having the [...]

I know you’ve been holding your breath, so here it is. The chicks have grown and become chickens, in the way chickens do, and astonishingly we still have six of them.
 
They’re learning to tolerate Zeke with only a squawk or two,
 

and even put up with Apricot’s watchful eyes.

However, they have yet to produce eggs.  Since their [...]