Tales from the Raven

These definitions were found on Dictionary.com.  Congeries >n. a collection of items or parts in one mass; assemblage; aggregation; heap: From the airplane the town resembled a congeries of tiny boxes. Grange >n. 1. a country house with farm buildings attached: Biddulph Grange.  Historical- an outlying farm with tithe barns, belonging to a monastery or feudal lord. [...]

We got the long-awaited tile up, as you can see.  We used a seamless background tile by StarFields, which needed a bit of tweaking but worked well.  I wanted the ferns to have an engraven look, to keep the site from being overwhelmed by a riot of green.  ‘Course, now I’m thinking that the blue in the header [...]

Here’s a cool place I just found out about.  It’s called Free Speculative Fiction Online, and they’ve sorted the stories by author, magazine, award, etc., in a user-friendly format.  I’m excited to read the Hugo, WFA and Nebula stories (and nominees) available.  I bask in their good vibes.

This is an old Hitchcock (what Hitchcock isn’t old?) but a good one.  The whole thing takes place in only two locales, four if you’re really stretching the definition, and 90% of it is in the home of the Tony (Ray Milland) and Margot Wendice (Grace Kelly). To have a movie which includes a steamy love [...]

While we’re on the subject of food consumption, these contestants downed a truly noteworthy number of jalapenos. That’s one way to aquire a touch of dragon’s breath.

Many people go for midnight snacks, but for me it’s mid-day.  Any time in the middle of the day. I sit at my desk, writing away, and soon I get a little bored, or sleepy, or restless.  That’s when the snack attack hits.  Now, I know the danger of at-the-desk scarfing, and since I firmly [...]

We know that many dinosaurs were quite large and that wooly mammoths were bigger than elephants of today.  Even tigers have shrunk over time.  And now, it seems, the camels have been down-sizing too.  According to a recent find in Syria, camels of about 100,000 years ago were almost twice the size they are now.  So the question this [...]

My story came back in the mail today . . . I was a quarterfinalist.  Which is probably pretty good, given that it was a dragon fantasy story (that’s two strikes against it) and very long at 12,000 words.  I dare say no more, for fear of sounding like an ungrateful wretch. I’m getting it ready to send [...]

This time I’m using the Amercian Heritage Dictionary, 2nd edition. Candescence n. The state of being white hot; incandescence.  Coal tar n. A viscous black liquid obtained by the destructive distillation of coal, used as a raw material for many dyes, drugs, and organic chemicals and for waterproofing, paints, roofing, and insulation material. Orogeny also [...]

I’ve been reading around in search of what to do and not to do in my cover letter that will go out with Ghost Spider, and came across the funniest read this side of screaming. Miss Snark’s blog has nitwit awards, a crapometer, and lots of sharp-tongued blogs that will assist writers in shaping up and [...]