Tales from the Raven

Today is the one year birthday of my blog.  Though I didn’t quite reach my goal of 365 posts (the total today is about 360), I came close enough as never mind. I’ve made friends and discovered weird stuff, posted triumphs and raged against the fly-bites of the universe.  Best of all, I’ve enjoyed it [...]

I’ve worked quickly this last week to finish all my more urgent class work before the trip.  My plan is to give myself this week to get a couple of short stories written, and to that end I’ve been fleshing out a few story ideas. The only problem is, the outlines sound more like novels than [...]

10-You’ve missed having sand in your hotdog. 9-It’s been months since you wore painful pink. 8-You plan to build sand castles when you grow up. 7-You’ve heard that salt is a great preservative. 6-You’ve never seen a shark up close. 5-You have a book that can only be read at the beach. 4-You’re waiting for your ship to [...]

The baensee wavered in the slight wind, waiting and watching.  Tension rippled from one baensee to another as the sun peeked over the hill. It was time.  Would she come? The sun rose higher, blinding the baensee and bringing misty tears. Then a shadow fell across them, and once again the baensee swayed with emotion. [...]

I put out an antenae for weirdness tonight and came up with a couple of oddities. This article on the secret eye of your cell phone I picked up at LiveScience.com.  The fashion application of this puts me in mind of the Disco Light shirts I mentioned on a previous blog. I part of my [...]

I find that I draw two forms of inspiration from my classes. The first kind is usually a result of reading one of my history texts.  Since history is fascinating to me and absolutely full and over flowing with ideas about movers and shakers, cultures and people, that sort of inspiration usually results in a story idea leaping off the [...]

We had a great time, and came home laden with books and booty. Friday night we arrived later than planned, thanks to a traffic snarl, so we only attended the ‘meet the guests’, by way of scheduled activities.  There we bumped into James Maxey, as predicted, exchanged pleasantries with Alan Wold, and discovered that George [...]

I’ve been interested in reading Bitterwood for a while now.  I enjoy James Maxey’s blog, and we have mutual friends who’ve recommended Bitterwood. But I stopped talking about reading it and finally read it because I don’t want to sound like a dweeb if I run into James Maxey at Trinoc this weekend. So what did [...]

I think I’ll write a story about ants taking over the world. And where would I have gotten an idea like that? Could have been this National Geographic tidbit on Army Ants.  It could have been the study of these peaceful colonies. But, no.  I must confess that once again my inspiration came from a little closer [...]