Those areas of human endeavor where art is created have become very crowded with the ability of anyone to post things to the internet. You only have to look at Amazon Kindle books or visit Soundcloud to see how much is done every single day. Needless to say, there are times where writers, music producers, artists, etc wonder why they are bothering to do what they do.
There are dark times when we sit and think that we’ll never succeed, we’ll never do anything good, we’re not getting better at it, etc. One content creator has done an excellent exposition on those feelings, how to address them and more. The video is called ‘The Darker Side of Making Music’ but it does address everyone who does creative work. Cameron of Venus Theory calls it a rant, but it soberly discusses all the self-doubt that creators run into. And he has a great voice.
Finally, the 2nd Edition of Raven: The Call from Central is available on Amazon.
This edition has numerous corrections and enhanced descriptions to align with the later books in the series and make the scenes easier to understand. Also included is the short story ‘All it Takes is Meeting the Right Team’, which is the story of how Gothgirl joined Iskandar. This story has not been published elsewhere.
As the series grew in numbers of books, I began to see holes in the way the Tournament was conducted and how the characters related to it. Being an engineer, I’m always into the details, so something had to be done (LOL). Also, I beefed up the descriptions of the scenes so that you could be a better feel of what was happening.
Raven: The Call from Central is live on Amazon here:
Raven of Iskandar, Book 8, War, is now available on Amazon as an ebook. I’ve just uploaded the paperback, so that soon should be available.
Here’s the blurb on the back of the paperback:
Right after Christmas, shouldn’t everything be normal? The Tournament resumes its virtual combat between teams of 10 players but soon ‘software glitches’ of unknown origin creep in again. The target again is Iskandar Prime and their year-long winning streak. Both Iskandar and the Tournament Committee are scrambling to detect infiltrators and preserve the integrity of the Tournament.
It is feared that things will get worse. Outside the law of the Alliance of Planets, where crime empires thrive, the name Iskandar has been assumed as another ‘player’ due to a Maidian assassin’s destruction of the AAR. Certain organizations are bragging about their connections to Iskandar and the standoff at Fakawee system threatens to raise the tensions toward war.
The Syndicate, the largest empire outside the Alliance, has been stockpiling men and material. The defeat at Nekkar is pushing them toward the unthinkable—attacking the Council that has helped to maintain the peace in absence of Alliance law.
With tensions rising and conspiracies everywhere, will Iskandar, a sports organization, be drawn into planetary war?
In other news, we’re currently in the first round of editing on ‘The Happy Dale Incident’.
The story here is a haunting that goes hilariously wrong. (No Spoilers!) Expect ‘Happy Dale’ to show up in Amazon later this year.
I’m also 6 chapters into the first draft of ‘So’s Your Fairy Godmother’.
This is another comedy, this time about a bizarre and funny quest. This will be published sometime next year.
Also next year, I’ll be working on a sequel to ‘Happy Dale’ and filling out ‘Street of Dreams’. This will be a full novel based on the short story in ‘The Day the Elves Stole My Wife and Other Stories’.
And, of course, Book 9 of Raven of Iskandar will have to fit in there somewhere.
This is the cover for Book 8 of Raven of Iskandar. The book itself is in the third round of edits. Only minor tweaks happening now.
As for the cover, you get to see Raven and Soria. Finally got a good AI generated image of each. Both were generated in the same image, which is difficult because AI gets confused easily. The cover is a composite of two AI generated images. The explosion was a separate generation. The two images were composited in Canva and the text added in Canva.
On another subject, The Happy Dale Incident is nearing the completion of the first draft. Right now, it looks like there are only 1 1/2 chapters to finish. Of course, then it heads off to the editing cycle(s).
I’m working on getting both released on Kindle and in paperback by mid-November.
Book 8 of Raven of Iskandar, titled ‘War’ is now into the second round of editing. My editor (Hello, Yvonne!) is insisting on more material, so you’ll get more material!
Incidentally, my editor (and friend) is Yvonne Marrs, the author of somewhere between 30 and 50 novels including the series ‘When the Sax Man Plays’, ‘Can’t Buy Health’ and ‘Undeserved’. One of her best books is ‘Harbortown Murder’.
Harbortown Murder is an excellent murder mystery and I’ve urged her to do more mysteries. She did one other murder mystery, ‘Termination at the Halt: Ghost Train Murder Mystery” which also excellent. It was done as a fundraiser for the refurbishing of a Halt. Never knew what one was, but it’s sort of a mini train station.
Raven of Iskandar: I mentioned before that the cover for the previous Raven book, ‘Outbreak’ was done with AI image assistance. I combined three AI-generated images.
For ‘War’, I’m at it again with AI image generation and this time wrestling with the attempt to render the members of the team. While team members Skylla and Angel will take a bit more work, here are some successes with rendering Raven, Chaoschick and Soria:
The toughest part so far has been getting Raven’s–and Soria’s–skin color correct.
The ultimate aim is to be able to fill the cover with the team. Yeah, I know, good luck. LOL
And, just for laughs, here is one of the more ridiculous failures
It starts when you are in grammar school. You spend multiple grades with the same friends. You may even have friends in the local neighborhood. Sometimes they move away and you lose track of them.
You graduate to high school and some of your friends from grammar school are not in the same high school. You lose track of them. However, you find new friends.
You graduate high school and head off to college. While most of your friends came with you into high school, this is different. Your friends spread out all across the country. You keep in touch with some and lose track of some. Even more extreme, one or two friends go to the same college with you. They have different majors and you lose track of them.
You graduate college. You start a job, get to know people, then you hop to the next job and somehow never keep up with former coworkers. But, there are now new coworkers.
All the while, your family is aging. Your grandparents passed away a few years ago. Your father passes away and your mother is in a facility. No longer is it ‘not keeping track’ of someone. They are really gone from your life.
The years go by quickly. Your kids grow up and move away. Some of them keep touch. Some don’t.
Then one of your friends passes away. Then you realize they passed away several years ago and you never knew it.
Somehow, now, in your old age, you feel that there is no one to replace them.
This is the time of year when thoughts turn to those who have left your life. With the internet, it is much easier to find those who you’ve lost track of. You can contact them and remember old times.
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