A couple more bits of trivia:

In the last chapter of Raven: The Call from Central, Raven opens up her Necris Bible and reads Psalm 103, although her favorite is Psalm 92. It might be pretty obvious that Psalm 92 is the author’s favorite Psalm.

Along with that, while her teammates remark that you never get between Raven and shrimp, that’s also my favorite seafood. My wife makes amazing stuffed shrimp.

In Raven: The Call from Central, you first meet the team manager of Iskandar Prime, Francona Epstein. The origin of that name should be very familiar to New Englanders. It’s a composite of Terry Francona and Theo Epstein, the Manager and General Manager that led the Boston Red Sox to a World Series Championship in 2004 after a drought of 84 years.

Book 5!

The writing for Book 5 has been proceeding and since I’ve already had inquiries as to when it is coming out, here’s the status.

The two possible titles for Book 5 are either Raven: The New Season (Do I seem like I like colons too much?) or Vysse: Bestmartin. The main event of the book was already written probably 2 years ago and both Raven and Vysse are in the center of it.

When I write the first draft, it is always separate files for each chapter and the second draft consists of putting all the chapters into one file and then making them all fit together. The first draft is not done, but I have the first draft of 42 chapters, which looks to be about a third of the final book length. I don’t expect Book 5 to be as long as Raven: The Triballi Incident, but the characters may have other ideas.

Several years ago, we transplanted several rose bushes into our front yard. We have a live-in contractor (best way to go!) and one of his customers wanted the rose bushes gone. So he brought them home.

Not all of them survived the transplant.

Two years ago, I had the task of trimming them down and when I was done each bush only had 10 to 12 inches left. This year, with the weird spring we had, the roses took their time coming up, but when they did, wow!

• 

• 

Pardon the front steps, they really need to be repainted.

I used to greatly enjoy Pringles Cheddar Cheese Chips. They had a great sharp cheddar flavor and they were an enjoyable shade of orange.

It was not to last, however.

More that a year ago I bought some, brought them home and upon opening them, I found a whole stack of chips with a hint of orange on them and tasting like regular pringles. Being a local customer, I told them about it, they apologized and sent me a coupon.

I waited then bought them again. This past weekend I bought them again. Same problem.

Here’s what they look like now. Never mind that they taste just like regular pringles.

• 

If you look really close, you can see just a hint of orange on the left edge. And they still taste like regular pringles. Anyone else encountered this? It’s been continuing for over a year.

Here is the only thing I can find online, a tweet from Pringles from Dec 2017!

• 

I would have to say ‘Way to Go, Pringles, just lie to your customers!’

At this point, many people know that the tragedy of the Exeter, a whaling ship out of Nantucket, was the inspiration for Moby Dick by Herman Melville. The Exeter was attacked by an 85ft long sperm whale and only 8 men survived the wreck and the ordeal afterwards.

The Youtube channel, Ask a Mortician, relates the entire saga of the Exeter and her crew in this video:

Why am I posting this? She actually is a mortician, looks the part and is part nutcase. This is a story that can only be told by a mortician.

When you are writing a novel, inspiration comes from unusual places and sometimes you have to make unusual decisions. That’s where all the trivia comes from.

Trivia #1: ‘Death Vegetable’ — In Raven: Mirabelle, Dahija mentions that her sister, Pamela, refers to celery as the ‘death vegetable’. My oldest daughter’s name is Pamela, and, yes, she used to refer to celery as the ‘death vegetable’.

Trivia #2: ‘All Wet’ — In Raven: The Call from Central, you meet Skylla, who has to be kept moist. Her hugs leave people wet except that I mention that, once on the field, since it is a simulation, she isn’t wet. However, later on, during one of the matches Nova participates in, the team is outside the ‘brane and Skylla hugs Nova and leaves her wet. I left that in for someone to find the inconsistency.

Trivia #3: “The left side of the formation” — In Raven: The Call from Central, Raven begins as left forward, however, as you read along, you’ll notice that she’s on the right side of Grabby, the center. I had always envisioned her on Grabby’s right side. So, rather than rewrite a mess of stuff, I redefined the frame of reference so that positions are defined from the front of the formation, so Raven, being the ‘left’ forward is actually on Grabby’s right side. Yeah I know that’s an obtuse way of going about it!

Trivia #4: “Is not beach!” — In Raven: The Call from Central, Skylla originally could only talk in brief baby-like statements and had a low-pitched gravelly voice. As I was writing the character, this got too restrictive, and, instead of trying to rewrite the original scenes, I had the inspiration to make her voice a sub-plot. Sorry, but you’ll have to wait until book 5 to find out how she sounds after the operation.

Trivia #5: “A warrior putting on his armor should never brag like one taking his off.” — This is a statement used by Grabby at least twice. I can’t claim credit for that one. It comes from the Father of History, the Greek historian, Herodotus.

Trivia #6: “And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England’s mountains green.” — During the playoffs, Raven begins singing this when they realize that the Devastators have tapped into their comm system. These words are actually from a poem by William Blake which was turned into a hymn by Sir Hubert Perry in 1916. Since the UK has no official anthem, this hymn, named ‘Jerusalem’, is used as the anthem before rugby matches.