I think writers are more adept about taking various things and combining them into a new and strange configuration. Of course, writer’s experiences generally come out all over the place in their writing.

I was thinking about this because I remembered an incident from the first Raven of Iskandar book: Raven: The Call from Central. Not really a spoiler, but at one point, Raven describes the harpsichord that Grabby buys. In it, she describes how the two lowest keys are split horizontally, so that you can play two different notes in the same location. This description is what I actually saw way back in college (at the dawn of the Cretaceous) when my music teacher brought in her personal harpsichord to show the class.

The rest of the description of the harpsichord was due to research. Even when creating a society from scratch, you still have to do some research.

The following cartoon is from the strip ‘Pibgorn’ by Brooke McEldowney. This is a fantasy comic that features an odd alliance between a formerly dewdrop-carrying fairy (Pibgorn or Pib) and a succubus (Drusilla or Dru) who unite to save the world from demons.

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This cartoon is really for a friend of mine down in Florida who is a lawyer.

You can read Pibgorn here:

https://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/

Just a disclaimer: I don’t know Brooke McEldowney or have any associated with him or gocomics, I just think the guy has a great sense of humor.

Posted a new Youtube video to the Video page. It’s the Syemak peformance of the Doctor Who Theme. About 2 years old on Youtube, but worth a posting here.

www.ravenofiskandar.com/video/

I’ve revamped the website for the Raven of Iskandar book series. Never did really like the old webpage navigation. Now the navigation is a lot simpler. I’ve added all the images and videos that I’ve posted to Facebook in the past.

Finally I can get back to writing book 4. Tentative title is Raven: Necris. I had been in a bit of a lull of inspiration, but I’ve got a direction now. If you’ve read some of the stuff I’ve said in interviews, you might remember that I had mentioned an overall story arc in the books. I originally said it would ‘hit you in the face’ in book 5, but now it’ll be moved up to book 4 in a violent way.

The website now also has its own domain: http://www.ravenofiskandar.com

After a day struggling to figure out WordPress blocks, the new day has resulted in a fully functional webpage for Raven of Iskandar. All the old blogs are there and, in addition, there are a bunch of images of the team members and a couple of videos (links to youtube). Still more I need to do, but this is shaping up well. I’m trying to figure out submenus now, but it sucks when you can’t get the info from WordPress.