I was honored to find out that I’d been tagged for THE NEXT BIG THING – WORK IN PROGRESS, and it just might happen to have something around here that I’ve been working on. And then I must tag others; I’ll try to be gentle.

But first, many thanks to Morgen Rich, who tagged me and TS Gwilliam who tagged her. Check them out!

Morgen Rich: World Enough and Time ( http://www.morgenrich.wordpress.com ).

TS Gwilliam’s blog is roseshadows ( http://roseshadows.wordpress.com/ )

THE NEXT BIG THING - WORK IN PROGRESS
1.What is the working title of your next book?
THE FIFTH MAGIC

2.Where did the idea come from for the book?
I’ve been working on the Godsland story since the late 1990’s, though I didn’t get to start writing it until 2005. Each trilogy builds on the last trilogy, and I’m finally getting to write things I’ve been thinking about for more than fifteen years. It’s a lot of fun. And once I write it, it’s as if my imaginings are made real.

3.What genre does your book fall under?
Young Adult Epic Fantasy

4.What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
I’ve always thought Kate Beckinsale could play Catrin, and my wife insists that Benjin will be played by Alec Baldwin. I don’t know, though, I make have to make a cameo…

5.What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Power has returned to Godsland, and no one is prepared.

6.Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
The Godsland series will remain self-published for the foreseeable future. It’s not that I wouldn’t welcome the right deal from a publisher, but asking a publisher to pick up a series that’s seven books in is a bit much, and I don’t expect it to happen. There has been some interest in my work from New York, and I may soon develop a project specifically for traditional publication. I think it and my self-published works will complement one another.

7.How long did/will it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I’ll start by saying that I’m fortunate writing is now my full-time endeavor, though I do still have some part-time obligations. Because of this, I expect to have the draft completed in fewer than thirty days. It’ll take considerably longer to be edited to my satisfaction. I’ll edit it, and then my beta readers will get it, after that I’ll edit it again. When I’ve edited it to my greatest ability, I send it to Andrea Howe at Blue Falcon Editing. Andrea has edited the entire Godsland series, and we generally do two full edits. After that, I feel comfortable sending it out to my fans, who’ve been great at finding things here and there that we’ve all managed to miss. I’m grateful for that.

8.What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
The Godsland series has been compared to The Lord of the Rings, Terry Brooks’ Shannara, and Harry Potter, but I would say it bears more similarity to The Magic of Recluse, by L.E. Modesitt and The Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn–those books certainly helped inspire the series (along with Shannara and Lord of the Rings, and many others.). See my bookshelf here to see many of the books that inspired me to write fantasy.
http://www.brianrathbone.com/about-fantasy-author-brian-rathbone/

9.Who or what inspired you to write this book?
As mentioned above, there have been many writers who’ve inspired me, but I find myself more motivated now by my readers. They provide me with a great deal of motivation and good cheer, and this next trilogy is all for them. I can’t wait to bring it to them.

10.What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
One of the best things about The Fifth Magic I that there are six books leading up to it, and I’m making great use of history and tying up loose ends from previous story lines, as well as bringing back some old friends. For those unfamiliar with my work, Call of the Herald is the place to start. You can grab your free copy here: http://brianrathbone.com/free-fantasy-ebook.html

That was fun! And now to tag two more unsuspecting souls…My magic crystal 8-ball selected Nick Taylor http://nicholastaylor.co/ and A.M. Hargrove http://amhargrove.com

This blog has been neglected as I ventured into other blogging mediums which also have not flourished. Mostly I’ve had luck with microblogging on Twitter, but I’ll be working more on the website in the future.

FERAL, Book Five of The World of Godsland fantasy series, is now available.

Reeling from the loss of the Regent dragons and her son to the black armies, Catrin Volker can take no more. Armed with power never before seen on Godsland, she goes in search of her son and her enemies. May the gods have mercy on those who stand in her way.

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Smashwords

Fantasy author Ty Johnston’s blog tour 2011 is running from November 1 through November 30. His novels include City of Rogues, Bayne’s Climb and More than Kin, all of which are available for the Kindle, the Nook and online at Smashwords . His latest novel, Ghosts of the Asylum, will be available for e-books on November 21. To find out more, follow him at his blog tyjohnston.blogspot.com.

I’d like to talk about what I hope readers will take away from my writings, and tied in with that, what I hope to accomplish with my writing.

First, as a writer, I have to come to some conclusions as to what interests readers, what draws them in, what makes readers generally approve of a novel or short story. Looking at it from strictly a business angle, a writer can study the markets and various online surveys, the bestseller lists, etc. Practical, yes, but somewhat cold. Another way to try to find out what interests readers is for the writer to look inward, to decide upon what he or she likes as a reader, because writers are readers, too, or at least they should be.

In my case, I vary in my literary interests, but I also tend to be drawn to particular genres more than others. I enjoy epic fantasy literature as well as horror. When a particular mood hits me, I enjoy classics and literary works. Historical fiction can also draw me in, if it is fairly accurate.

But beyond genre, what do I look for in my fiction reading. When I sit and ponder it, I find I enjoy a little action and adventure, as well as some intrigue. In darker tales, I often like the building of tension. In literary works, I prefer less escapism and more exploration. Exploration of what? Of the outside world as well as our inner worlds, of our thoughts and hopes and dreams but also our philosophies.

A mixture of all the elements I enjoy in fiction are what I try to bring to my own writing. I shoot for some action and adventure, with a touch of intrigue. I work to build tension, especially in my darker stories. And I try to give a brief look into our humanity, all elements of our humanity, though I hope not to be too heavy with this.

A reader might look at much of my epic fantasy works and ask, “Uh, where is this ‘look into our humanity’ you were talking about?” It’s there, though you might have to go searching for it. I use my characters to explore and discover different ways of thinking, different ways of looking at the world. I don’t mean anything snobby by this, just that it’s something I enjoy in my writing.

To go a little deeper, I tend to follow the views of late author John Gardner concerning heroes. In Gardner’s opinion, heroes were meant to be moral examples to humanity. That viewpoint might seem overly simplistic to some of today’s readers, but as a writer I find it a good starting point. I find interest in taking Gardner’s basic idea of a moral hero and twisting it some here and there. I’m not necessarily trying for an anti-hero, nor am I seeking to make a villain into a heroic figure, but I do find possibilities in walking the razor’s edge between what is heroic and what crosses the line. All of this is one of the reasons my heroes are sometimes brutal while some of my villains can have positive aspects in their character.

My horror writing takes a very different path. Usually when I’m writing horror, I am trying to build a particular mood, this mood allowing me to study the darker elements of humanity in all its forms. Also, often I’m just trying to make myself giggle in the middle of the night while writing alone in a darkened room. When I write horror, I don’t usually go for the gore factor, but I do find humor sometimes in the devilishly vile.

So, serious and silly alike, those are some of the elements I try to bring to my fiction writing. Do I sometimes fail? Yes, I’m sure I do. Often I know when I’ve failed, and I try to make sure readers never see such material, at least until I can repair it. Other times? Well, if I fail, it is up for the reader to decide, and I only blame myself. On the other hand, a writer can not always please every reader, and it would be impossible to try and do so. I try to write what interests me, and I hope it will interest others, because it is the readers who are truly important at the end of the day.

To celebrate Read an eBook Week (3/6/2011 - 3/12/2011), you can get all of my eBooks, and a lot of others, free at Smashwords.

My eBooks at Smashwords

Including my latest short story: Redtooth

What makes a compelling villain?

The following is a guest post by Urban Fantasy author Emmett Spain. You can check out his novel Old Haunts here

Having watched a copious amount of films and read a few hundred books in my 30 years on this planet, I have read/seen some absolute shockers, been compelled and terrified by the best of the worst, and endured a great deal that were more ho-hum than horrifying. And when you see that many, you start to notice some fairly obvious commonalities.

Let’s start with the scene where the villain gets introduced.

You’ve seen it before. The obligatory bad guy torturing or killing someone. The expository philosophical rant that comes before torturing or killing someone. Action movies thrive on this kind of scene in particular, and one suspects they’ll never entirely grow out of it.

For example, I saw “The Losers” recently, and watched another of these obligatory scenes. They tried to mix it up with the bad guy having an “I’m so laidback and ironic in the face of evil deeds that I’m totally cool” attitude, but sadly the performance fell flatter than a pancake dropped from a 30 storey building.

Now look at two of the villain introductions that really, really work.

Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter is slowly revealed, standing still and statuesque behind fibreglass.

The Dark Knight. The Joker wreaks murderous havoc in a bank, then slips off his mask for a massive close-up as he mutters in his twisted drawl, “Whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you… stranger.”

So we have two ways of setting up a villain - one with quiet poise and the other with wilful chaos. Both are hugely effective. But what really makes them work?

To find out, we need to go back a step.

In both instances the villains are mentioned before we meet them, and both times there is a sense of reverence toward them, as though they are each figures of legend to be feared and revered. Lecter we are told is a very dangerous man, and before we wind our way through to his lonely little cell we hear of his atrocities, his tendencies, and the danger he represents. These words are like salt on our palettes, kindling our appetites.

Why is that?

Because there is a part of every person that is curious, that wants to solve the mysteries of life, however small or large they may be. It’s those mysteries that keep us interested, that keep us reading or watching or paying attention. Setting up a character in hushed or reverent tones makes us eager to see them for ourselves. We want to solve the mystery.

On another level, a deeper level, there is a part of us that wants to reach out and touch the darkness, to be sickened and enthralled by the possibilities that lie within that infinite void of the soul. These characters represent a safe way to explore that darkness – a morally free way we might explore the urges buried within our collective psyches.

Does the Dark Knight take the same approach as Silence of the Lambs with the Joker? Think of the great establishing line relating to the Joker’s makeup.

“Makeup?”
“Yeah, you know. To scare his enemies. War paint.”

Of course, the Joker’s legacy followed him into the film, so I can understand the argument that the character was set up long before audiences entered the cinema. But this only serves to enforce the overall point – if you set up your villain properly before we meet them, then you can have them produce a lasting impression on readers/viewers without the need for torture scenes or pompous soliloquies.

Think of your favourite villain from books. Were they set up well before you met them?

In my novel Old Haunts I took a similar tack—I built up the idea of one of the key villains before I introduced him. Threaded throughout the novel are snippets of information regarding the vampire’s previous interactions with the characters, and their fear at the idea of running into him again. With this built throughout the novel the character has a presence before we meet him… and when we do it’s as cinematic as possible:

The archway curtain fluttered once more, revealing a hunching man draped in loose hanging rags. He looked tired, greasy, unwashed. His cheeks were sharp and sunken, his eyes deep and sad-looking. Around his eyes were dark, purplish circles that offset his pale skin. His short, roughly shaven brown hair was matted with blood and dirt, as were the patches of bare flesh exposed through the rags he wore. I spotted dark clusters of bruises at his ribs, and identical pale scars at both wrists that may or may not have been self inflicted.

He looked beaten and fragile, like a wounded animal in need of shelter and care. Yet when his sad eyes spotted the trio of vampires ahead of him, I registered a reaction from them I did not expect. Fear. In their eyes, in the way they stopped moving, utterly and completely. They were afraid of him. The man’s expression had not changed, had not come over menacing or dark in any way. He just looked at them, sad eyes regarding them with a pitiful, wounded expression. I watched as most of the vamps slowly backed away, making their way off the upper tier and toward the exit. The man turned to me and lifted his head, his brows knitting together in a pleading expression.

As his back straightened with a wince of pain, my heart fell into my stomach.

Around the man’s neck was a collar of metallic silk, an alloy pliable as fabric but hard as Kevlar. It’s the alloy of choice for mystical types—or at least it is for those who can afford it. It’s most often used as a focus for binding spells, to create a barrier that is strong yet malleable, but this … I had never seen anything like it. It wasn’t latched against his neck, wasn’t held in place by any sort of fastening or catch. At either side of the collar were small, dark holes in his neck where the alloy was sewn into his skin, leaving the surrounding flesh blackened and dry. I looked up from the collar and into the man’s pleading eyes. He looked to me for relief, for safety. To be taken away from this place, from this life. He looked at me with the desperate eyes of a man who wanted to die.

I watched as the metallic collar shimmered from dark grey to bright, reflective silver, as the metallic thread sewn into his skin tightened as if pulled upon. The man winced and keened, his neck and body stiffening as he knelt to the floor. As he settled into the ground I noticed a second shimmer in the doorway, and spotted a similar piece of metallic silk strapped to the wrist of a tall, middle-aged man wearing grey suit pants, leather shoes, and a black button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. The alloy was not sewn into his skin but loosely clasped, and as he very slightly tilted his fist the shimmering stopped as if by command, and the collar at the kneeling man’s neck loosened ever so slightly.

As he stepped forward, the curtain of shadow that concealed his features peeled back up his arm, then slowly over his chest and head, revealing his face to my eyes.

The Vampire.

Sound good?

Old Haunts is available now.

Dragon Ore, the exciting conclusion of The Dawning of Power trilogy, is now available as a free audiobook. It is also available on Podiobooks.com, iTunes, and Zune Marketplace.

Download Dragon Ore - free audio book

If you haven’t listened to Book One: Call of the Herald yet, get it here

Inherited Danger, Book Two of The Dawning of Power trilogy is now available as a free audio book, which is read by the author. This audio book will soon be available on Podiobooks.com and iTunes.

Download Inherited Danger - free audio book

You can also check out the maps here

If you haven’t listened to Book One: Call of the Herald yet, get it here

 

 Inherited Danger - Prologue: Play Now | Play in Popup

Call of the Herald, Book one of The Dawning of Power trilogy is now available as a free audio book, which is read by the author.

Audio book versions of Inherited Danger and Dragon Ore will be available in the near future!

Download Call of the Herald - free audio book

You can also check out the maps here

 

 Call of the Herald - Prologue: Play Now | Play in Popup

 

 Call of the Herald - Chapter 1: Play Now | Play in Popup

Tia Nevitt has been kind enough to feature The Dawning of Power on her Fantasy Debut blog. Thanks Tia!

You can check it out here:

http://fantasydebut.blogspot.com/2009/02/discovery-showcase-dawning-of-power.html

iPhone and iPod Touch users can now purchase The Dawning of Power eBook directly through the iTunes AppStore for only $7.99.

Link to iTunes App Store

New fantasy fiction delivered through the latest technologies.

MobiPocket, Kindle, and PDF versions available as well.

If you need to add Code39 (3 of 9) barcodes to your Crystal Reports or any other document, click the link below:

http://www.brianrathbone.com/wordpress/how-to-add-barcodes-to-crystal-reports-for-free/

Kindle owners can get The Dawning of Power from the link below.

The Dawning of Power (The World of Godsland)

The Dawning of Power eBook is now available for $7.99 at Mobipocket.com and other eBook retailers. You can get your copy here:

The Dawning of Power eBook

Wordpress is a powerful blogging platform in its native form, but with some plugins and tweaking, you can really make your blog kick butt. Here are 10 ways to make your Wordpress blog better:

1. Make it fast! - Wordpress is dynamic and database driven. This is great except when you get a massive wave of traffic. Generating a dynamic page takes resources, and your web server can easily get overwhelmed. Nobody likes a slow loading site. The solution is to use a plugin that will cache your dynamic pages to static html and then only update them on a periodic basis. This will greatly reduce page load times and will increase the amount of load your Wordpress site can handle. I use WP Super Cache.

2. Provide a static home page. Blogs are great, but they don’t always make great homepages. Recent versions of Wordpress added the ability to assign a static front page. Just create your page in Wordpress, then click Settings and then Reading. On the Reading Settings page, select a static page for Front Page Displays. Now Wordpress can serve as a traditional website AND a blog!

3. Make it search engine friendly. Enable permalinks (Settings / Permalinks) and change the Common Settings to use Day and Name. Use a Wordpress SEO plugin. I use All in One SEO. Use Google Webmaster tools to identify any problems, especially duplicate content and duplicate META tags. Use your keywords in your page and post titles. Submit site maps to popular search engines. I use the Google XML Sitemaps plugin to create my sitemaps.

4. Encourage your readers to contact you. Avoid using mailto: links as contact links. Many people do not use mail clients any more, and mailto: links only confuse webmail users. A better solution is to use a contact form. Several Wordpress plugins exist for this purpose, but I use Enhanced WP-ContactForm.

5. Allow readers to subscribe to comments. You can bring your readers back to your site if they know when you or someone else has commented on a post that they have subscribed to. I use the Subscribe To Comments plugin.

6. Make it easy for readers to share your site with others. I use the WP-EMail plugin to make it easy for readers to email my pages and posts to their friends. I also use the Add Me Dichev plugin to provide social bookmark buttons (including Digg and Facebook) at the end of each post.

7. Use Feedburner to your advantage. Though Wordpress offers RSS2 support by default, it’s hard to beat the features Feedburner brings to the table. Once you create a Feedburner feed for your site, your can use the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin to redirect your RSS2 feed to your new Feedburner feed. When this is done, you can add high-profile links where readers can subscribe via an RSS reader or even by email! Now that’s powerful. Also be sure to set up ping sites in Feedburner so content syndications sites will be notified when you post new content.

8. Make it easy for readers to link back to you. I use the Link to Me Textbox plugin to provide preformatted HTML links that readers can copy and paste into their own sites.

9. Tweet your blog posts. Twitter is gaining popularity, and the Twitter updater plugin automatically updates Twitter as you work on your blog. With a little work, you can then push these updates from Twitter to Facebook, MySpace and other sites.

10. If you offer files for download (and you should offer a free download of some sort), then you can use the Wordpress Download Monitor plugin to create your downloads, manage download pages and catagories, and you and your readers can see what’s popular based on how many times items have been downloaded.

Now go trick your blog!

Did you find this information helpful? I’d love to hear what other Wordpress users think of these tips.

*NOTE* The date for this event has been changed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

On Tuesday, December 9th, I will be signing copies of The Dawning of Power at Fireside Books and Gifts in Forest City, NC from 5pm to 7pm.

If you’ve never been to Fireside Books, this would be a great opportunity to check out a wonderful local book store and to chat with me. I hope to see you there!

Brian

I have posted some free fantasy artwork for download.

You can find more information here:

http://www.brianrathbone.com/wordpress/free-fantasy-art

or you can download the zip file here:

Free-Fantasy-Art.zip

If you like these, and you would like me to post the layered Photoshop files, just send me an email or leave a comment.

These two are my favorites:

Free Fantasy Avatars - I like to dabble in graphic art, and I’ve decided to give away some of my creations. You may use these in any way that you would like. If you are willing to link back to this site, that will be appreciated.

Download Free Fantasy Avatars Pack 1

Free Fantasy Avatars Pack 1 Preview:

Thanks for checking out Free Fantasy Avatars Pack 1. Be sure to check back. I may add more in the future.

Out of the house, across the yard and a patch of stonedust and we were there. Poppop’s barn. Inside waited a bizarre but familiar mixture of smells: freshly shaken straw, sweet-feed, coffee and the smell of one of Mommom’s homemade cakes.
On an old trunk he sat quietly, a glowering giant with nary a word to say. He didn’t look up; instead, he just opened his thermos and poured some coffee into the cap. Brad and I waited, sometimes quietly, sometimes patiently, but rarely both. Either way, Poppop always did the same thing. After rooting around in his thermos-case and pretending that he couldn’t find anything, he’d pull out a nicely wrapped piece of cake. It was one of the rare occasions when the quiet-giant spoke, “Here, kitty kitty.”

The barn cats were rarely far away, and they never missed a chance to get the little crumbs of cake he tossed to them. Brad and I would wait our turn. When he thought we’d shown sufficient patience, he would turn to us as straightfaced as ever. We’d just grin back and wait for him to hand us the other pieces of cake mysteriously waiting in his thermos-case.

His breaks didn’t last long, and he’d soon be busy with the business of training standarbreds. With a steady and quiet hand, he worked his art. He’d spend much of his day in a jogcart, circling the half-mile training track. When Brad and I were small, he’d let one of us sit on his lap, but as we got older things changed. One day we came out to find that he’d bolted a board to the back of one of the jogcarts, which created a place for Brad to sit on one side and for me to sit on the other. We’d ride around for hours while Poppop half-hummed, half-sang the same tune, “Ei dee di, ei dee di.”

As time passed, Poppop began letting us drive while he sat on the board; it was fun, and, at times, terrifying, but there was something about connecting with the horse, communicating through the leather lines. The sound of hooves on stonedust, the feeling of gliding and bouncing along, birds singing from the hedgerows, and rabbits darting through the fields made it seem almost magical at times.

It was during one of those times that I was driving; Poppop rode silently on the board. I counted off each lap, knowing we were supposed to go five miles. I was proud that Poppop let me drive, but I wondered if I really had what it took, if I was ready. Brad was older, better, and seemed to have a natural skill with the horses. I spent a good amount of my time just trying to avoid being bitten or stepped on. When I reached the tenth lap, I knew it was time to turn the lines back over to Poppop; walking the horse from the track to the barn required more skill than did jogging around the track. But when I turned, he was gone, his decision already made.

I slowed the horse and looked around, but I saw no one. I was on my own. As I made the turn and slowly walked the horse up the curving path, past tractors and fenclines, I was filled with a mixture of fear and pride. I approached my grandfather’s barn determined to prove he’d been right. I’d seen horses balk at the barn door, refusing to go from light to dark, as if there were some invisible barrier, but I got lucky and the horse simply walked in and stopped at the first set of crossties.

I climbed from the seat, hung the lines, and helped get the horse unhooked. Poppop moved with practiced precision and led the horse into the wash-stall. He never said a word about it. There was no need. I knew.

I’m glad to have pictures like this one. Thanks to Brad for scanning them.

<Added Pictures. See comments>

Weary Don at Brandywine

I’m chillin’ with Darth Vader, and Laurie is strutting her short shorts.

Short Shorts rule, and leave it to me to hog the spotlight only to suddenly realize I’ve eaten something I shouldn’t. Note Jeremy levitating in the back.

The Dozer at Brandywine

I’ve always found the paranormal intriguing, and when I heard a paranormal convention was taking place in Hickory, NC, it seemed like a fun way for Tracey and I to spend a Saturday.

After some interesting presentations and lectures, we split up into groups and investigated the school buildings known as the Salt Block. It seemed a good place to do our first ghost hunt, since the buildings are well maintained and not creepy at all.

Teamed up with Shannon Sylvia from Ghost Hunters International, her husband, Patrick Burns, and Eric Singleton, our group began our investigation. There were a couple times when the building made old building noises, but things were otherwise pretty quiet. After filming a single green light on a K2 meter for 30 minutes, I began to think we were going to have an uneventful evening. When we moved to the auditorium, things did get interesting . . .

Eric had been with us all along, and his walkie-talkie had been behaving itself, but it started occassionally issuing bursts of static once we settled in the auditorium. As we did an EVP session, the static grew more frequent until it could no longer be ignored. Oddly, it rarely occurred when someone was speaking, and seemed to almost be happening in response to our questions. What ensued was an interesting and thought provoking bout of Q and A with a walkie-talkie.

If you are interested, I have posted audio I captured in the auditorium. This audio was captured on a miniDV camcorder that was placed in an empty seat. The audio is relatively quiet, so I amplified it. You may notice some spots where the audio has been quieted. These are places where I was speaking close to microphone, and I didn’t want it to blow anyone’s ears out. Other than that, this audio is pretty much straight off the DV camera.

While I can’t say this is evidence of paranormal activity at the Salt Block, it certainly was an interesting experience.

 

 Haunted Hickory Ghost Hunt: Play Now | Play in Popup

There once was a rooster. He was good rooster. I wrote a story about him, and though we don’t see him any more, we still hear the calls of his descendants in the woods.

A Rooster’s Tale

Several years ago, my wife and I moved to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina. The variety of wildlife that visits our back yard has been a constant source of excitement and intrigue. Still, I was surprised and a bit skeptical when my wife told me that she had seen a chicken in the driveway.

I laughed and told her that it was probably a wild turkey or pheasant, but as it turns out, she was right. A poor bedraggled soul of a chicken sought refuge in the tranquility of our back yard. He was shy at first and would run away whenever we emerged from the house, but over time he became friendly–I suspect it had something to do with the corn and fresh water we produced.

We didn’t want to become too attached to our new feathered-friend, and we simply referred to him as “Chick Chick”. Quite imaginative, eh?

It was a pleasant and amusing surprise when Chick Chick decided to stay with us for the winter. He spent much of his time on our back porch, sleeping on the welcome mat–much to the chagrin of our two indoor cats. He would even tap on the glass door with his beak when we were late delivering his breakfast; this was later replaced by his clarion call from our welcome mat.

One day, in early spring, I noticed something running around the yard. I looked out to see one of the neighborhood cats chasing Chick Chick. I shooed the cat gently from the yard and stood for a moment enjoying the day. Chick Chick wandered around aimlessly, and all seemed well. A moment later, though, a large red-tailed hawk swooped through the air, barely missing its prey–Chick Chick. The hawk perched in a nearby tree, and I shooed it away as well. Chick Chick cowered behind me and followed me as I walked. I couldn’t blame him; it had been a rough day.

Chick Chick became part of our daily lives and never ceased to entertain us, and it surprised us both that we could enjoy his company so much. His place in our lives became even more apparent when he disappeared. No note, no long goodbyes, he was just plain gone.

After several weeks, we began to give up the hope that our beloved Chick Chick would ever return. I tried to convince my wife that he had run off with the circus, or that maybe he had found himself a hen. Despite her characteristic optimism, she feared the worst, and we shared a moment of silence in Chick Chick’s memory.

When three months had passed, I no longer looked for Chick Chick in the woods, nor did I expect to see him when I walked by the door. I was startled when I noticed several large, dark shapes darting around the yard. At first, I could not tell what kind of creatures they were, but then I got a better look. They were baby chickens–five of them. I thought for a moment that a local farm must have had an escape, but then I saw something that brought tears to my eyes–Chick Chick!

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and I wasn’t absolutely certain that this chicken was THE chicken, so I ran into the garage and grabbed a cup of corn. When I shook the cup and called for him, Chick Chick came a running, clucking happily all the way. It was a joyous reunion, and I was thrilled to give my wife the good news.

Chick Chick and his hen bring the family by for some corn and fresh water just about every day; each visit warms our hearts and lightens our souls. It is nice to realize that sometimes those silly things we tell ourselves when faced with grim possibilities, can actually be true.

One of the first questions a budding podcaster is faced with is what equipment to buy. There are a few budget rigs that others have spec’d out, but I decided to try my own combination.

Microphone: Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone

Shockmount: Heil SM2 - Champagne Finish Spider Shock Mount

Firewire interface: Yamaha GO46 Mobile Audio Solution

Recordings done on Apple Powerbook G4 using Garageband (packed with as much RAM as it’ll hold)

Editing done on Windows PC using Audacity

For intro, outro, and scene breaks I use a Yamaha MIDI keyboard that I’ve had for many years. It’s a YPP-15

Add a Mic Stand, Pop Filter, and XLR Microphone Cable and you’re ready to record.

I still need to do some additional soundproofing, but it’s all working well so far.

When it comes time to put my podcast on the web, I use the wonderful Podpress plugin by Dan Kuykendall at MightySeek

Podpress is a plugin for the popular WordPress blogging system

Have fun podcasting!

This video was shot on my back porch. We have several feeders, but this one has always been in a favorite spot.

 

 Ruby throated hummingbirds: Play Now | Play in Popup

Beyond the Veil is a short story I wrote a while back. It’s quite different from my novels, but it seemed like a good way to test out my podcasting rig and get some practice. Comments are welcome.

Brian

You can download the PDF version here:

Beyond the Veil PDF

Audio short story below:

Duration: 28 minutes

Download size: 68MB

or click play button below to listen now.

 

 Beyond the Veil: Play Now | Play in Popup

I’m off to finish setting up the new website.