Over the past week, I’ve been excited to continue exploring the images I created from the recent sunset behind my home. Given the amount of time I’ve been here, this was the first gorgeous sunset I’d seen since here. Please explore this collection and then head over to my gallery over DeviantArt, and thumb through my other galleries...

Despite taking a pause, or hiatus, with publishing my artwork, I have not stopped producing it. Unfortunately, I’ve been tasked with more important things to work with. However, with a backlog of work highlighting nature’s beauty, I knew I needed to resume bringing my work to the world. Please explore this collection and then head over to my gallery over DeviantArt, and explore my galleries...

As the end of the month approaches and with the completion of Decisions amd Reluctant Backup, my entire focus shifted to the last tale for January, a horror story. Thankfully, with this story, I didn’t need to resort to my dice. While I finished last month’s horror, Pursuing the Hunter, I left it open for a continuation. And when my patrons presented me with another horror, I picked up the loose threads and wove a fresh tale for them...

Upon completing Decisions, I turned my attention to the middle story to kick off twenty twenty-four, a ghost story. While I’d been on a kick to revisit my roots with ghost stories, see Journey of Thanks, I wanted to get back to a pair of characters I enjoyed exploring, Marcus and his ethereal partner, Benjamin. At its core, I have a wonderful mystery to solve, Benjamin’s murder. However, I’m not in any hurry to unravel that complicated puzzle. Instead of leaning into the embedded mystery, I wanted to highlight the ethereal nature of the pairing. Yet, I didn’t have a good seed for this tale. As a result, after tossing my story cubes, I faced piecing together a shooting star, a lock, and a magnifying glass. A trio of things that don’t scream, cohesive story...

Despite the calendar rolling to a new year, life marched forward, and I never got the chance to calm down, gather my thoughts, and craft thoughtful resolutions. And nothing bad happened. While it’s a little pedantic to assume the world would spin out of control, my point still stands. Every year, we use January 1st to set new goals. Sometimes we make good on them and can incorporate them into our lifestyle, yet more often than not I usually fail during the year, and vow to try again when this time rolls back around...

The moment I finished Swarm and Inner Race, I partially shifted my mindset. While the last genre selected was an action/adventure, I blended it with Horror to craft another tale for my monster hunter. Despite choosing this blending early on, I unfortunately didn’t have a seed for this tale. Thankfully, the story cubes rescued me once again. With my character and my blended genres in mind, I stared at the results from the toss and wondered how to weave an arrow, a footprint, and a sad face together...

With Inner Race finished, I shifted my attention to the second story for my patrons, a tale of horror. While I knew I’d select my monster hunter, I didn’t know what kind of setting to drop him into, aside from having to battle monsters. After rolling the dice, the story emerged from the raging storm in my mind. Leveraging the bridge, lightning bolt, and a stalking monster, the broad strokes quickly developed into a fun concept...

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is getting ready to celebrate a joyous year. For those who wish the year should have been better, may the new year bring you many, you many joys. Despite the flurry of activity for the holidays, when I pulled the results for the month’s genre poll, I was nervous and excited about tackling another fairy tale. Unfortunately, the nerves were because of the lack of ideas. Fortunately, the White Elephant gift I received last year came to the rescue. My Rory’s Story Cubes have provided me with many concepts to use as the building blocks for my tales...

The moment I finished Crashing and Glittering Water, I turned my attention to the last story for November, a piece of historical fiction. Thankfully, my mind summoned Samuel and his dragon. While I possessed the perfect character to fill this tale, I couldn’t think of a story to explore his character. So once more I summoned the story cubes and tossed them. Given that I was staring at a story placed squarely in the old west, I didn’t know how to square the setting with all the results, a plane, a skydiver, and a fountain...

With Crashing finished, I turned my dwindling time to the next genre selected by my patrons, a fairy tale. Despite my brain working on other projects, I couldn’t pry a story from my mind, so I reached for my story dice. After tossing three of them, I stared at the results and wondered how I’d weave a crescent moon, an eye, and a monster attached to someone together. Initially, I thought this combination would stifle my creativity. However, when I walked away from the keyboard, the skeleton of a story emerged from the depths of my imagination...

First, I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving, filled with family, friends, and great food. While the holiday zapped a chunk of my time, other projects have also been leaching my time away from me. Hopefully, I’ll be able to bring those projects to everyone sooner rather than later. Though even if those stories never see the light of day, they weighed upon me until I sat down and allowed them to flow through my fingers. However, I’m dedicated to never missing a month for my patrons, so as the end of November loomed over me, I rolled up my sleeves and started crafting my patron’s science fiction tale...

First, may everyone have a happy and safe Halloween. May everyone of all ages find joys in the day. After finishing Weighing Paths and Repercussions, I let my imagination go wild with the last story for October, a mystery. Despite Halloween looming over me, I steered this who done it away from the supernatural, and instead steered into Perry Mason for inspiration. When I look back on the time I spent with my father, some of the more memorable times, we didn’t share a single word, though I have plenty of those memories. Rather, sometimes, sitting together and enjoying a good story does more for a relationship than any words are capable of doing. So, when I found out that Paramount+ has all of Perry Mason available to stream, I started binging the show...

With Weighing Paths completed, I was able to dedicate my mind to the next story my patrons selected, a ghost story. While I’ve been eager to explore the relationship between Marcus and Benjamin, I wanted to go back to my roots with the genre. Way back when, I crafted Journey of Thanks off a prompt provided to me by my wife. While she gave me a more structured prompt than I was looking for, the resulting tale was one of my father’s favorites. With that story firmly entrenched in my mind, I’m going to return to that style of ghost story and try to catch some of that same magic with this tale...

As another month winds down to a close, I’m eager to bring my latest tale to my patrons. When I pulled this month’s poll, I toiled with the concepts for a drama. Despite having a plethora of tales circling about my mind, sometimes it’s a little difficult narrowing down the cacophony to a single storyline. However, the moment I narrowed my options, the rough idea of a tale swelled to the forefront. This month I’ll focus on a little sibling drama, specifically Tiatha’s relationship with Leodor...

The moment I finished writing both Barriers and Merchant, I turned my attention to my patron’s final story for the month, a thriller. Whenever I think about thrillers, one of the first ones I think of is Phone Booth. It’s a wonderful psychological thriller that leverages a mysterious antagonist, who manipulates and controls the protagonist, Stuart Shepard. Every scene leans into the anonymous phone call to drive every aspect of the plot...