In the second book of the Mageborn series, The Line of Illeniel, the story picks up roughly a year after the events of the initial story. However, instead of going into excruciating details about the intervening events, Michael G. Manning gives us a high-level overview of what’s happened after Mordecai and Penny prevented the disaster from happening in Lancaster. If you’re interested in learning more, dive into the first novel in the series. I highly recommend it. But let’s get back to the crux of the second installment. As with both installments, one of Mordecai’s most intrinsic personality traits is his curiosity...

I’ve always been convinced that beauty can be found anywhere, even where you would least expect it. Back in August 2024, I was standing on my deck and noticed interesting pops of color from the foliage overgrowing both fences of my property. Given the unusual nature of the color, I grabbed my phone and went to explore the colors...

Early in my writing journey, when I needed to get an idea, my first reaction was to run to NYC Midnight’s previous prompts, which were at the time freely available. With the list of locations and objects, I’d use Google’s random number generator to select the genre for the story. After getting the number and matching it up to the genre, I drew one of NYC Midnight’s combinations for a Fairy Tale. When the cursor stopped whirling across the screen, I discovered my tale would need to take place in a noodle restaurant and needed to feature a pair of mittens...

With the re-release of Dead Man’s Hand, I knew some character artwork of some characters would be a wonderful way to promote the book. Despite my desire to create such artwork myself, I don’t possess the skill set for such a task at this point in time. As a result, I turned to Fiverr and searched for artists who might take the descriptions of four of my characters and give me their interpretations of Marcus, Bella, Dempsey, and Alexis. After sending out a flurry of inquiries, I chose my artist and sent him several excerpts from Dead Man’s Hand to describe the characters and a couple of locations to use as the background. And now I’m lucky to present his rendition of the above characters as well as a glimpse of the lounge Marcus walks into prior to the events of the tournament...

Unfortunately, it has been a long while since I last visited the world I established in Transformation. That said, I’d left myself enough notes that I was able to jump right in and come up craft a satisfying ending to this series. However, because I’m one to triple check everything, I hoped into my notebook and skimmed through the last handful of entries in this series. And after skimming/reading those tales, I updated my initial thoughts to bring the story home...

As January drew to a close, I shifted my attention to the pair of micro tales I intended to write for February. While I’d already identified the character and genre, I hadn’t thought about a potential storyline. Okay, that’s not entirely true, considering I knew this would feature Tiatha. When you factor in the fact I already removed Tiatha from the Academy and put her back on course to reunite with the shifters of Morven, it didn’t take long for me to craft the rough storyline. From there, the narrative flowed through my fingers as I witnessed the interaction between my sorceress and the sentinel of the feline shifter tribe...

While it’s been a while since I’ve posted my artwork here, I’ve been taking plenty of photos to be converted into watercolor pieces of art. I’ve just not had enough time to weave that into my day. I believe a part of that is because I was trying to post too much of my work. As a result, I’m backpedaling the amount of artwork I post by half. In order to achieve that goal, one week I’ll post two photos, then three the next week. So for this week, join me as we explore a blooming tree from my neighborhood...

One of the reasons I love NYC Midnight is that the competition challenges me as a writer. For each tale, I’m presented with a random genre that I have to work with, something I’ve brought to my patrons via the monthly genre poll. The reason I embraced this was due to the first prompt that the competition assigned to me, a comedy. To that point, I’d never written one. However, if I wanted to progress in this competition, I needed to produce something. However, my mind being what it is, I raced to the world of camp, specifically Adam West’s Batman...

With Buried Treasure and Treatments finished, I turned my attention to the next installment in Solomon’s journey. With this horror story, I wanted to drop my hunter back into his battle with the vampire that came within inches of killing him in Scant Inch. When you factor in the treatment Solomon underwent post Treatments, this rematch should have a different outcome. However, the vampire is ancient, which means he’s powerful...

When you hear about the gargoyles, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For most, I would assume it’s the monsters that adorn historical churches, like Notre-Dame. These monsters also pop up in fiction sometimes too, where they have a somewhat eclectic set of definitions. Despite running into these creatures a few times back in my D&D days, this Disney cartoon did a lot to define these creatures. They are Gargoyles...

There is something special about taking an image and crafting a story to go with it. While it might not be exactly what the artist envisioned, making a story you own is always satisfying. Unfortunately, it’s been a long time since I last created a story from an inspirational image. That said, DeviantArt is a wonderful source to find the inspiration I’m looking for. Something about the man’s posture as he leaned against the stone wall reminded me of my wanderer. While those tales, mostly micro fiction, are available to those who buy me a croissant . Though even with those micro-narratives, I didn’t delve into the character’s background...

There was a three-year stretch where I always took part in NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction competition, but after 2021 I’ve lost the time. Here’s hoping that I’m able to find the needed time to join this year’s competition. However, I plan on bringing every one of those six stories to this channel, though it’s definitely happening out of order. Seeking Justice was my response to the first challenge in 2021...

When I finished Buried Treasure, I eagerly turned my attention to my patrons’ second tale, a drama. Despite not knowing who or what to feature in this story, eventually my mind began thinking about the month’s third story. Specifically, how I was planning on picking up with my hunter after the events of Scant Inch. Given that story, a drama felt like a wonderful opportunity to fill the gap between his more perilous adventures. With an extremely rough concept of what needed to happen, it took me a solid day or two to create the rough storyline...

After agreeing to ask Lia to accompany him to a dinner with Randall and his date, Darren pauses his research into his project and packs everything away. Once the last of his materials are secured, he quickly prepares for his night out. Unfortunately, since Randall waited to the last minute to find his friend, when Darren locates Lia, all he could do was ask if she’d like to head into the city for a wonderful evening and an excellent meal. Initially, she’s hesitant about accompanying him, but as time is ticking away, Darren tells her they’ll be going to The Pavilion, one of the nicest places to eat...

As I scroll through my Facebook feed, occasionally I run across an image that sparks my imagination. With its corresponding tale already growing, I scramble to preserve the location. Sometimes I’m successful, other times the inspiration for the tale is lost. Fortunately, for Siphoning the Stone, while the original Image link from Facebook has long since died, the originating location of DeviantArt is still alive and well...