Well, here we are; the last day of August.

I actually have recorded a few audio dramas, but I want to do a few more takes. I think you'll enjoy them! This coming month I plan on setting up a podcast on iTunes.

Stories coming in September...

• The Princess' Path 3-6
• The Boys in Engineering
• Tides of Trade (Continuation of Danger of Drowning)
• Faithful Foe

Audios coming in September...

• Time To Travel: Age of the Dinosaur (If people like the first scene of this, let me know! I'm prioritizing my audio shows, and I won't continue it if people don't tell me they like it!)
• The Sword and Scepter Saga: The Rescue
• Audio Adaptation of Out of this World

Wish me luck!

Every land has its dangers. The mountain country of Farway had dragons. Briglan was home to ogres. EchoCave was overrun with goblins.

And Nearsea… Nearsea had mermaids.



Jennifer struggled with the mermaid, biting and clawing at her even as her lungs screamed for air. It helped that the mermaid didn’t want to hurt her. The trouble was Kevin. Jennifer kicked off against the mermaid, dragging the boy up to the surface. Jennifer gasped as she broke the surface into the air. She desperately pulled Kevin up by his collar until his head was over the water. Jennifer pulled him against her, so that the back of his head rested on her shoulder.

Jennifer choked on water as mermaid tried to drag Kevin to the depths once more. Jennifer hugged Kevin close to her while she kicked wildly at the hands clutching at Kevin’s legs. “No!” Jennifer spluttered as loudly as she could, spitting seawater. She thought that the hands faltered an instant and Jennifer was struck by inspiration. “Trade!” She shouted. The hands definitely hesitated that time. Jennifer took the opportunity to pull the ring off her finger. Her finger was swollen from the frigid water but Jennifer managed to tug the ring free. She dropped it. The mermaid’s hands left Kevin and Jennifer breathed heavily, though she did not release her hold on the boy. A moment later a head rose sinisterly out of the water. The face was shadowy in the moonlight. The mermaid was eerily beautiful. She held up the ring.

“It’s gold.” Jennifer said, treading water. “It won’t tarnish.” The mermaid turned the ring over in her hands, admiring the metal work. “Take it for his life.” Jennifer insisted. The mermaid looked from Jennifer to Kevin and back. Then she cocked her head.

“What’s your name?” The mermaid asked. Jennifer was suddenly wary. What was this about?

“It’s Jennifer.” She said. The mermaid smiled. Her teeth glinted in the moonlight. They were very sharp.

“Well, Jennifer. I’m Marisol.” She began swimming around Jennifer and Kevin. Jennifer struggled to turn with her, unwilling to let Marisol out of her sight. “I will accept your deal.” Marisol’s voice was suddenly right behind her head. “But only because I like you.” Jennifer whipped around as best she could. Marisol was already a few feet away, laughing. “Besides,” The mermaid held up the ring and looked at Jennifer through it. “The ring is almost as pretty as you are.” With that, Marisol dove below the water, leaving Jennifer to swim back to shore with the still unconscious Kevin.

Do you remember those elementary school paper fortune tellers? Well I do.

I was making paper flowers the other day and one of my coworkers asked if I remembered how to make them. I immediately made one for her and one for myself. As I was wondering what to write inside, I decided that I couldn't just put anything in the fortune teller. It had to be something interesting. So I put subcategories. The Hero and Villain fortunes for Scifi, Time Traveler, Fantasy, and SuperHero. It's a lot of fun!

So here is my paper fortune teller. Feel free to enjoy it. I'll see if I can upload a typed version later since this was done on scratch paper and you can kind of tell through the paper.

Oh and in case you don't remember how to fold them, here you go! (Though I like to fold and unfold the triangles like the set up for crane first.)

Well... I finished my sound booth. There were some problems. The difficulty of propping it up is the main one, and that's just because the hinges failed. (I'll try to get bigger hinges.) But, when in doubt, improvise! I fanangled a tiny one person recording booth. And I have two or three other ideas to make up for the problems.

And that's how the irony happened. I went through all of the trouble of building a sound booth, and that is what led me to discover the echo problem was a software issue. Who would have thought software would have reverb as a pre-set? Absurd. Well, I'm still glad I have the sound booth. My room has some weird sound stuff going on.

Sorry about the wait on everything. At the beginning of August I got the Star Trek: Excelsior script for final editing. The script went out to the actors today (incredibly excited!) so I should be posting more regularly again! The stories are piling up, and I'm working on the last three stories of the Princess' Path right now.

For now, I hope that you enjoy this audio version of Living with a Hero.

Would anyone like these to be available as an iTunes podcast? Let me know!