Hyba Is Writing

December 2021 Writing Prompts December, much like October, is a month for which prompt lists are very much celebration-themed. But, just like October, there's much more to December than just Christmas and New Year's. Here's my writing prompt list for December 2021! I hope you enjoy using it to keep writing through the cold month, and that it inspires and motivates you to create wonderful stories or poems. Remember that you don't need to complete these in order, or even to complete all of them. Pick the ones you like, and work with those. Merge them together to create one big writing prompt, or approach the same prompt from various different angles. It's all up to you! Here's an example of how you can take one prompt and approach it from various genres or perspectives. If I choose the prompt "Hibernation", I can write about: a passenger who awakens from hibernation in a spaceship, having just landed on a new planet a bear is just coming out of hibernati

Murder in Heliopolis: Weekly Roundup 2 To see the previous chapters, click here .   Here are the chapters that were released during the second week of Writathon/NaNoWriMo (more or less): 8. The Office Unsealed, A Threat Revealed 9. Meetings With Invidia 10. Crime Runs in Their Blood 11. Aster Lockwood's Slate 12. PATET, Cerebrum of Heliopolis 13. Corporate Secrets Among the Farms 14. The Bone Bouquet Cafe & Eatery   Happy reading!

The Beast of Ildenwood: Writing Update   I've recently updated a batch of chapters for The Beast of Ildenwood that went up on RR but that I never got a chance to share on the blog. Chapters 14-16 are now available right here on the blog! You may notice that they don't include illustrations. With my participation in NaNoWriMo and the RR Writathon, it's been a bit hard for me to keep up with illustrations. All of my focus is on the challenge, though I'm also doing my best to ensure that updates for The Beast of Ildenwood stay regular - every Sunday.  In terms of the story itself, I'm happy to report that Chapter 17 should be the last chapter of the first "arc", with Chapter 18 officially starting us off on a new arc. I've got a couple of arc plotted out and I think they're going to be a lot of fun for me to write and illustrate, too!

The Beast of Ildenwood 16. Enter the Son of the King The King leaves for the battlefront today.   Shoja watches from the balustrade, taking in the hubbub below. Soldiers and guards mill about, packing and preparing. Weapons are carried from the armory and across the guards’ courtyard, where training usually takes place. Shields, armor, bows and arrows, tents and bedding, and much more are carried back and forth as the soldiers prepare to leave. They will be ready within the hour, and that will be the last time Shoja will ever see some of these men, for they ride to battle with an enemy that is still so very mysterious to them all.   He is the son of the King, who is by right the Noble Guardian of all of Samat. While he will have to earn the right to rule after him – and that is a very tall order – he is still the son of the King, and that comes with its own weight.   I will join the battlefront. I am ready. I can do it. I will help protect our lands fr

The Beast of Ildenwood 15. To Perish by Fire The townspeople have rejoiced tremendously at the news of Zerban’s passing. The man who had spoken for them the first time Lahab and the Wanderer had arrived in Tasweer later introduced himself as the Noble Hadar. “You cannot leave without a meal,” he tells them, and they are invited to a hearty lunch, which embarrasses Lahab, for she knows they are not particularly well-off, especially not after Zerban’s abuses. Nevertheless, she accepts the gesture graciously, and the home-cooked meal – a vegetable soup and freshly-baked bread – is as lovely as it is plain.   The Wanderer, who sits across from her at the large communal table they have been seated at, has been silent, but she knows this is only because he wallows over the death he has caused. It almost makes her feel bad, for if all had gone according to plan, she would be the one who would have brought about the end of Zerban, and he would not need to conte

The Beast of Ildenwood 14. The Traitors Among US Deletrear finds Haq in the round courtyard between the Sisters of Miraya, sitting cross-legged on a worn carpet he has laid out in front of the reflecting pool. Before him sits a woman, her robe stretched out across her knees as she, too, sits cross-legged and holds his hand.   He murmurs something to her, and this makes her smile with relief. Deletrear approaches them slowly, wondering how best to find out whether Haq has been turned by the enemy. He decides to use his Invisible Eye to probe into the man’s Guidebook, flipping through it quickly. It does not take too long, because Deletrear is aware that Haq, given his own skill, has cultivated a high-level Book Defense skill, and intruding upon his Guidebook for too long will alert the man to Deletrear’s snooping.   There are no quests or mentions of Muna or an artifact, and nothing to suggest, from Deletrear’s quick skim, that Haq is anyone other than the Noble Guardia

NaNoWriMo, Writathon, and Murder in Heliopolis As you may have seen from previous posts, I am currently participating in NaNoWriMo (unofficially) as well as the Royal Road Writathon. Since the two challenges, which are slightly different and run for different lengths of time, overlap, I've decided to write the same book for them both, and that book is my solarpunk murder mystery, Murder in Heliopolis .  You can read more about Murder in Heliopolis and find links to the chapters (there are 15 as of my writing this) if you'd like to read the story itself. My goal is to not only reach the 50,000 word goal for NaNoWriMo by the end of November, but to also reach the 55,555 word goal for Writathon by the end of its fifth week (Dec. 5). What I'd love to do, though, is to complete the entire book by the end of the Writathon's five-week duration, and I've been working very hard to make sure that I meet my goals. Today is November 15th, which means it's the halfway poin

Murder in Heliopolis: Weekly Roundup 1 I've been writing Murder in Heliopolis almost every day since the start of this month, and sharing the chapters almost daily! So far, the story has reached 20,000 words in my manuscript, and I'll try to continue sharing the chapters every day, or every other day.    Here are the chapters you can read so far: 1. The All-Seeing Eye of PATET 2. A Visit to Greenland Farm 3. Nymphaeales on the Floats 4. Cassia Grove's Slate 5. Underwater Dining at Aquarius 6. Expedition to the Ruins 7. The Gunman in the Rubble   I hope you enjoy it so far! Here's a sneak peek of Chapter 8, which is coming out later today:   Curiously, Laith wrapped his hand around the small device and waited patiently for his own body heat to power it. He didn’t know how old it was, but he hoped it still contained whatever message it had originally contained. It could point him towards a new lead. After a few minutes, he released the X-letter and tapped the little butt

October 2021 Writing Update   This post is coming five days late, but for good reason! November is the month that NaNoWriMo takes place in, and I've decided to participate (unofficially). For those reasons, I was hoping to spend most of October working on my podcast, The Pirates of Sissa , and polishing Marie/Elise up for (possible) self-publication in 2022. I wanted to clear all of that off my plate so that I can focus on The Pirates of Sissa for NaNoWriMo (at the time that I made this decision, in the beginning of October, I wasn't even aware of Writathon yet). But I ended up having some health issues during the month of October, and for the better part of the month, I was completely distracted by these issues. I didn't get much writing done, in fact. I was going to the doctor often and my concern over my own health kept me from focusing on what I wanted to work on for October. All is well now, but at the time, working on my projects, namely The Pirates of Sissa and Mari

 Creatures That Inspired Kahlaqrabs: Crabs The Sandwalker cryptid that got me conceptualizing my kahlaqrabs basically looks like a giant crab with a bird head and a scorpion stinger. The kahlaqrab (which is an original beast I've built that features in my fantasy novel, The Pirates of Sissa ) isn't quite so wide as to look like a giant crab, but the idea of it having a tough exoskeleton and two front pincers is something that I quite liked for the monster concept. So, of course, I checked out what else about crab anatomy might be helpful in my creature design! All the images linked here are from the Wikimedia Commons. Crabs While crabs are sea creatures, they also have the ability to travel and live on land. This, as you might remember from the post on the Acutiramus, is a really important element for my kahlaqrabs. Not only do they need to be able to walk on land, seeing as how they're based in the Black Desert, they also need to be able to move quickly through the sand