Hyba Is Writing

Review: 'The Old Ones Are Hard to Kill' - CBS Radio Mystery Theater I recently uncovered a gold-mine of fun old radio dramas over on the Internet Archive , and I've been listening to the CBS Radio Mystery Theater productions (there are well over 1,000 episodes to listen to!). This blog post is my general review and thoughts about the first episode, called ' The Old Ones Are Hard to Kill '. Episode Plot (No Spoilers) This episode follows the story of an elderly lady called Mrs. Candy who lives alone, and decides to open her home to a boarder. Her first boarder, Mr. Paulson, has just come from Brazil, and is very, very ill. He dies not long after, but not before revealing a shocking confession on his deathbed that sends the kindly old Mrs. Candy looking into a ten-year-old murder. While looking into the murder, Mrs. Candy speaks to a couple of people, both to investigate the possibility of Mr. Paulson's shocking confession and to get some advice on what to do next...

The Beast of Ildenwood   Worldbuilding: The Mussena The Mussena is a fearsome monster. A territorial beast at home in the darkness, it tends to make its home in caves. Its fur allows it to camouflage with the darkness, and it hunts its prey by night.  Here's a portrait that I made: This endangered animal is featured in chapters 21 & 22, where Lahab, the Wanderer, and Prince Shoja must survive an encounter with the Mussena when they enter the Starlight Cavern to grab some Glowing Cragenbacks for the Bandit King! They barely escape with their lives after the Wanderer takes the Mussena on in hand-to-paw combat (and almost dies himself).

The Beast of Ildenwood - Illustration of Lahab, Noble Guardian of the Ildenwood Forest Back with a new illustration (at last!). This one is a quick portrait of Lahab, the Noble Guardian of Ildenwood Forest. (And by quick, I mean that it took me a couple of hours.) It's certainly leaps better than the Zerban portrait , I think, but let me know what you think:   If you zoom in, you'll see all the tiny mistakes. Yay! She certainly doesn't look like she can breathe fire, does she? Heh. To be honest, there's something missing here. I still struggle to get a mental image out on paper, so to speak, so it's hard to say what it is exactly that doesn't look very Lahab-y about this piece, but there's definitely something . Maybe it's her hair - needs to be darker? Or her eyes - again, need to be darker? Or maybe the face shape needs to be a bit longer? Maybe lose the smirk? Hmm... I'll probably re-draw Lahab later on - maybe even more than once - and ask my re...

I have returned from my long, long hiatus! It has been a while, hasn't it? Almost two months! That might not seem like very long, but to me, it is. I don't think I've ever taken such a lengthy break from my blog or social media. While I'm still not back to my socials, I've been easing out of my hiatus bit by bit. I am hoping to be completely active online again by April. What was I up to all this time? During my hiatus, I was originally supposed to continue writing at a leisurely pace, away from the fast-paced hubbub of the online world. For the first week or so, I tried to work a bit on The Pirates of Sissa , and even took a look at my manuscript for Marie/Elise , but the truth was, I didn't really feel like writing any of those projects - or any of the others that I'd set aside. So, for the majority of my hiatus, I just... didn't write.  Every now and then I wrote a little snippet, when I felt the desire, and I quite enjoyed what I wrote, but it never ...

The Beast of Ildenwood 22. Claws and Swords It is difficult to be gentle when in full motion – and when trying to do something quickly. The Wanderer tries, but in the end he can only hope that this maneuver won’t yield the same result as it did the last time he tried it. He pushes into Lahab just before the beast would have reached her, and all of his focus is on ensuring he won’t break her bones, too, like he did with Zerban. A sick feeling rears up in his stomach. He feels the rush of wind of the passing foe, feels the fur of its mane against the back of his arm as he just about makes it past the Mussena. They crash, Lahab and the Wanderer splashing into one of the starry pools of the cavern, and the Mussena into the wall of the dark, cavernous hall beyond, where the three of them had previously entered from. Shoja is there, and the Wanderer hopes that the Mussena does not see him, but he barely has time to think of the prince or Lahab, for a striking...