Hyba Is Writing

May 2024 Writing Prompts   15 Writing Prompts for May A private investigator is hired to investigate an unusually successful doctor. A character is transported into a cartoon world. A character witnesses what they can only describe as a glitch in the matrix. "We've heard some rumours about your son." A character develops superpowers on their fifteenth birthday. An elf opens a cozy cafe catering to all kinds of fantasy races. A ship is devoured by the kraken. A fighter pilot finds himself ten years in the future upon landing. Every year on their birthday, a character receives a gift from a mysterious stranger. A miracle man is revealed to be a fraud. "I refuse to be held accountable for this mess!" A firefighter saves someone from a burning building. A princess kisses a frog... only to be turned into one herself! A character is transported into the world of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. "The King is dissolving this alliance; therefore, Princesss, you are an...

The Ephemeral Nature of Digital Storytelling A couple of years ago (or was it longer? time flows at a pace i can never understand), I was working on my thesis paper for my MBA - a research project in which I was investigating enhanced ebooks and their viability in the publishing industry. I would like to begin by apologizing to those to whom I promised a copy of the thesis; while I got a great grade for it, I was absolutely destroyed by a huge sense of impostor syndrome afterwards. After that, I was a little embarrassed to share it. I hope that didn't bother you too much. But, that's not the point of this article. While conducting my research, there was one big issue that came to view when discussing the viability of enhanced ebooks. To put simply: format.    You see, over time, we develop formats and we develop programs that can read them and/or edit them, and over time, we develop new formats and new programs that can read/edit those, and so on. And, as a result, older forma...

The Official Quarter: Worldbuilding - Murder in Heliopolis The Official Quarter is one of the districts in Heliopolis. Called a 'quarter', it's actually a very large area where most government agencies, commissions, and other important administrative buildings are located. I'll go over a few of the key buildings in this blog post. Heliopolis Police Department HQ The Heliopolis Police Department has its headquarters in the Official Quarter - and that's where Detective Laith Alazraq works. It is built in a large riad-esque style, with a courtroom in the middle featuring one of the oldest trees to have survived the terrible catastrophe which destroyed much of the Earth and its civilizations some 500 years prior.  Settings in the HPD HQ which are visited often in the book include Laith Alazraq's office, Olivia Fox's office, and the courtyard. I'm still considering whether or not we'll be visiting Detective Ulv Lebben's office... Each character has d...

A peek into my writer's toolbox: 6 tools I use as a fiction author We're well into 2024 now, and I've had the chance to work with a range of different programs - some old (to me), some new (to me) - and I'm currently using a very specific set of software and non-digital tools that I believe help me create a balance that allows for a fairly good writing productivity. I thought I'd share my list of tools - all of which are free and/or open source - in the hopes that it might help some writers out there find helpful programs and tools to add to their own toolbox. I should note here that these are the tools to help me with the specific writing/management of my projects. Graphic design, social media/blogging, and other kinds of tools are not included to cut down on the length of this post. But I might share other lists soon!   1. Kanri for task management This is a new addition to my toolbox this year! I mentioned it briefly in my monthly writing update for February . I ...