Thanks for joining us tonight, hope you enjoy part four of the story!

Check here to read previous parts if you’ve missed them.

We had a nice Texas rain today, the first one in awhile. It felt fantastic, especially considering the 109 degree heat yesterday. It was kind of a defining moment of the end of Summer. Everything seems to relax a bit and fall into routine when such a large part of the population heads back to school.

Remember, if you’d rather read the story you can do so here. As always, thanks for joining us tonight!

Check out the podcast page if you missed part one. As always, thanks for listening!

For fifteen years invaders from the distant land of Kalleth have held Alsalam in servitude to their army, but they’ve brought peace and prosperity as well. When a murderous and enslaving change in command comes down from the eastern King, Alsalam must use the military knowledge he’s learned from them not only to defend himself, but all the tribes of his homeland.

As always, thanks for joining us!

Everyone knows that we’re losing interest in science as a country. Where visiting the moon should have been the first step in our visit to space, we haven’t gotten much farther. Have you ever wondered what happened to the public’s interest in space exploration? Have you lost your interest in knowing what amazing sights are to be found out there?

I was thinking about it the other night in front of my house. Fort Worth is not a huge city compared to some, but even here the stars are dim most nights. What about major cities who can’t even see the stars? How many children out there have never seen a starry sky that wasn’t on the television? We’ve all heard of the SciFi/Fantasy stories about civilizations that have never seen a tree before and are in awe of them. What about the fact that in this world, as it is now, there are probably children who have never seen a sky filled with the beauty of the universe?

There is so much more to existence than what we can comprehend as human beings. Sure there are still people interested on exploring the universe, but it’s the kids that we really need to get interested. They’re the ones that might see what we cannot. Kids need to see a truly starry night. I think we all do.

And FYI, the images are from NASA’s astronomy pictures of the day, which are fantastic.

For fifteen years invaders from the distant land of Kalleth have held Alsalam in servitude to their army, but they’ve brought peace and prosperity as well. When a murderous and enslaving change in command comes down from the eastern King, Alsalam must use the military knowledge he’s learned from them not only to defend himself, but all the tribes of his homeland.

Next week we’ll start a whole new story, so be sure to check back. It’s going to be another adult story, in the high fantasy genre I love so much. I’ll tell you guys more about it later in the week.

If you liked this one, feel free to tell your friends about it! We always love more readers/listeners.

One way I like to teach myself is to spend some time every week watching TED talks. These inspirational speeches are a great way to figure out new things you can learn. It’s not often a full lesson, but it’s enough to get you going in the right direction.

I wanted to share these two videos, both from the same person. Sir Ken Robinson is one of my favorite speakers on the subject of education. I think everyone can learn something by taking a little time to listen to his views about teaching children.

As always, thanks for joining us.

There’s a special 4th of July treat that we managed to sneak in there for you guys. I hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday! As always, we hope you enjoy the story.

Need to catch up? You can peruse our latest posts, or you can read the story here if you prefer.

As always, thanks for joining us tonight. We hope you’re enjoying the story.

Podcasting has offered me that completely different path though. Because I really don’t spend much time plotting out these stories, they just evolve from week to week based on things that happened, and where they might lead from there. It has been a wonderful experience to me as a writer. My skill has increased drastically since this all began. My confidence has as well.

It’s something I think all you writers should try at some point.

It has taught me to edit – If you really want to see your mistakes, read your stories out loud. Every little mistake will scream at you when you hear it. If you really, really want to see, have someone else read it aloud. David has taught me not to send him bad drafts!

It has taught me to adapt – I can’t count the number of times I felt the story was trapped and had to find a way out.

It has shown me characters – It’s the characters that drive these stories every week. Never before have I felt so confident about getting into the mind of a protagonist.

It has shown me limits – One of the first rules we decided on for TNS was that no story would last more than 9 episodes. I’ve learned that each episode really has to drive toward that necessary conclusion, there aren’t episodes to waste.

Has anyone else had experience with this? What have you thought about it?

History has a great deal for us to build upon while we work out our plots and characterization. It offers endless settings, and hundreds of other details that don’t have to come from scratch. After all, nobody wants to reinvent the wheel.  There are civilizations all through time for the choosing: ones from forests, from deserts, from mountains. There are mysterious languages we still haven’t deciphered, calendars more accurate than what we use today, centuries old structures crafted based on advanced astronomical calculations. And for each of these things there are hundreds of “what ifs” we can ask.

For a writer, history doesn’t have to be accurate to be interesting. All those possible paths can lead us to another interesting story, another fun novel to write. We can drastically change history by giving a father to a leader who never knew his, a best friend to a woman who knew only hate and judgment. In some cases, the less accurate the better. To us history is just a large set building blocks waiting to be made and broken apart again.

Isn’t imagination great?

As always, David hopes you enjoy this story. To be fair though, I have threatened him with medieval torture should nobody enjoy tonight’s comedic break. So he has reason to hope. Want to spare David some pain? Then leave a comment showing your support!