A black leafless tree silhouetted against a glowing sunset sky sits on a rolling hillside in the foreground. The sky color is a smooth gradient of blues and pinks with a glowing sickle moon hanging low and a few stars beginning to show. The open sea is sparkling in the moonlight beyond the tree. In the sea two dolphins leap and beyond them is a distant island. One large owl and one small owl sit in the branches of the tree.

SPOT THE DOLPHINS
This was drawn with several different softwares and partly on an iPad and partly on a PC. My ancient Wacom tablet is not supported by Windows 11. But the iPad is filling the gap well enough, though the workflow is less smooth.
Of course I always have to sneak in a dolphin or two.

Years ago, in the middle of the ocean, in a little wooden boat, I used to feel like this sometimes, especially if the weather was stormy. You really do feel this small.
You can tell it's a rogue wave because he does not obey the wind like other waves.

HUMBLING REVIEW OF RIPPLE
Recently the Reader's House literary Magazine in the UK, approached me for an interview about my work. I was gobsmacked by their review. Their review is here with the interview following.
readershouse.co.uk/tui-allen-ex...

Ripple Movie Possibility
I just signed up with an agent/producer in the UK who read Ripple three times and is keen to see a movie made. (I'm presuming it will be AI animated.)
Like this graphic I made myself with AI.

As children here in Aotearoa, we were compelled to drink half a pint of free milk every day at school. How I detested that slimy brew. I was allergic and became ostracized as "the kid with the snotty nose." It never cleared up until I got to secondary school where milk was not provided.

It would be cool to create a more realistic image showing a powerful looking character representing plant mylk and a bloated overweight, diseased person representing cow secretions. Would not be hard to do using AI graphics in Photoshop. I might give it a go.

And they are killing an animal, if indirectly, every time they take a mouthful of meat.

If we vegans are not careful, all our separate factions will become like religions and cause wars that kill ourselves instead of animals. We are animals too remember. Hard as it is for vegans to love the human species, we can't love and save animals until we first love and save ourselves.

Oh my unlucky and most beloved marine animal friends - you are top of this dreadful list.

Humans commit daily horror beyond imagining on innocent sentient beings. I notice the butcher killing the pig looks like one himself. The girl with her bovine victim looks like a cow to me. Both of the animals suit that look so much better.

has this protest started yet?

Just survived cyclone Tam. 2-3 stormy days. Roads cut off by fallen trees. Power out for 24 hours. Thanked my stars for camping gear and head-mounted bike lights. Our water pump stops pumping from the tank so we always store some tank water in plastic bottles for power cuts. All over now.

Farm animals are so much easier to see. I care abut farm animals too. But I focus all my creative energy on shedding light on human exploitation of marine beings amd trying to make them more visible to the human mind, even though the human eye sees to little of them.

In my latest story, the sea herself is the narrator. She was the only entity who could possibly have known.

Why do you carry the name "Stories From the Sea" ? It caught my eye. What is your link o the sea?

I'm not really into your genre so I'm sorry I did not buy your book, but I went onto Amazon and read the sample of Bloodspinner. It is very skilfully written.

I have an unrelated question for you. What is the story behind the question on your banner, "Do fish have balls?" It makes me curious.

Weird is good surely? Everything original has to seem weird to someone or how can it be original?😍😊

I asked photoshop AI to generate this image. It's a scene from my Dolphin Melody story, showing Roreka dying at sea and being rescued by dolphins. It is not perfect. He should look more unwell, but it's way better than I could draw.

I hope you are being sarcastic?

This is why I write my sea stories, to show this from the point of view of the dolphins themselves. Dolphins are smarter than we are, and far more empathetic. I am always with them, either in my kayak or in my imagination. I work to let humans experience marine pain.

I can't believe I used to ride horses as a teenager, never giving a thought to the damage I might do to the horse's spine, which was never designed to carry the weight of a human and saddle. These days I just talk to horses in the field and smell their beautiful smell.

Stolen from calves for unhealthy humans.

You're reminding me of Paul Gallico with his cat story "Jennie." When this happens to me I find I'm swimming, have fins instead of hands, have no need of reading or even speaking because my infinite intellectual environment of "Ocean Mind" is a vast telepathic "idea-sphere" . And I'm a dolphin.

I am in New Zealand and hearing about this from afar. It must be such a worrying time for you all over there in the US. We have signs of a right-wing shift in this country too. Good uck with your book. What genre? Would love to hear more about it.

I remember receiving a similar command, like a rush of expanding goosebumps. Never forgotten it. The book is now written plus another one as well. I know now, those books were why the universe put me here. Always go with the commands of the universe if it feels like the right thing to do for you.

I love that you take your photos form shore instead of chasing the cetaceans in a noisy boat with dangerous whirling propeller blades.

In my stories, some dolphins have pets just as humans do. As with our dogs, octopuses have superpowers humans (and dolphins) lack, which can be very useful in fiction. Adobe AI and I worked together to create this image of my character Tangles riding on his dolphin friend.

Playing with Adobe AI, I generated this picture of a light-hearted scene from my novel, "Dolphin Melody". It shows my octopus character Tangles, at work in his octopus's garden.

Beautiful footage and from high enough you would not be bothering them. We often see orca this close to land here in Aotearoa (NZ) but that's because they feed mainly on rays in the shallows. What do these rays seek so close to shore? Do they eat rays too?