Those of you who are paying attention will know that this is a picture of a cat, not a truffle – but, and this is important, it could be.  That’s the joy of worldbuilding.

I just spent time trying to find pictures of a cross-stitch that I did of a modified elephant.  We changed the color scheme from elephant grey to truffle browns, shortened the nose and made the ears rounder.  Since truffles are a cross between an aardvark and a cocker spaniel, elephants are a good base model – a cute, small-ish animal with fluffy fur and a trunk.

At the risk of sounding like all I want to do is talk about my books, I will say that worldbuilding for the Persis Chronicles was a hoot.  We got to build a culture from the ground up, decide what things we wanted to change, what we wanted to keep the same, and what we wanted to wave a magic science-shaped wand over (hence the series is science fantasy, rather than science fiction).  Our favorite creature, so far, is the truffle – so named because they help Hunters find the valuable goldstones under the sands just like truffle-hunting pigs do in our world.

Oh, and the cat?  He’s my new buddy around the corner from my office.  I met him on a walk late last week and he came right over and let me love all over him.  Adorable!