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Tag Archives: fox and willow

Jan

Moving Right Along…

Posted in blog | Tagged education, fox and willow, kid stuff, random, updates, women in gaming, word-whores | 2 Comments

The last few days have been a bit crazy at home – we’ve been checking out potential private schools for the kids, so that’s taken some time. Not sure if we’re going to send them or not, for a number of reasons, but both the DH and I agree that what the kids are currently learning in the public school is pretty awful. I get that teachers have very little control over the curriculum – they have to teach to the SOL tests so that the schools continue to retain funding, but it’s a shit system. Basic stuff like grammar and spelling have completely fallen by the wayside. For kids who pick writing/reading up naturally that may not be such a big deal, but I’m getting a first-hand look at how much of a disservice this is when I read some of essays that are coming home. To complicate matters,… Read more

Jan

Pink Magpie

Posted in blog | Tagged computers, fox and willow, laptop, magpie, web design | 1 Comment

I’m probably not the only writer out there to name devices after their characters – I’ve got a computer named Brystion and an iPad named Phineas. It’s fun bit of arrogance, I guess. Around Christmas I had ordered a new laptop (which, as some of you know showed up broken.) The replacement came in last week and I’m happy to say it’s remained in good shape since then. I’d have talked about it earlier, but I wanted to wait and make sure it was all good. Call me a bit superstitious at this point, but there it is. Specwise, it’s not too bad. Certainly not a full on gaming machine or anything, but 8 gigs of ram and an i5 processor should see me through for a few years at the very least. It’s not quite as small as my netbook (which was about 10 inches), but at 13 inches,… Read more

Jan

Word Whore ~ Fox and Willow Thursday

Posted in blog | Tagged class projects, fox and willow, send help, word-whores | Leave a comment

Things have been busy this week at home, hence the lack of blogging. Connor has one of those big reports on Colonial Jamestown due tomorrow – so the last several days have been a whirlwind of costumes, posterboard creation and report writing. (I think I dropped about $130 at Michaels yesterday on “craft stuff.” Bleah. I completely suck at this sort of creative endeavor. Scissors and glue are NOT my friends.) He’s the town blacksmith and I *still* have to come up with some sort of apron to go over his pants. >_< Would it be wrong of me to send him in with Mjolnir as his hammer prop? (Not the one I had signed by Chris Hemsworth, mind, but the other one??) Meh. Anyway. New post up over at Word Whores – talking about how I know a manuscript is ready to go out the door. (I’m not sure anyone… Read more

Jan

Cover Shenanigans

Posted in blog | Tagged awesomesauce, brush of darkness, covers, fox and willow, jim c hines | 13 Comments

I was actually all ready to write up a post today about how writers are an awful lot like hedgehogs. With pictures. Alas, Tumbleweed is being rather uncooperative for the camera, so that’s going to have to wait for another day. But that doesn’t matter, because last night this lovely image was posted! And I love it! (I supplied the fishnets, in fact – you can read more about it here.) In truth though, it feels very full circle to me. I got a lot of shit about this cover when BoD came out. For a debut author, it can be a bit harsh to read comments from readers about how they would never read/buy this book because of the cover. Some people said they would be embarrassed to be seen with it. That’s pretty hard to deal with, particularly because most authors have no control over their covers and… Read more

Jan

Elf Jerky & Underpants

Posted in blog | Tagged aimo, fancomic, fox and willow, word-whores, writing resources | Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I talked about writing resources, but while attempting to some some basic research for this latest project, I stumbled across a couple of rather marvelous books that I think could be very helpful – particularly if you write historical or fantasy. The first is What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank – which I actually ran across at WFC this year and meant to pick up in the dealer’s room, but by the time I had my money with me, the room was closed and then I forgot. Which made it that much better when I found it again this week. And even though I’m not writing a historical, holy cow! The amount of fabulous information in here dealing with food and food prep “back in the day” is enough to make your head swim. I’m actually rather surprised mankind even made it this far. Though… Read more