Jan
14

Pink Magpie

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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
10

Word Whore ~ Fox and Willow Thursday

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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
7

Cover Shenanigans

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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
4

Elf Jerky & Underpants

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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
Jan
2

Notes of a Dubious Nature

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I was cleaning up a little bit the other day and it occurred to me that family members of writers probably stumble on some pretty weird things. Most writers I know have been asked the “Are you all right?” question when said writer is staring off into space. I do this a lot – and usually it’s because I’m writing in my head. Or playing out a scene between characters or whatever. (Hmmm. What happens if I just make everyone naked?? Bet that ping-pong tournament gets way more interesting.) It’s fairly common phenomenon, as are the google searches for things like how long takes someone to die after they’ve been run through with a sword. Writers can be very scary people, yo. I rarely write things down on paper – except when I get stuck. For this latest book, I’ve been writing things down like mad – which should probably… Read more