Sep
5

A Room At A Time

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I’m not sure why home improvement projects always end up becoming larger than than their projected scope.  Though it’s always a bit of a risk whenever you start pulling up the floor or knocking out a wall. Probably true about a lot of things really – surfaces hide a lot of issues and flaws, sometimes. While we are waiting for our shower to be rebuilt (next week, yay!) we went ahead and decided to redo the kids bathroom. And by we, I really mean the DH, who has managed to turn into quite the handy man.  (He’s even talking about building the kids loft beds now, but first things first.) We’re lucky though – his friend has a wet saw and a blow torch, which has made some things a bit easier.  But of course, nothing happens without a few bumps and no matter how much time we think it’s… Read more
Sep
4

Trying to Lock Up the Cloud

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A story came out a few weeks ago about how this guy basically had his entire online life stolen and his computer and iphone bricked. It’s a crazy story, but definitely highlights some of the major flaws with storing one’s entire life in the “cloud.” (Some of the security holes have now been “fixed” – if you believe Amazon, anyway. The problem with having human gatekeepers for some of this stuff is that humans are…human. And don’t always follow procedure. But still.) The story still freaked me out a bit, especially considering that I’ve been getting a lot of “We see you’ve forgotten your password” emails from Facebook recently. Clearly *someone* is attempting to hack me.  Random? Maybe. Or maybe not. I’m not anyone special, but as an author I’ve got a tremendous amount tied into these social networks.  I start getting hacked and there’s an awful lot to lose.… Read more
Aug
31

Friday Silliness: Beware the Unicorn Graffiti

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Okay, I don’t know what possessed the makers of this ingenious little script, but if you haven’t tried it, go run over to Goggles.  Basically, you drag this little button into your bookmark bar and you click it on any site you want. And then you can draw all over that person’s website. But the genius of it is that other people can only see it *if* they go to that site and also hit their  Goggles button. Lame? Maybe. Also fabulous! I sorta feel like unleashing my inner Phineas and marking up my friends’ webpages with rainbows and cocks. Maybe rainbow cocks. Yes, there’s a potential for abuse here since it’s all anonymous (and sure, it’s tempting to find your super-sekret enemy’s webpage and just write rude things on it that they’ll most likely never see), but still. Anyway, I also wanted to give a shout out to Jeffe… Read more
Aug
30

Word Whore ~ Fox and Willow Thursday

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I’m at a few places today – Word-Whores to start with, of course. This week it’s all about rejections…and specifically the best rejections we’ve ever received. (I suspect my fellow word-whores have some better tales to tell, as I don’t have too many). I’m also over at Pocket After Dark with an interview about writing and gaming and unicorns, all things near and dear to my geeky little heart, so check that out if you get the chance. (It’s a bit silly, but then…so am I, so it’s all good.) And of course, Fox & Willow updates today as well. Incidentally we’re looking to do some affiliate link swapping, so if you’ve got a web comic and you’d like do a mutual link, please let me know! Last thing of note – I’m trolling for tickets to World Fantasy Con. I’m definitely going, but I’ve got a few friends who missed… Read more
Aug
29

Dancing With Myself

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Well there’s nothing to lose And there’s nothing to prove I’ll be dancing with myself It’s funny that the lyrics to this particular song seem to be rather perfect at describing my inner mindset when it comes to my writing sometimes. Anyway, what sparked all this was RWA’s recent announcement about membership and who was really qualified to be a member.  And to clarify that they’ve always been about being open to “all persons seriously pursuing a publishing career in the romance genre.” Which makes sense. But one of the things RWA killed this year was the RITA category of “Strong Romantic Elements” – which was what my books fit under, at least as far as RWA is concerned.  Though to be honest, there’s such a mish-mash of understanding when it comes to defining a Paranormal Romance vs an Urban Fantasy. I’ve even seen the term “Urban Fantasy Romance” being bandied… Read more