I took a stay-cation all last week. It was nice. I didn't work on a single thing I intended to get done while I was home. That also was nice.

I've been back in my office now for about an hour this morning and already HR is more annoying than an infestation of fleas.

I think I'll plan the dates for next stay-cation.

I apparently like to write first drafts of novels.

Occasionally skulking and lurking, but mostly absent the last two years. Wondering if I should become more active here again.... What do you think?

That is all. Have a GRRREAT evening y'all!

The last month or so has been a whirlwind. I've barely kept my muzzle above water. Seems to be calming down, so let's see if I can get back in my old groove.

Year after year I'm continually re-amazed at the incredible artistic talent and creativity in the fandom -- in all the art forms, from performance, to writing, to music, to visuals, etc.

Thanks to you all for sharing your gifts!

Happy Halloween! First day of the triduum of Allhallowtide. Mock death and celebrate the ever-living in Heaven and on their way there. Pray for the souls of all the departed. Now's a great time to remember our furry friends who have passed on to greener pastures and warmer dens and honor their memories!

I mean, who named them? They don't really look much like wolves. They look like foxes -- that coat, those ears .... Whoever it was probably never even saw an actual wolf.

Let's think about a new name for them: https://twitter.com/Graowf/status/7.....02650670325760

"Maned wolf" is a misleading name for my species, so I think I'll start a campaign to rename our kind to: "More like a red fox than a wolf". Yes, I think that is much better.

Shaking yourself dry after a shower sure makes a mess of the bathroom.

I hate it when people swat me while I'm taking an olfactory survey of them.

The new employee in the building called the narcs after I used the restroom. I guess he doesn't know yet that maned wolf urine smells like pot.

I was so hungry when I ate lunch, I pounced on my food and wolfed it down. When I looked up from where I was crouched on the table, everyone in the restaurant was staring at me, and then the manager asked me to leave. Lowering my head and licking her mouth didn't help any.

How can you not?

http://tinyurl.com/werewolfplush

This video from the POV of a squirrel is better than bacon!

(I really like bacon)

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=960_1470666404

I took an an online class on "being your own best editor". It was very interesting and I wanted to try what I learned, so I headed back to a couple of old stories and have been reworking them.

Beyond the editing class, though, I ended up with a different approach to story construction than I'd tried before.

I'm working on a rewrite of Planetfall (original: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/19402864/). It needed, according to my oldest daughter, more explanation about the situation and the spaceships. So, I started adding it, but didn't like it: too much "tell" and not enough "show." I figured I could do a lot of the telling by showing in flashbacks woven in, but I know it could be a lot, and so it needs to be done in a way that doesn't feel so flashback-y.

That led to the idea of taking and writing a kind of vignette for each character that covers moments that will be used to lend flashbacks to the main story. The story has two main characters: Feran and Karmah. But something, I think, can be gained by treating the ship itself as a character, so the story construction is going like this:
1. rough draft the main story
2. write a "vignette" per character (Karmah, Feran, and The Romulus) of life moments that will be exposed in the main story
3. rewrite the main story as a "carrier" thread of the current day woven with the pieces from the vignette that expose the situation and character traits applicable to the main story thread.

I've done something similar on other stories to understand characters or places or whatever, but they were usually standalone stories of their own without the intention of including them in the main story. In this case, the main story is an event that is simple used to interweave the other stories of independent characters that occurred along the same timeline.

I'm sure there is a name for the technique or the result, and I know it isn't original and someone out there has a refinement of the approach. If you know, share!

Have a great, furry day!

Just too much great furry artwork, stories, etc., on here! I can't keep up with y'all!

What a great problem to have! ^v^

Graowf, get off of FA and get some work done ... you don't get paid for furry....

^v^

The furry fandom is a breath of sanity in a world gone mad.

From vacation. I decided that I want to spend the rest of the my life on vacation. My kids thought that was funny, but great. My wife looked very concerned, as I am the only breadwinner for the 10 of us. She was relieved when I told her I had written up a list of principles that capture the essence of living on vacation for me that I was going to do my best to live out all the time.

She puts up with a lot.

Last day of work before I'm off for a 2 week romp ocean-side!

The last month or so was extremely busy. I got my annual Easter treasure hunt done for my pups. This year it was in the form of a medieval fantasy adventure set around the 1200s and involving space aliens. Really. The narrative is broken up by nine puzzles to solve, each puzzle revealing a clue as to where to find the next chunk of the story. It took me about 20 person-hours to write, and about an hour to set up and hide everything. It took my 6 oldest about 2.5 hours to solve. The last clue in these always leads to where the Easter baskets are hidden.

My oldest is a senior in high school this academic year, so this might be his last time participating in one of these. I kind of hope not. I'll continue to do them as long as I'm able and they want to do them. I can imagine how fun it'll be when I can expand the radius of the hunt to include the whole town and beyond....

Constructing the Easter hunt and a tight schedule at work leading up to a grant progress demonstration for a project team I'm on made other endeavors nearly impossible to undertake. However, today at lunch I started back into chapter 16 of "The Last Tanuki", so hopefully I'll have a draft of that posted in a week or two.

I will also try to start catching up on some of the amazing artwork that the furs on FA that I'm watching generated over the last month. I've only had time to skim, but there are some really fine looking pieces in there and I'm looking forward to the writing and music that's been posted as well.

Hope you all had a great Easter and are having a great day today!

... write anthro animal stories. So I'm taking off work early to write one. ^v^

I was blown away by this:

https://youtu.be/IvUU8joBb1Q

Have a very furry Christmas!

And may it be merry and filled with joy and especially hope!


PS: check out this wonderful little Christmas gift from Feiona: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/18589927