Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, a Solemnity -- enjoy this day of feasting in Lent!

It is also the anniversary of the Fall of Sauron, according to famed devout Roman Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien, who, as we all know, recorded the history of this important event in The Lord of the Rings.

Coincidence? I suspect not ....

This: '^v^' is supposed to represent a hard-working fox. Not that foxes sweat, at least not around their ears. It could also represent a wolf.

Anyway, IF anyfur cares .... I haven't submitted anything in awhile because they're all in-progress.

1. Response to the March prompt here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6552921/
So, I put the song on a loop and listened to it about 40 minutes straight several times. It was a neat experience: images popped into my head in response to specific musical ideas and the most vivid that returned each time at exactly the same spot I wove together into a plot. It turned out to be rather complicated, so I actually am cheating a little -- well, bending the rules. Usually when I do these, I formulate the idea and once it's solid, I sit down and write the story through and then post it, un-altered. In this case, I couldn't hold the formula in my head, so I had to write up an outline. I worked on that for some time. I'm in the process of writing the story. I am adhering to the one-pass-only rule, though. I hope it comes together. It really deserves more. Maybe sometime after I'm done, I'll go back and dress it out properly.

2. Easter Treasure Hunt
Every year since my first-born learned to read (more than 10 years ago), I've done a treasure hunt for my children at Easter. Each plastic egg has a clue in it to the location of the next egg. The last egg in the chain has a clue to the location of the Easter baskets, which are hidden. After a couple of years, I had to start putting puzzles in the eggs to make it worthwhile for them. Now that the oldest are in their late teens, well, the puzzles have gotten complex. Last year the hunt involved pages from a fictitious, steampunk-themed journal and as they gathered clues and pages, they were also gathering parts and instructions for manufacturing a device. It was a home-made sundial and the last clue was constructed as a puzzle with a math formula in it based on the time of day and position of the sun. They had to build the sundial, position it correctly, and then apply the formula based on the hour and where the shadow on the sundial landed on a scale that was laid down on its base.

This year, I thought that I'd write up a "You decide" kind of story, where the decision points are puzzles. I'm writing it as a first person, present tense (which is weird to write) murder mystery. Needless to say, this is also consuming a lot of time.

3. Aria's Story
I threw the first few pages of this up in scraps some time ago, and I'm still working on it now and then. It's going to be longer than I intended, but I've really grown to like Aria as a character and I think she deserves a proper story. Yes, there will be a chase scene, FeiOna ....

I'm also going through an "Elements of Art" self-study thing with my two oldest daughters. I picked it up at a recent homeschool conference and I was really impressed with the approach. Maybe it'll help me get a clue what I'm doing when I pick up a pencil. Anyway, it's fun to do something like that with the kids.

Back from my several rather mundane adventures .... I'll be catching up over the next several days in all walks of life, it seems.

Looking forward to seeing what all my furry friends have been up to .... I actually churned out a lot of Aria's Story during conference downtime. Who knew I once owned a sporty black earthmobile with yellow lightening bolt custom paint?

I have a strategic planning workshop to attend tomorrow, then off to a conference that carries over into the weekend. I will probably not be touching the Internet much if any after today until Monday.

I'll miss my FA pack buddies .... Have a good rest of the week and a great weekend (in advance) ... and stay fuzzy!

So, I'm sitting late in the office, waiting for a database restore job to finish running. Been just killing time for two hours. I get to spend a lot of time waiting for computers to finish doing things. It's a perfect opportunity to do something creative, right? Yes, it is. Unfortunately I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night and everything keeps coming out ooky. So, here I am writing a pointless journal entry.

81% complete.

I was out of town over the weekend, and had no connection to the internet, so I've got a little backlog of stuff on websites as well as emails to plow through. I was in the midst of several unfinished exchanges before I took off, so I'm just letting you all know so you don't feel like I've left you hanging or anything.

It's time for the next monthly Flash Fiction Challenge!

For the month of March we'll be taking our prompt from the composition "Equinox" by the talented  Dander_Woods (aka, Keynote), which is found here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15093516/

He has graciously consented to allow us to use his work as our centerpiece this month. Thank you  Dander_Woods !

The intent of our flash fiction challenge is to give writers a chance to stretch their legs for the fun of writing without a commitment to the work -- by that I mean, write it in one pass and then let it go, just lob it out there, as  FeiOna says: "lumpy and deformed as it may be."

No restrictions on genre or length -- just let it roll!

Anyone is welcome to join the fun. Write a poem, story, essay, technical document, or whatever is inspired by the prompt and submit it. After you submit your work, comment here with a link to it and also link to it in a comment on the prompt piece.

Have fun!

And David danced before the Lord with all his might…
~ 2 Samuel 6:14


What more needs to be said? You got to hand it to that David .... he knew how to live life to its fullest! If there are furries on the new Earth, they'll be hanging with Dave.

I'm about to do something I have been reticent to do since I found FA.


 RiskiSaffie asked in a shout: "*wags tail thoughtfully* why all the broodiness, woof?"

Rather than shouting at one another, I thought I'd just make it an opportunity to provide a little insight into the brooding mind of a greymuzzled Canian. I can't do this in just a few words, but I'll try. Brooding implies deep contemplation of perplexities over the self. It involves a lifetime of experience.

I've had my midlife crisis, I know what that is. It occurred closely in time with an intensely stressful three-year stint on an IT enterprise/systems architecture co-leadership assignment. I got myself re-assigned from that to something else when the division lead quit due to stress. The assignment was not a catalyst for the crisis, the crisis was not a catalyst for the stress of the assignment. They were just temporally coincident. By the time I left the IT architect assignment, I'd developed a nervous twitch in my left eyelid amongst other physical manifestations of emotional trauma. I'm a very strong person with a knack for finding a calm center in any storm and navigating safe passage through the challenges of life, but even I was shaken to the foundations by this dual assault upon my psyche. It took a Novena to St. Jude to put me back on my paws and about another three years to reach a point where I felt fully recovered.

They say, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Maybe that's true, maybe it isn't, but it changes you, or it causes you to reflect on who and what you are, where you've been, where you'd thought you should be, and where you are going to go.

When I was barely older than a pup, I had a fascination with werewolves, a vivid imagination, ran wild through the woods around my family's 65 acre farm, and knew I wanted to work with computers in some capacity or write novels. I chose computers as a career (specifically programming) and writing became a hobby. I wrestled with that choice all through college. I was an atheist/agnostic back then and had also bought into the idea that "it must be seen to be believed" -- that truth is found only in what can be reasoned about through our perceptions of the material universe. Art, in any form, therefore, was a fine diversion, but when it presumed to pronounce truth, it was merely being presumptuous. Truth, I had concluded, can only come from a strictly "scientific" analysis of the material universe.

But the interesting thing about reality is that whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, you can still stub your toe on it. I had a totally unexpected, unsolicited, and undeniable personal spiritual experience that I will not go into right now (maybe another journal someday), but made me realize that there is more to "reality" than what we know and sense. Even the staunchest atheist scientist knows this, whether he acknowledges it or not: a hypothesis requires a belief in something heretofore unknown and heretofore unknowable. I cannot see neutrons, nor feel them, nor attribute anything I sense to them directly, yet I believe they are real. Confronted with a personal experience and presence of the unknown, I could no longer remain an atheist or even remain agnostic. I had stubbed my toe on God.

This is not Graowf's personal coming-to-faith testimony. This is simply a turning point in my understanding of what it means to be. I woke up to the realization that without God, existence is a paradox. Once I opened the door to the possibility of Deity, the door to art swung wide as well. Why? I'm going to tell you.

If I find beauty in a green meadow in summer, or find beauty in the sparkle of sunlight on a running creek, or find beauty in the particular shade of blue in the sky today (it's actually gray, but you get the point), what have I found? I have found a personal, subjective appreciation of something my senses perceive. Beauty has no practical use. It cannot be analyzed and theorized. What makes one dandelion more attractive than another dandelion just next to it? I might say one thing, you might disagree, choosing the first over my favorite for entirely different reasons. Regardless, my pet true dog can't appreciate "beauty" at all. She hasn't the capacity. Neither can the bees that feed on the dandelion, nor the birds that fly over it, nor the deer that run by it, nor the cows that poop on it. That I find it beautiful contributes nothing to my survival. So why is it beautiful? You might give me some reason involving pleasure centers of the brain and neurotransmitters, but it's still a pointless evolutionary adaptation. There is no material explanation for "beauty". The beautiful is beautiful simply because it was made to be beautiful, and I can say that it is beautiful because I was made to be able to appreciate the beauty of that which is made.

Do you see? Beauty is an end unto itself, and the appreciation of beauty is woven into what it means to be human (even if we are just part human hybrids ^v^). I could, in fact, present a theological hypothesis as to why it is our highest calling, but I won't do THAT here, either (maybe another journal someday).

The point is that the seeds of an awakening were planted.

Sometime after college, I knew I had to put the conflict between programmer and writer to rest, so I embarked upon an effort to make a definitive commitment to one or the other. Primarily for practical reasons (I was, by then, married with one tiny pup), I chose to continue my computer programming career path.

I'm extremely good at commitments and resolutions. "Loyalty" is, after all, a hallmark of the reputation of certain species of canids. I put the writer to sleep (mostly), and strangely, when I did that, I also put the inner animal to sleep -- werewolves ceased to hold the old fascination, nature became a thing I was content to pave if it meant I didn't have to try to grow a pretty lawn. I had no desire to go camping or take hikes any more. But animals, when they sleep, relive in dreams their waking hours, and they kick and whimper and whine. When I tumbled into the abyss of my midlife crisis and shattered on the rocks and jagged stressors lying at the bottom, I was, in one sense, laid open, and the animal has jarred awake. And it was well-rested. It will not go back to sleep. The old conflict rose again with it, but now times have changed. Now an opportunity to make a career change looms on the horizon. A second chance is imminent in less than 10 years. There are risks, but they are not terribly great, yet I have a family for which I am the sole bread-winner to think about: my mate and 8 pups who will share with me any risks I choose to take. I make decisions not just for myself, but for 10. Yet, I must also be true to myself, must seek to discern what I am called to do and be, and if I missed my calling the first time around or found it, or if I am only infatuated with a delusion of other possibilities. It's odd to have lived confidently and mastered a way of life and work and then suddenly to turn 90 degrees and begin again.

For the first time in decades, maybe in my entire life, I feel a little lost and often find myself restless.

Thus, I am brooding.

But I am not unhappy in my brooding. Life is all part of a Great Adventure, and finding my part in it, and playing my part in it, and observing others experiencing their parts in it, are what make it exciting. So, lost, restless, brooding, excited, I can wag my tail as I marvel in a kind of epic contentment through all its majestic infinity.

This is Graowf.

Graowf's collected writing tips, pointers, reminders, and tools: http://wolf.ishly.me/write-minded/

I've been writing short stories, poetry, and even a couple of false starts on novels for many, many years, since I was in my early teens. Until recently, I've never considered it more than hobby nor have I considered making any more than a hobby of it. However, within the last couple of years, I've begun to seriously consider a career change and make it more than a hobby.

A good breaking point (if a career change is what I decide to do) opportunity will come in exactly seven years. So, I am taking coming years to seriously develop my skill as a writer and see where it carries me. The more I learn, the more I realize how much of an amateur I am, which is fine, and actually quite welcome. There is nothing more debilitating to a novice of anything than the hubris of deluded self-aggrandizement. Humility, I have learned, is pretty much the only route to greatness.

Now, I've found scattered lessons and pointers all over the place, and I tried to keep them in mind, but really, I should know better: (1) I can't remember everything, and (2) one really can't consciously think about more than one thing at a time. I personally need little lists and reminders to keep me on track. So, the other day I started collecting together what I found to be the most useful tidbits from here, there, and everywhere, as well as a few found only in the confused heap of gewgaws and whatnots inside my own mind.

I decided I'd post it all to my blog for easy reference for me anywhere, as well as in the hopes it might be of some use to other novice writers out there. So, without further adieu, because I've adieued enough, here is a link for those interested: http://wolf.ishly.me/write-minded/

You have all probably heard that Leonard Nimoy died today. I am strangely affected by the death of any of the main cast of the original Star Trek series. I think it is because that series figured so prominently in my childhood. It's an eerie, creepy feeling to watch those you admired (even if you really only admired the characters they portrayed) as a child age and pass away. As kids we tend to believe we are immortal, and that those we look up to are immortal. As we get older, our mortality begins to dawn on us, and it becomes most poignant, I think, at middle-age (and, I'm sure, beyond) when the world of our youth -- both ourselves and what we knew -- begins to wrinkle and sag and gray.

It is not until I am confronted with the power of death and decay that I realize the power the world of my youth had and continues to have over me. "Oh, be careful little eyes what you see .... Oh, be careful little ears what you hear ...." is so very prudently wise, even portentious, and a warning as sagacious as the tale of "The Spider and the Fly".

I'm not saying Star Trek was a bad influence, or I should have avoided it, I'm just saying once something enters the mind, it is nigh impossible to make it leave, and what enters the mind, enters the soul. What enters the soul effects who we are.

Leonard Nimoy did live long, and by almost any account, seems to have prospered. May we all be so fortunate.

---

Good grief ... if I had that reaction to Nimoy's death, what will happen to me when Shatner beams out?

For the religious amongst you, especially the Catholics, and/or the Johnny Cash fans, check out this little blog post:
https://coffeecatholic.wordpress.co.....hnny-cash-lent

For those interested in how I made my sockpaws (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15663897/), here is a VERY QUICK blog thing I did about it:
http://wolf.ishly.me/2015/02/26/how.....e-my-sockpaws/

There's a link in that post to a page with a description and pictures.

Here's something that has plagued me for awhile now: voice when writing fictional narrative in the 1st person. It plagues me because most (actually, all I've met, myself included) when telling you (orally) a story about themselves are hardly good storytellers, hardly poetic, hardly masters of oratory or literary form. A lot of people (maybe most) don't even write about events of their own lives that way. So, I never know, when writing a fictional piece in the 1st person, how to voice it. It is particularly troublesome when the narrator is not a writer -- say he's an auto mechanic who flunked every English class he took (I'm not saying auto mechanics aren't capable writers or anything, I just picked that occupation out of a hat, so don't flame me). Does my auto mechanic say, "The stars splattered across the dark velvet sky overhead reflected fragile crystals in her eyes as I cradled the limp corpse of her puppy in my arms. I struggled to understand how I'd hold her with my arms full of her love before her stars shattered into tears." Or does he say, "It was dark and I was holdin' her dead puppy and I thought she was gonna' cry, and I felt like I was gonna' to cry, too, but I didn't know what to do, my arms bein' full of the dead dog and all."

This is why I rarely write in the 1st person: I always hit a point that really calls for stars splattered across a dark velvet sky, but all I feel the character would notice is holdin' her dead puppy.

I was inspired to write about this because I just bumped into a short story written in the first person and the narrator says, "He must have seen many men squirming helplessly, couples rowing, women crying." Maybe he's a writer by profession, maybe not -- we don't learn that in the story. But, really it is probably safe to assume he is not. "Couples rowing"? Who says that? I'm not even sure what it means in this context: fighting or backpedaling.

Anyway, that's just one example. The narrator says other things rich expressions I just can't see most people saying or writing things. I got yanked right out of the story and said out loud, "Who says stuff that way?!"

So, what do you think about use of language in 1st person narrative stories?

Last night I dreamed about furries frolicking on a zipline

There are only about 100 Red Wolves left in the wild IN THE WORLD, and those are only there because of 28 years of work by the Red Wolf Recovery Project. Now the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission wants the federal government to end the program AND remove the wild wolves from the wild.

This is what the NCWRC says they are about on their web site: "The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is the state government agency created by the General Assembly in 1947 to conserve and sustain the state’s fish and wildlife resources ...."

So, yes, really: the NC guardians of wildlife, who can boast they have the only wild red wolves in the world living in their state want to remove the only wild red wolves in the world from the wild and end the only effort underway to restore this animal to the wild in its native habitat.

Here's a news report: http://www.wcti12.com/news/nc-commi.....ogram/31120746

Here's a note about helping to voice your support for the program to the fed:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?.....52635211803144

Here's a note about making your voice heard by the NCWRC -- before Feb 17 (their next meeting): https://www.facebook.com/redwolfcoa.....52635831148144

So, not having the creative writers training background, I frequently discover things I suspect many writers have known for a long time, but are new to me. I lament not, for discovering what others already know is part of mastering a craft.  FeiOna mentioned Flash Fiction Friday in a recent journal entry and I think it is such a delightful sounding idea that I've put it down as a Friday task. The idea is to whip out a fictional work (in a single sitting, so to speak) and make it public in its raw form.

I've written things like that and they are either buried away or I've gone back and refined, rewritten, and revised to polish them up, but the greatest joy was in the initial sitting, the creative ecstasy of the thing demanding manifestation materializing into the world. My life-mate is reading Dorothy Sayers "Mind of the Maker" and I'm itching to get my paws on it when she finishes it. I read a passage where Sayers expounds upon the need for the thing being made to come into the world, and how it is a nearly irresistible urging for the writer. I know the feeling. It is the ecstasy of saying "yes" to the idea and then watching as the idea takes physical form through your hand -- sometimes as if you aren't even thinking it, as if you are merely part of the medium, a puppet, the strings of which are held by the concept itching to be known. There is a joy in making that knows no equal save the touch of the Divine.

I think that an exercise that gives me the permission to announce "it is finished" after the last period on the first draft would do me some good. I may not always be able to do my FFF task on Friday, but the goal would be to get in a flash fiction exercise sometime during the week. Of course FA will suffer the consequences, but you won't have me to blame: I didn't invent the idea, I'm merely part of its manifestation.

My brief review of HabitRPG -- online task tracker turned role-playing game:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15623999/

So, just a little sample: I took some damage from several daily tasks I couldn't get to over the weekend, so I just went around using my Backstab skill on several crib tasks and accumulated a bunch of experience points to put me just a day, maybe two from leveling up again and regaining all my health.

Yeah, it goes like that ....

I knew going into this month that it would be busy, creative strain. In addition to my full-time job, I had several projects with end-of-the-month deadlines that I started the first of the month:
- design and make fox sock paws before Feb 6
- write a story response the FA Writers January prompt before Jan 31
- write a story to enter a Glimmer Train contest before Jan 31
- write HRPG review before Jan 31
- determine spring garden and order seeds before Feb 1
- work on my Tereathon story. No deadline, but this one is so much fun it won't let me leave it alone!

Well, I am happy to say that I have one sock paw almost complete and the second following close behind; finished and submitted the FA Writers story (you can see it in my gallery here if you want); the Glimmer Train entry is drafted and in rewrite/final edit.

I should be able to knock out the HRPG review in less than a day.

The last item is a self-imposed deadline that can be extended a week or two, but I might be able to drive a nail in that one's coffin as well before Feb.

I can't let go of the Tereathon story for more than a day without it crowding its way into my brain until I lurch out a few pages, so it has to be in there whether I want it to or not.

So, my creator side is pretty sore from the exertion and exercise, but it's a good soreness, to be sure!

We were made in the image of our Creator, which means we were made with a drive to create and invent. When we pursue that drive, especially in virtue, we are energized and find wholeness. It's a great sensation!

Take a look at these travel posters when considering your next exoplanet vacation destination ....
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/media_categories?category=6&type=images

I may be a little scarce for the next few days .... Leaving work early for a romp in the forest before a 3-day weekend with several obligations on the calendar.

Have a great weekend everyone!

OK -- confession time .... I'm generally a rather asocial (which is NOT the same as anti-social) individual, and most social media platforms make my stomach churn. Maybe its because at 8 non-fox years old I've been around the block a few times and I'm getting cynical and bitter.

But I have to say THIS community, THIS social network is cut from a different cloth. I've really appreciated it and and enjoyed it today. Thanks you all!

So a waitress at a restaurant I frequent for lunch told me about this dinosaur costume that has been used in various pranks. It's pretty amazing, but not as amazing as where it led me. Here's one video of the prank costume:
http://youtu.be/Oo19imJWN_M

but don't bother. What you really want to see is this one I found from looking at that one:
http://youtu.be/60jKp-yoaV4

PaperMate Inkjoy pens are a joy to write with, but don't seem to contain much ink.

Working on a couple of crafting projects, January FA Writers prompt, and a short fiction for a Glimmer Train contest, so may not be submitting anything for a bit longer while I work on those.