Renee Carter Hall's Blog, page 13

Friday Finds: Video - "Urban Flipper"

Maybe I need to drop the "Friday" part of the "Friday Finds"... XD Anyway, have a fun light show:



In other news, the folks at Anthro Dreams are still putting the finishing touches on my novel By Sword and Star for a planned January release--more on that as things get set. I'm also polishing up my goals for 2012 (one of the unwritten ones is to update here a little more often and with a bit more depth and personal notes), and I've put in an application for one of Odyssey's online writing courses, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll get into that.

All for now...

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Friday Finds: Video - "Turn the World Around" + bonus :D

It's been a very long week, and therefore I'm watching Muppet Show and Sesame Street clips on YouTube. XD

Always loved this song...



(Count yourselves lucky -- this week's Friday Find could have been Bert and Ernie with "Dance Myself to Sleep."

...

Oh, what the heck.)




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Friday Finds: Video - Sesame Street Cat's Can

Video quality is atrocious, but you can still get the gist of this classic little cartoon that I first saw on Sesame Street:



Kind of the precursor to Simon's Cat, one might say. :)

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Updates...

Yeah, I missed the Friday Find again last week. >_< What can I say, I was too busy running around Staples on Black Friday buying toys. The good news is, I now have a Kindle (insert angelic choir here) and we saved a nice chunk of money on the new computer we figured we'd be forced to buy sometime within the next six months anyway (our current desktop being seven years old, out of slots for more RAM, and beginning to show its age in terms of speed).

In writing news -- or, more accurately, publishing news -- By Sword and Star, my first novel, continues to work its way down the road to release. The final touches are being put on the layout now, the cover art is in the works, and I'm looking forward to a several-year journey finally coming to a close and bringing the story to more than just the handful of beta readers.

As far as actual writing goes... well, I'm still trying to adjust my creative rhythms to my work schedule, and it's been slow going, especially when it gets dark so early and makes me feel like it's later than it really is. But I'm scribbling a few paragraphs here and there, hoping to make some December deadlines, and trying not to be too hard on myself when I don't get as much done as I'd like. By the time we're truly in the heart of winter and I can lie in front of the wood stove and write (if the cat hasn't already taken the best spot), I think I'll have found an equilibrium again.

That is, if I'm not reading books on my Kindle all the time. :p

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Friday Finds: Art - Baby mammoth costume by Beastcub

(Yes, it's technically Sunday, but oh, well.)

Though I've never had that much interest myself in the fursuiting (costuming) aspect of the furry fandom, I've been amazed by the quality of this designer's work for a while now -- especially the "quadsuits," made to be worn by someone on all fours using arm stilts. I was particularly impressed by this one, but the other videos are worth checking out as well.



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Friday Finds: Art - Year of the Rabbit art by Mark Villarreal

This week's Friday Find is... well, actually a whole gallery of works. Artist Mark Villarreal set up his own personal challenge to create a rabbit painting for every day of the Year of the Rabbit. So far he's at #167, posted back in July. I don't know if he's still plugging away at it or not, but even if the project doesn't get completed, some of the individual pieces are remarkably creative. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there could be so many ways of depicting the same basic animal -- but it's still marvelous to look through.

Go browse some bunnies:

http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/gallery/whiteafi/

Or sample some of my favorites:

http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/6081999/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/6031662/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5932824/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5890378/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5884140/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5661912/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5599480/
http://www.sfw.furaffinity.net/view/5280838/

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New story online: "Best of Breed"

My show name is Silver Willow, but he calls me Mina. The first two things I remember are my mother's scent and his.

Mina's feline charms win ribbons at the shows, but the titles she's awarded mean nothing to her beyond pleasing her human handler. When he's happy, so is she -- until betrayal breaks her world open and leaves her questioning who she really is.


My short story "Best of Breed" appears in the first issue of Allasso, a new magazine of anthropomorphic art and literature from Pink Fox Publications that's being published both online and in a print version. Volume 1, "Shame," just went live on the first of this month, and "Best of Breed" was the winner of this issue's Editor's Choice awards both for best story and best overall piece -- which is a bit ironic, given the setting of the story.

You can find the issue here:

http://pinkfoxpublications.net/allasso/shame/

(I should mention that "Best of Breed" does contain some mature themes and language, so I'd recommend it for older teens and up.)

As always, comments/discussion welcome, whether here, on the story's page, or privately. :)

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Friday Finds: Music - Coyote Run

This Friday, I'm sharing a Celtic rock band I've seen perform twice now. I think my favorite of their songs is still "Finnean's Dance," but that might be tied with several others. :)

http://www.coyoterun.com

(And yeah, I missed last Friday... was away from the computer all day, and then got hit with about 8 inches of wet snow Friday night, leading to a power outage all weekend. One of those times I'm glad we have a woodstove out here.)

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Friday Finds: Fiction - "A Dance To End Our Final Day" by Beth Cato

This week's find is a poignant bit of flash fiction by celestialgldfsh about a mother, her autistic son, and the end of the world.

http://www.everydayfiction.com/a-dance-to-end-our-final-day-by-beth-cato/

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Friday Finds: Video - "Bridge"

A fun little animated short showing what can happen when people are -- or aren't -- willing to work together. I don't know if the animator had any part of US politics in mind when this was made, but that's one of the interpretations that came to mind when I watched it. :)

"Bridge"

http://vimeo.com/27299211

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