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Some Artwork And A Tale

Jane here! The characters in Because Of The Red Fox have a life of their own (as you may guess from Shell, Santa, and Annie’s posts)! Today I’m going to share with you a drawing I created of a few characters: The Green Knight, The Hunter (who may or may not appear in this book, though I did mention him in an early chapter), and a Hound.

I’m also connecting you with a story about some of the characters that my daughter and I created for a Summer Solstice blogfest last year. Just so you know, Yeasta is a character from my daughters’ games. Lady Magic is my favorite doll from when I was a little girl. Back then I called her “Baby Magic”, but a few years ago I made new clothes for her out of deerskin and fancied her up with some of my fun jewelry. I guess you might say that Baby Magic grew up to become Lady Magic, Queen of the Forest!

All the stuff about losing one’s head is from a very long poem from medieval England called Sir Gawain And The Green Knight. In that poem, the Green Knight shows up in King Arthur’s hall on Christmas Eve and challenges the heroes to a beheading game: one knight gets to try to chop off the Green Knight’s head. If he succeeds, then in a year, that knight has to go to the Green Knight’s chapel in a distant wilderness, and there the Green Knight gets deliver his beheading blow. Some game!

Here’s the link to the tale of Lady Magic And The Green Knight.

It’s a little odd, but I hope you enjoy it!

The Hunter, A Hound, And The Green Knight
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Notice From Jane

Hello, dear Readers!

Well, I don’t have a new Leaf for you. Here’s the latest on the book.

For quite some time I’ve pictured the book as being a novel mingled with comic art — really, as being a graphic novel. I love to create artwork, but it takes me quite awhile to do so. I kept shelving the idea, kept plugging away at my rewrite. But the idea has kept tugging at me. I just had this feeling the novel could really come alive if I had the comic art. The comic art could really be a nice ‘container’ for some of the craziness — it could just be depicted largely in pictures and not in words.

Well, this morning I was pondering another puzzle I had (an idea regarding something else entirely that came to me in a dream). A solution to that one appeared — shazam! — in my mind, something entirely different from what I’ve considered for a very long time. And in exploring that idea, I realized a solution to my comic art-in-my-book idea.

It’s an exciting idea, though a little scary — probably the best kind of idea to have!

So I’m going to redesign my book with this idea in mind, and see what emerges.

Thinking of it in this new way my resolve most if not all of the problems I’ve had with it.

I can’t really say anything more about my idea right now — it’s just too fresh and new, and I kind of need to wear it for awhile.

What I’m going to do is this:

I’m probably not going to post anymore of the story right now, but I will keep posting here on Fox Tales Fridays.

I’m not exactly sure what I’ll post — but it might be book recommendations, or comic art, or photo stories, or retellings of old tales, or …. something! Maybe Shell, Santa, and Annie will post. And I’ll post updates on the book too.

Okay?

Thank you for reading Fox Tales!

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From Annie: Gleep!

‘Tis me, Annie. Omigosh, here it is Saturday, and no Leaf! Jane wants me to tell you that the next installment will be up sometime this weekend.

Jane had a birthday a couple of days ago. Her family celebrated with sushi and roses. … oh, Santa’s yelling at me about something. I do too make sense!

Anyway, I think the Leaf is late because Jane has been having a birthday! And anyway, do check back by Sunday. She’ll have some good stuff up. I think!