All Posts by BarbaraEllinFox

There are so many creatives in my family and extended family that if you can’t design, make, or at least improve a project someone’s liable to ask you for a DNA sample. This goes for cooking, sewing, painting, building you name it. My older sister was even an award winning silversmith.  So when almost thirty […]

Imagine you’re sitting in your seat at the Dallas Fort Worth airport on your connecting flight for ACFW Conference in San Antonio. The flight is so full that they’ve committed your carry on luggage to checked bags. You’re assigned seat is B the middle. Seat C on the aisle is filled, and A, the window […]

A Heart Surrendered by Joy K. Massenburge is so much more than a romance. Sharonda Peterson’s life doesn’t belong to her. Her life belongs to her mother, her father, her church, and soon it will belong to Brice, an up and coming pastor candidate whose real reason for choosing Sharonda is he wants boy babies […]

A Sweet Small-Town Romance Erin Dearborn finds her solitude and creative expression weaving beautiful baskets from natural material. It’s a hobby she keeps for herself and the people closest to her. Her confidence and self esteem have been destroyed by an abusive husband who took out his inadequacies on his wife. When Erin meets Kent […]

My first experience with wild horses came more than 20 years ago in Arizona when I worked with a horse whisperer who caught wild horses off the Hopi reservation. Steve Harris also trained BLM mustangs, both fresh and spoiled, and difficult domestic horses. Cowboy Steve Steve was a working cowboy for 25 years on ranches […]

December first naturally brings with it the guilt that I have yet to decorate our Christmas tree. Decorating the tree produces a little bit of stress. There are two people in my family who embrace decorating the tree, and I’m one of them. The other? Well, the year she was in England during Christmas, I decorated […]

A recent afternoon at a rodeo planted Willie Nelson’s song “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” firmly in my brain. Early Cowboys Growing up glued to the T.V. watching Roy Rogers, My Friend Flicka, and Fury, along with every western that came out of Hollywood, I was sold on cowboy heroes from an early age. […]

Who doesn’t love to read a new Christmas story? I look forward all year for the Christmas Read season to begin. And I love Christmas With the Cowboy, Tina Radcliffe’s latest edition to the Big Heart Ranch series. This story is like one big family reunion and so much fun. A cowboy Scrooge is in […]

God’s reckless love carried me through my first ACFW conference in Nashville. Not only did He open all the financial doors for me to attend, He assured me this was the year I should treat my writing as a business. God Does Things in His Own Time There are days I feel as if I’ll […]

Knowing how to talk about the size of a horse might seem like a mundane topic but a writer should know certain trigger words because their incorrect use is a dead giveaway to horse lovers.Where to measureHorses are measured from the withers to the ground by hands. The red line in my parts of the horse […]

Recently I did a presentation called “Horses for Writers” for  my local ACFW chapter.  As I prepared, I was amazed at the amount of basic  equestrian terminology require for historical fiction. Horses were used for everything and a life without an equine meant less progress, less food, less travel, and more work. Writers of contemporary […]

In 1969, before there were certifications for riding instructors, I graduated from a riding program in Maryland, certified to teach riding and train horses. The program was tough, backed by the Maryland Department of Education and the British Horse Society. In my class were students taking their final exam for fifth and sixth times. People […]

Organic Writing Organic writing is described as ‘seat of the pants’ writing where story falls out of the pen possibly leading down the dark halls of no return.  Adversaries claim the writer dives in and searches for story structure as they go. This opposes advocates of story structure, or architecture, for which the writer develops […]

I live by plans, whether it is the future with the horses, teaching riding, training, or writing. I have a plan for everything, my horses, my manuscripts, both fiction and non-fiction. Teaching Riding When teaching riding, I have a plan for the day’s lesson, but I also have a long range plan for each student. […]

Horse whisperers learn to recognize and reward “try.” What is “Try” “Try” is the smallest, sometimes almost imperceptible, effort the horse makes to do what you ask. It may be as big as a change of direction or as small as a sigh, a twitch of an ear, a change of the eye, or a […]

Have you ever considered how addicting the hunger for time is? We cannot influence how much time we’re given, yet it’s one of our most precious gifts. The wealthiest person in the world cannot buy more of time, in terms of amount, than you or I can. How we use our time is up to […]

When I was a kid and wanted to learn to ride, I spent hours practicing not just for a summer but year after year. I took lessons riding any horse available, went to summer camp, competed in horse shows, and read everything I could get my hands on. I practiced continuously. Then over the years […]

I just finished book two in Terri Blackstock’s most recent If I Run series. I reread the first book titled If I Run, so I’d be up to speed for If I’m Found.   I’ve read several other series by Terri Blackstock and have felt my time was well spent on each one. I like her clear, […]

What’s in a Name? I’ve mentioned in my post Horse Whisperer, What Does it Mean? the label horse whisperer was glamorized by the 1998 movie based on a book by Nicholas Sparks. But my research showed that Sparks’ depiction of horse whisperer had flaws. There are a lot of labels that dance around this type […]

I spent the day working with my Pinterest boards in preparation for writing a post about how I use this media for writing. While I waited for my computer to reboot (more than once) I also finished reading A Cry for Independence written by Joy K. Massenburge. Now you all know that writing book reviews […]

If you like horses and cowboys (and cowgirls) you’ll enjoy Tina Radcliffe’s new book, Falling for the Cowgirl. But cowgirls and horses are not the only attractive parts of the story. Falling for the Cowgirl, is book two in the Big Heart Ranch series. Big Heart Ranch is a home where disadvantaged kids can have […]

While I am writing each day, a myriad of unresolved questions swarm my mind. Should I pursue traditional publishing? What about Indy? Should I continue to enter contests? How soon should I tell people about my stories? I have to tell you—there are a lot of questions. Another question is when should I tell my […]

Reno is my BLM mustang who was captured by the government during the horrendous Calico round-up in Northern Nevada. In fact, his HMA (herd management area) Granite Range is the setting for my current work in progress. Over time I’ll tell you Reno’s whole story starting with his capture, but for now I’ll tell you […]

In the 2007 movie “Wild Hogs” four middle aged suburban men take a motorcycle road trip to California on a search to find themselves. Along the way the four biker wannabes get into a mess of trouble when they run into the Del Fuego motorcycle gang whom they believe are the ‘real deal.’ The wannabes […]

Morning in the barn is a favorite time for me. I love the sounds and the interaction with the animals. Hoping to find a way to share my blessings with you, I took photos and recorded sound this morning. If you’d like to listen to the birds while you read this post, just click on […]

 When did I first love horses? Not exactly a burning question for anyone other than myself, but every now and then, when I survey the Missouri farm and multiple horses in the pasture, I wonder—How did this happen? My Home I grew up on Long Island. That’s the skinny island that sort of looks like a fish […]

Capi is a 17.1 hand Percheron horse who weighs 1850 pounds.  That means he’s one inch taller at his withers (front part of his back) than I am at the top of my head, and he weighs more than eight times what NFL Quarterback Tom Brady weighs. I’m pretty sure this is the only time […]

Has desperation ever driven you to try something new? When you’re well educated in your field and you’ve been at your craft for a long time it’s easy to become skeptical of new methods. That’s the way I was about horse whisperers twenty-five plus years ago until a situation put me at a point of […]

As writers we are told to discover or determine our character’s worst fear. Is she afraid of losing someone? Losing a job? Sickness? Losing her life? I had difficulty pinpointing just one worst fear for the protagonist in my first manuscript. Certainly she was fearful for her daughter’s safety but her daughter was only part […]

Being labeled a horse whisperer has not always been good for the person or the horse. In the 17th century there was a possibility that a person caught speaking to animals would be accused of witch craft, something that did not usually end well. The Following is an excerpt from J.S. Rarey’s Art of Taming […]

I’m excited to share that Remember Not is a finalist in The North Texas Romance Writers of America Chapter Great Expectations Writing Contest 2018. This is our first contest entry for 2018 in the inspirational category. The process of entering was easy and the contest coordinator, Amanda Byrd, is super helpful. Why Do I Enter Contests? […]

What is a Dressage Test? A dressage test is a performance done by a horse and rider. There is a prescribed pattern during which the rider and horse perform certain movements. A judge with the benefit of a scribe scores each movement, makes comments, and at the end the scores are tallied and the winner […]

Rather than computer games or TV, reading is my entertainment, and I become frustrated when I can’t find a book to crawl into for a terrific adventure. I’d caught up on the latest releases of my favorite authors and had numerous other books that were either boring or had simple plots. Outside of Christian fiction […]

Writing the end should be a peak among peaks for a writer but the problem with mountains is they rise out of valleys. The highs and lows for a writer. I was with Rylie when the world tried to gobble up a naïve Pollyanna. We lived through her horrible college experience and crushing demoralization. Rylie […]

Time is suspended between Christmas and the New Year. It’s intended for dreaming, reorganization, evaluation.  Since it’s part of the holiday season, pressure is off, most deadlines are met—until January 1 when it begins again. New, but… Shirley E. Gould’s interesting ACFW blog What Hindered You? got my mind on a roll. Paul wrote about the […]

I Choose to Laugh There are days that I sit back and laugh (yes out loud) at myself, because crying would be just plain dumb. Besides, I never feel better when I cry. My writing journey has been a path of adventure with periodic highs and plenty of opportunities to stumble. I’m firmly committed to […]

I’ve been diligently working on a book proposal to send to prospective literary agents. This, I can tell you, is no small undertaking. One of the larger stumbling blocks in this project is book comparison. Book comparison? If my book was like someone else’s, why would I even write it? I’ve spent a couple of […]

This web site and I have been at a stand-off while I consider how to start the first blog post. And then I thought, why not? I’ll go first and tell you a little about me. Then maybe you’ll tell me about yourself. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m no stranger to blogging.  I’ve […]

The view from my office window says it’s one of those gloomy sorts of days. Cloudy. Not with white puffy clouds that make you happy but with the grey ones, lacking shape, moving quickly across the sky. The weather app on my phone says 43 agrees. Later it will be 60. No rain.  The app […]