Author Archives: Eugie Foster

Swag and skunk tail

By | |
8 Comments

Hah. As soon as I start complaining about a lack of swag, the boxes start rolling in. Six boxes on our doorstep, some of which contain nifty freebies like t-shirts and movie tickets, and some which contain *ahem* not-so-nifty freebies. And the dining room has once again acquired a cluttered appearance. Trade-offs.

I don’t think the FedEx guy likes us. He doesn’t even ring the doorbell to announce his deliveries anymore. He just plops them on our doorstep and runs off.

In other news, I’m debating whether we need to give Hobkin a bath. What’s triggering this conundrum is that I, err, dropped a dollop of whipped cream on him. I cleaned off most of it, but there’s a patch of fur on his tail which is sticking up funny now.

   


Writing Stuff

Been working on my talk for Ann Crispin. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions. I have, ye verily, incorporated them into my lecture. I also ran through it several times last night (poor fosteronfilm had to listen to me), and after just a few trial runs, my throat went dry and my voice started going. Sheesh. Apparently it’s a good thing I’m starting to practice early. I need to limber up my underused vocal chords. Also updated my handout of useful URLs. Most depressing, several of the pro markets that were on my list last year have either folded or gone on indefinite hiatus. Just doing a quick glance over the market listing I keep handy, a ridiculously large number of my favored markets are closed–both pro and semi-pro. The current state of viable short fiction venues is not good, although there are new ones sprouting–like Son & Foe, Farthing, and Aeon. Still, sigh.

Writing Stuff

By | |
37 Comments

Ann Crispin called last night asking me to reprise my “The Secret to Having your Short Fiction Published” guest lecture for her Beginner Writers workshop at Dragon*Con. So now my tentative D*C guest schedule looks like this:

  • Thursday noon – Ann Crispin’s Beginner Writers workshop, "The Secret to Having your Short Fiction Published."
  • Friday 9/2, 8:30PM – "Censorship: Who should decide what’s appropriate for kids or teens to read?"  With Kathleen David, Jo Sherman, and Todd McCaffrey.
  • Saturday 9/3, 1:00PM – "So, You Want to Write a Kid's Book."  With Kathleen David, Jo Sherman, Donita K. Paul, and Paul Alan Gratz.
  • Saturday 9/3, 8:30PM – "Fairy Tales: Not Made for Children."  With Dennis Keppel, Heidi Heiner, and Jo Sherman.
  • Sunday 9/4, 10:00AM – "Urban Fantasy and Faeries. " With Phil Brucato, Scott Haven, and Jo Sherman

Oof. Busy schedule. I may need to beg out of one of these so I can attend my DC2K writers group annual reunion dinner. ‘Cept I don’t know what day that’s been scheduled for yet.

I was looking over my notes from the talk I did last year for Ann, and I’d like to update the content, but I’m not sure what I should add. So here’s a shiny poll for all you writers out there:

Trying to hold off the obligatory panic attack at the notion of speaking in public, but I feel the sharp anxiety claws beginning to dig in. Gleep.

In other, non-panic-attack-inciting news, I had a very good sales day yesterday.
56-day SALE to the Thou Shalt Not anthology–my second to this project. Very pleased ’bout this as I wrote both flash stories expressly for it.
63-day SALE to the premiere issue of Fantasy Magazine, slated to debut at the World Fantasy Convention in November. It promises to be a beautiful production. Here’s a mock-up of the cover:

Weekend update and hubby birthday

By | |
17 Comments

Whew, what a weekend! Dragon*Con director’s meeting on Saturday was good. Did a lot of pow-wowing and gabbing. And Joe, the Con Suite director, plied me with many yummy chocolates. Joe gives me candy and caffeine. I love Joe. But I can’t believe how soon the convention is. Prep has ramped into “frantic” mode.

A bit surprised at the lack of swag (sorry, arkhamrefugee, it’s looking to be a thin year). The posters have been going straight to the D*C office, but so far the movie companies haven’t come through with the t-shirts, baseball caps, and CDs like they did last year. Humph. Glad to have my dining room free, but I liked some of the booty.

Yesterday went to the Georgia Big Pictures “Navigating the Film Festival Circuit” seminar where fosteronfilm sounded off on what film festivals look for in submissions and pimped the DCI Film Fest. glenn5 came by, much to my delight, to partake of the seminarie fun. I need to get my hubby out more. He gets such a charge from speaking in public, and I’m a quiet type and don’t typically hold up my end of the conversation. If I did what he did, I’d be hoarse and twitching, a total basket case, but he loves it. He’s really a born teacher.

And today is my hubby’s birthday! Everyone wish fosteronfilm a Happy Birthday! I made a chocolate cream pie, his favorite. And this time when I take the candles out, I will make sure not to drop any on the floor for opportunistic skunks to snarf.

Such a sketchy entry for so much going on, but I don’t have time for more. Rush rush rush.

   


Writing Stuff

As if. I doubt I’ll have time for any writing until after the convention. I fell off the Club 100 For Writers bandwagon. Again. Grrr argh. And I’ve been too busy doing D*C stuff to even fret about it.

Kind Hearts, book vending machines, and car trouble, oh my!

By | |
14 Comments

Had a lovely dinner with Glenn5 last night. Home baked veggie pot pie and beer bread, and a crisp white zinfandel (courtesy Glenn) to wash it down. And cupcakes a la Glenn for dessert. I was a bit perplexed at the beer bread. I had to leave it in the oven for an extra fifteen minutes and the middle was still a bit doughy. Weird. Perhaps I accidentally used too much beer? Or perhaps Killian’s Red is more temperamental than Guinness? Still yummy, though. Also watched Kind Hearts and Coronets, which Glenn hadn’t encountered before. We’re big fans of Sir Alec Guinness. There’s a certain sadness that he’s best known for his role in the Star Wars movies rather than the wealth of excellent work he did prior to them.

In amusing news of the world, Paris has started stocking vending machines for books so you can assuage your literary fix 24/7. If you have an emergency need to acquire Alice in Wonderland at 3AM in Paris, and all the bookstores are closed, you can pop out to a vending machine! And they were clever enough to make a gentle delivery method in lieu of the *plummet clunk* that candy bars receive. How cool is that?

In less amusing, non-news-of-the-world, the battery on our second car is kaput. We tried to jump it using our first car, but either the battery is really dead, or we’re incapable of using a set of jumper cables. Even though I’m not ruling out the latter, since I am the first to admit my ineptitude with anything involving vehicular innards, I’m betting on the former, since we could occasionally get enough of a charge for it to make a forlorn “rrr rrr” rather than the usual time-to-write-the-eulogy “click click click.” So it seems we need to replace the battery. fosteronfilm and I talked it over, and we decided it would make the most sense to simply drop the second car from our insurance and registration, at least until we have need of a second vehicle again, instead of shelling out the bucks to tow it to a shop and get it fixed. It’s quite sad. fosteronfilm is very fond of “his” car. It’s a pretty, white Honda Prelude from when they made them sporty and sleek. It’s also a little worrisome because if one of us gets into trouble while running errands, the other can’t come riding to the others’ aid. But I guess having an “emergency car” really wasn’t sensible, financially speaking.

Also finally got a call back from my doctor. We agreed to back off my increased Prozac dose. Thank goodness. The queasy headaches were getting old. So I’m back down to 40mg/day. And hey, according to a recent Psychology Today article, depression may be a font of creative inspiration. Or something . . .

Today’s the last 2005 Dragon*Con director’s meeting. I keep thinking there’s something I need to do or bring for it, but I can’t remember what.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
8-day “While we found this story to be worthy of a second look, we ultimately decided it’s not quite what we’re looking for” from Lenox Avenue with a “we do hope you’ll try us again in the future” to soften the blow.
1-day “Although smooth and engaging” pass from ericmarin of Lone Star Stories with a “I welcome additional work from you” to let me know that although I was not a winner this time, I should try again.

Trivia

By | |
9 Comments

Went out last night to play trivia with britzkrieg and rigel_kent. I’m not sure if britzkrieg will ever let us live down that we outvoted her on the “how many years must an animal not be sighted in order to be declared extinct?” question Of course, she was right. (The answer is “50.”) Yet, despite foolishly second-guessing her, our team, dubbed “Jerry’s Kids,” came in second. Much fun was had. Smoky fun (*cough*), but still fun. And I totally glomped on rigel_kent‘s bleu cheese potato chips.

This weekend is stacking up to be rather busy. Tonight, glenn5 is swinging by to hang and partake of food. Tomorrow is the last 2005 Dragon*Con director’s meeting. And Sunday, Matthew is going to be a speaker at the “Navigating the Film Festival Circuit” seminar run by the Georgia Big Picture Conference folks on Sunday.

And I’m still feeling rather blah. I’m thinking these are definitely side effects. If it was a flu, I’d have spiked a fever by now. So the nausea and tension headache should go away in a week or so. But that’s not terribly helpful for the right now.

   


Writing Stuff

Sold a Hungarian-language reprint of “All in My Mind” to Galaktika magazine. That brings my total of foreign languages I’ve been or will be translated into up to four: Greek, Polish, French, and now Hungarian. Coolness! Alas, Hungarian is another language not handled by Babelfish.

Mini reunion

By | |
13 Comments

Went out to eat with my high school buddy for dinner. He’s staying at a hotel right across the street from the Fox theater, so that was the area of food selection. Went to Mick’s hoping for their grilled portabello mushroom sandwich. Alas, that option has been removed from their menu, to be replaced by the not-nearly-as-yummy roasted veggie sandwich. Tipped off by the waiter that the replacement was rather rubbery and vile, we opted for the fried green tomatoes sammich, which while tasty, was no grilled portabello mushroom. Well fooie. That was one of my favorite food-item-between-two-slices-of-bread in town.

There was much chatting on various topics. And reminiscing, especially on the topic of people I have not thought upon for many, many years. It was fun, and quite surreal. I’m still dwelling on the experience and my reactions thereof.

   


Writing Stuff

Received the edits and approved them for “The Wiggly People” (in the Thou Shalt Not anthology). The editor informs me that he plans to send the contract out this weekend. If I recall correctly, this one is also a “pay on acceptance” so perhaps money may be forthcoming shortly. That would be nice.

Also found out that the Embark to Madness anthology with my story “Perfidious Beauty” in it is out. Hurray! Now to begin the when-is-my-contrib-copy-going-to-come? dance. For anyone interested in purchasing this lovely tome, it’s available from Amazon.com for the low, low price of $12.95.

Blast from the past and Quills

By | |
4 Comments

Going out to dinner tonight with a friend of mine from high school. Haven’t seen him in decades although we’ve exchanged emails. It’s made me all nostalgic and maudlin. High school was a profoundly significant time for me, where I established the rudimentary basis of my personality and value systems. In many key and essential ways, I haven’t changed since then–my most closely-held beliefs and ideals are the same. It was also a time of extreme emotional upheaval and turmoil with extreme lows, balanced by times where I grew into myself, learned who I was and who I wanted to become.

   


Writing Stuff

I voted in the Quills. If you haven’t, you should too. It’s a new national book award that includes readers in the award process. I wish there’d been more genre options, but I think it’s great to have anything which honors strong writing and good books. Go Vote!

50 to 100 user pics?

By | |
13 Comments

LiveJournal seems to have increased the number of paid user icons from 50 to 100! One-hundred! I hadn’t even filled up the 50 I had before. It’s very nice of them and all, but I think it would have been nicer to increase the number of user pix that came with a paid account from 15 to 25 or better yet, throw the free accounts a bone and give them a couple more.

‘Course, now that I have space for one-hundred icons, I had to make more. To while away the insomniac hours, I fiddled about with this doll/fairy-making program that faerie_writer introduced to me. A fun way to suck away several hours:

Hobkin’s being a total sweetie. I think he knows I’m not feeling well. He’s pressed up against my side, oozing comfort and fuzzy love. Think I’ll hug him for a while and try to nap.

   


Writing Stuff

Did a couple Critters critiques. This hasn’t been a good week for writing progress. I feel like I should have my wrists smacked or something. Bad Eugie.

Side effects and other fun and games

By | |
5 Comments

Oof. It don’t rain but it deluges. This time, I’m not talking about our backyard, but the state of the human suit. Headache mowed me down last night, then the pills I took to alleviate the thundering in my skull made me sick to my stomach. Lovely. Whoever designed my carapace should be severely reprimanded. Sloppy work, I tells you. Sloppy! To top it off, probably from the caffeine in the headache pills or whatever stimulant that goes with Sudafed, I can’t sleep–which is why I’m futzing about on LJ at 4:45AM.

I wonder if I’m getting side-effects from the recent increase in my Prozac. Headaches and queasy are pretty common SSRI effects, as is insomnia for that matter. Doesn’t make me feel any better, but it would explain some of it.

BLAAAAHHHHH.

Gearing up for Dragon*Con

By | |
19 Comments

When I close my eyes, I see Dragon*Con bios. Woo. That’s a lot of guests/performers/artists. Zounds. Happily, the bulk of it has been edited now. I can’t believe how close D*C is. Gleep.

Wingstubs are still displeased. Stupid arms.

   


Writing Stuff

Alas, “Running on Two Legs” didn’t make the short list for the British Fantasy Award. Ah well, it was a long shot anyway. It was a honor being nominated, blah blah etc.

Received a 38-day “It’s a great story but not for us . . . please do think of us in the future” from Son and Foe after a query.

And also a 49-day Sale of “The Wiggly People” to the Thou Shalt Not anthology from Dark Cloud Press. Hurray! They’ve got another of my stories still under consideration too.