Author Archives: Eugie Foster

Hobkin’s Third Anniversary

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It’s the three-year adoption anniversary of our skunk. Three years ago today we drove cross-country to Iowa to pick out a baby ball of fuzz to bring home. He slept in my arms for the whole drive back, and continues to sleep in my arms every night. Hobkin makes me laugh, helps put things into perspective when the world threatens to spiral out of control, and wedges his nose under my chin when I need someone soft and warm to hug.

To celebrate the occasion, I bought a carton of blueberries, fed him his favorite veggies along with the berry treats, and gave him a teeny taste of cherry pie. And when he got all tuckered out, I took pictures:

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Summer sickies

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Experiencing early AM insomnia. Blah.

I think fosteronfilm is coming down with a cold. We’ve been feeding him many zinc lozenges, and so far he hasn’t descended into the misery of sniffles and coughing, but he’s not well, the poor thing. We’ve also been taking the precaution of not letting him handle Hobkin’s food, because what we really don’t need is for everyone to start passing some summer bug around. Crossing my fingers that it doesn’t turn into a family-wide plague.

Hobkin’s also tearing around the house, demanding his breakfast. Probably just as glad I woke up on my own or he would’ve gotten me up.


Writing Stuff

After going through all the Critters suggestions and reading through my current draft of the folk tale, I felt a great wave of despair. So much to do! I could not possibly be up to the task. Realizing I wasn’t in a productive head space, I took a break. There was much iced coffee, and we baked a cherry pie for dessert. I hugged husband and skunk, and lo, the magic of caffeine and huggins made the world all better. I hammered out a big ole rewrite, addressing every point I was concerned about, did a final hard copy editing pass, and stuck a fork into it, well pleased with my efforts. Packaged up my submissions package and am going to swing by the post office (and bank) this morning before closing time. Fly little folk tale!

New words: Editing/rewriting. Many, many passes.

Club 100 For Writers
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Our own personal gateway to Faerie

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Our neighbors are very Steppford Wives when it comes to the ornamental horticulture in the subdivision. They get upset if people don’t edge their lawns and water them during dry spells; everything’s very homogeneously landscaped and tamed within an inch of its photosynthesized life. I prefer a more wilderness approach to flora. I suspect if our neighbors ever looked into our backyard, they’d be scandalized. fosteronfilm keeps the front and sides scrupulously mowed, and the walking bits of the back likewise sheered, but we have a section of our backyard that we let grow as it will. It’s hidden by a six foot privacy fence, so it shouldn’t bother any of our neighbors unless they’re being nosy (which I suspect happens). We love the secluded view it gives from our kitchen windows. The sylvan glade-esque ambiance makes it feel like we’re nestled in the middle of a deep forest. It’s a soothing vista that has inspired a number of my stories.

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Kinsey and Horror of Dracula

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Watched Kinsey last night. I studied the Kinsey Report in college and have always been impressed by the vision of Kinsey, the man. He revolutionized sex education, veritably invented sex research, and made great strides in understanding human sexuality. Having said that, I thought the movie was enjoyable, but on the sensationalistic side. I guess I would have been more interested in watching an actual documentary. Still, a palatable take on the man’s life. And Liam Nesson is yummy.

Also watched Horror of Dracula, the Hammer studios “classic.” fosteronfilm wanted to review it for his website. I giggled. ‘Nuff said.

In hindsight, it was an unusual double feature. Blame it on the vagaries of Netflix.

Haven’t heard back from either the head hunter or the interview folks from last week. Sigh. Sent my resume out to another flurry of job ops on Monster. I feel unloved.


Writing Stuff

Motivation and initiative levels bottomed out. I fell off the Club 100 bandwagon (and I haven’t exercised in ages either).

I started going through the Critters crits of my current folktale, but got daunted by the magnitude of the task. It’s on my “to do” list.

I could use a nice, juicy sale right about now. I need a writerly pick me up.

Skunk nose glasses

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Y’know what happens when you fall asleep so hard you forget to take your glasses off, while cuddling with a skunk? When you wake up, you get skunkie nose prints in your field of vision. Yep.

Still no word from the interview. Fretting now.


Writing Stuff

Received:
13-day personal rejections from Asimov’s with invite to submit again.
10-day personal reject from Aeon with a mini-critique and again, invite to submit again.

I haven’t made a single sale this month. Wah!

Wrestling technology into submission

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Since I got my laptop, I’ve been putting this off, wholly intimidated by the prospect of dealing with the complexities of hookup. But I did it! (With only a little help from fosteronfilm.) I got my laptop to talk to our wireless home network, and installed a printer driver and configured my laptop for wireless printing. Until now I’ve been manually transferring files using my USB flash drive and printing from our desktop as a workaround. But now, now I’ve got full functionality! Mwa ha haahaaaa!

Yes, I know. I’m such a geek. But I remain inordinately proud of myself. And while I was at it, I made complete backups of all the data on my laptop via the network.

Also got a call from a previous head hunter wanting to set me up with an interview for a mainframe BA position this week. I said yes, of course. Still haven’t heard anything from the interview folks from last week. The rejectomany guru vibes have me suspecting the worst. Foo.


Writing Stuff

Somewhat overwhelmed at all the crits I’ve gotten on the current folktale at Critters. I lost count after twenty-five. Going to start trying to run stats today. Comments were all across the board, although generally positive. From my read-through of the feedback there was a definite pinpointing of some trouble areas that I’m going to focus on in my rewrite.

I also think my brains are leaking from my ears. I sent a query to an editor of an anthology, because I hadn’t received payment yet for a “pay on acceptance” story, to make sure they’d received my signed contract. They sent a note back going “wha?” because according to their records, they hadn’t sent out contracts yet, so obviously couldn’t have received my signed one back. Most confused, I went to check my spreadsheet logs. The contract column was unchecked. Ooops, that couldn’t be right, could it? So I went to my paper files. No contract on file there. Doy! Yep, I’m officially losing it. Emailed the editor my abject apologies and now I shall go stick my head under a pillow and stay there until 2007.

Librarians RAWK!

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Ganked via wicked_wish and too fantastic not to pass on:

Librarian’s brush with FBI shapes her view of the USA Patriot Act
By Joan Airoldi

It was a moment that librarians had been dreading.

On June 8, 2004, an FBI agent stopped at the Deming branch of the Whatcom County Library System in northwest Washington and requested a list of the people who had borrowed a biography of Osama bin Laden. We said no.

MORE . . .

Tramadol and Paradox

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The Tramadol thrashed my ass. Had a bit of a headache after the D*C staff meeting and was feeling somewhat logy, so took a Tramadol, thinking “hey, a little pick-me-up along with surcease of pain, all good.” Knocked me totally out for the night. I was chatting with Matthew after dinner, watching the finale of Charmed, hanging out with Hobkin, and then I was slumped down on the couch, dead to the world. And I stayed that way, even through a relocate to the bedroom, until the morning.

But, on an up note, no headache.

The staff meeting was good fun. More socializing this time around than working, although I suspect fosteronfilm would say the opposite as he was running around trying to get stuff done while I was chatting with arkhamrefugee about Sin City and dropping off a box of DVDs for the Film Festival while I was waving hello to bevlovesbooks. Did get some work done, hooked up with roget and dire_epiphany and astralfire to verify some details, touched base with Sara-of-no-LJ to coordinate our shared inventory needs, and snagged a couple new reporters–pending the a-ok on their writing samples. A productive and enjoyable meeting.

And, on an abrupt change of subject: For your psychedelic viewing pleasure (discovered via fahkingnut) the Zoom Quilt. Very cool.


Writing Stuff

Got the galleys to approve from Paradox for “The Tiger Fortune Princess.” The editor reports the issue will come out mid-June. Very looking forward to it.

D*C staff meeting

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Today’s the second Dragon*Con all-staff meeting. My staff roster is fubarred to hell. I’ve had several staff drop out, several new volunteers sign on, and I have no idea what my numbers look like anymore. Something I need to figure out before the meeting, obviously.

It’ll all work out. How? It’s a mystery.


Writing Stuff

Got an email from the editor of the Modern Magic anthology. He informed me that they now have the cover art by David Seidman for display:

Isn’t it gorgeous? And what’s even better, the editor and the artist want to put together an art book featuring the art from the anthology with a description of the artistic progress involved with each illustration. They also want to include an excerpt from each story to accompany the illustrations, and are paying $.03/word for it. Sweet!! More money for “Souls of Living Wood.” Happy.

Many shiny movies!

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I decided to have a handful of cookies for breakfast and am now buzzing on sugar. As such, this post may end up being a bit spastic and disjointed. Apologies in advance.

Felt the need for some passive, escapist fantasy these last couple days, so fosteronfilm and I went to see Episode III – Revenge of the Sith yesterday. And the night before we watched Sin City and Team America: World Police. I’m big with the immersive when I crave Hollywood shiny.

In a non-spoilerific nutshell:
Team America: Fun but not nearly as good as the South Park movie. Carried primarily by seeing puppets explode and other outrageous puppet activity. Most of the comic scenes went on for too long. Fun, even if not really something I anticipate a desire to re-see.

Sin City: Everyone kept warning me about how violent this movie is. Yes, there’s violence (and gore) aplenty, but it’s pretty stylized, which took a lot of the visceral squick out. I’m curious about the comic now. The revenge theme was delivered a bit heavy handedly, but better executed by far than The Crow. Quite good and very pretty. I’m likely to want to see this again.

Episode III: Wow. That was hella better than I expected it to be. Still suffered from some major Lucas-esque flaws, like embarrassing dialog and a lackluster overall level of writing and character development, but there were many, many lightsabre battles. And wookies! Bzzt, rawwwrrrr! I think Lucas capitalized on his strengths and focused on the special effects and sheer shiny beauty of his Star Wars franchise for this final installment. A wise decision. Much fun, and I suspect it will be excellent on the repeat viewings front.

An unexpected post-movie amusement, I discovered that cuddling Hobkin on his back, and then bouncing him in time with the word “Dooku” is ridiculously cute. He only puts up with it for a very short while, but it got both Matthew and me giggling uproariously. We’re evil, evil people.