Fantasm Day (night) 1

Fantasm has begun! We had a late start yesterday so didn’t get into Fantasm until after 8PM. Had time to get registered, say our initial hellos, and then find seats at the ballroom. I was scheduled to be a presenter at the Fannie Awards, so I checked in with poppyaseed, and then settled down to wait for my time to be escorted backstage. And waited. And waited. Of course, silly me, the award ceremony was on “convention time”! So we (Matthew, dude_the, and I) relaxed and gabbed with Melanie (Pony Girl) and Hugh.

Then the event began! The presenters had to reach the backstage by going around outside. I was slated to present an award with one of the Purgatory crew, Mistress Sapphire, and we were both not dressed for the outside. It’s cold out there! Shivering, we discussed what we were going to do onstage (which I now realize I totally messed up on–she suggested the presenter who ended up stage left should introduce herself first. Being a ninny (and terrified of public speaking), I blanked out and confused stage left with “left of Eugie”. Oops.) We presented the “Favorite Volunteer” award, and it was won by the lovely redwitch. I noticed when there that the stage was extremely slippery. I was very concerned for all the dancers who were performing ceremony numbers. Walking on the stage was a chancy undertaking. Dancing, yikes.

My stint done, I went back into the audience, eagerly awaiting the “Favorite Ms. Fantasm” award presentation. The presenters mispronounced my name at the “and the nominees are” part, and there was a bit of a mix-up at the “and the winner is” stage. But who cares? I won!


My acceptance speech was pretty lame. “Thank you, you’re all great!” My brain glazed over, and I could come up with nothing more amusing to say. Sigh. Probably the only “thank you” speech I’ll ever give at an award ceremony and I deer-in-the-headlighted.

Thank you, everyone who voted for me!

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Early Morning Waking

Slightly (only slightly) hung over, but definitely in need of more sleeping . . . and yet I’m wide awake.

dude_the‘s plane was delayed due to the bits of rain we had yesterday, but he arrived at last, safe and sound. He, arkhamrefugee, Matthew, and even Hobkin, are all asleep throughout the house after a late night of chatting, movie-viewing (we watched Snatch, courtesy dude_the who brought a pile of DVDs with), drinking, and hot tub soaking. Well, Hobkin didn’t do much drinking or hot tubbing, but all the new people in the house were pretty exciting to his wee brain.

Probably not wise of me to go into Fantasm already suffering the effects of celebratory excess, but hey, too late now to do anything about it. Although forcing myself to nap for another couple hours seems like it would be a wise course of action to take.


Writing Stuff

Still vibrating about the agent thing. Got an email from him yesterday afternoon. He’s already submitted my manuscript to two publishers. Squee! (Ow, too early in the morning to squee. Ooof.)

Agented!!

Phone call this AM. Long chat. Resulting in: I’ve got an agent!

I’m now officially a client of William Reiss, Vice-President of John Hawkins & Associates, Inc.

My agent (I love how that sounds) also represents John Katzenbach, Gregory Maguire, Janet Fitch, and Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, among others, and his agency has (had) clients including P.G. Wodehouse, Malcolm X, and Joyce Carol Oates! He’s been with the agency since 1971 and JH&A is the first literary agency in the U.S., established in 1893. And yes, they’re a member of AAR (actually, they founded AAR!).

Woohooo!! Must go breathe now.

Overfilled Hot Tub

Matthew emptied out, cleaned, and refilled the hot tub over the weekend. He informed me that he’d accidentally “overfilled” it, but I just nodded and didn’t think much about it. Since it was a nice, cool evening last night, we got in for a soak. Whoa. He overfilled it good. Going to have to drain some of it off today. Otherwise we’re just asking for a serious flood situation in the hot tub room.


Writing Stuff

Damn. Got a reject from ASIM on a story that had made it to the third round. Fooie. Out it goes again.

Still no new words. But I did spend some time yesterday organizing my writing area. It was getting somewhat scary looking. Ah hell, who am I kidding? I’m procrastinating. Must. Write.

More positive agent responding


Writing Stuff

I got another request from an agent to see the full manuscript! Hurray! It goes out in the mail today.

Also, a glowing review from James Palmer of “Returning My Sister’s Face” in Feb’s Realms of Fantasy at Tangent:

“Eugie Foster’s “Returning My Sister’s Face” is a . . . tale of revenge as delightful as it is grisly. . . Asian folk tales and legends appear to be a rich story vein, and Foster mines it well . . . well-researched and entertaining”

However, I’ve been really crappy about getting new words on the page. Need to adhere rump to chair . . .

Lost in Translation and more with the writing biz

Watched Lost in Translation yesterday with Matthew. I want those hours of my life back. While the insight into modern Japanese culture was interesting, the story–if you could call it that–and the characters, most definitely were not. Yuck. Pretentious pretentious pretentious. And boring.


Writing Stuff

So, after the first positive agent response, I got a form “not interested in you, you fool!” from a different one in the mail yesterday. C’est la vie. Then I got a call from Ann Crispin! She’s recommending me to an agent in her agency, Writers House LLC. She’s sending them an email on my behalf and everything. She’s the utter and total best. It would be so completely amazing if I could land a Writers House agent. Ooo.

Also spent the last few days making banners for Scrybe Press. Go HERE to see them.

And I finally got the check from Cricket for “Razi and the Sunbird.” Now if they’ll only slot in for publication the other seven stories of mine they’ve bought . . .

Eugie not so good with the waiting.

Writing Stuff


Writing Stuff

Received my first response from the batch of agent queries I sent out, and it’s a request for the whole manuscript! It’s a long way from an offer of representation, but at least it’s validation that my query didn’t totally suck goats. Mailed off the full manuscript; now it’s all about the waiting. Again. *crosses fingers*

Also saw that the completed cover of “Inspirations End/Still My Beating Heart” is up on the Scrybe Press site in the available listing:

If you’re not going to Fantasm, you can order your very own copy. $3.49 with FREE S&H!

Fantasm in one week!

Fantasm is less than one week away! The last one, the final big blowout. Don’t miss it!

helichrysm has put together a fabulous poll for the Fannie Awards. To y’all who nominated me for “Favorite Ms. Fantasm,” mwaaaa . Now go and vote for me! (If you prefer, you can also email your vote to Poppy.)

poppyaseed also asked me to present an award on Thursday, which of course I agreed to. So I hope to see all your smiling, leering faces there.


Remember the banana?

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My Laptop!

My laptop arrived! I’m writing and updating this LJ entry on my shiny new HP Pavilion!

I spent most of yesterday playing with it, loading it up with software and data, and getting it personalized and configured just the way I like it. It’s a bit heavier than I had expected. There is a certain “boulder on my lap” feeling when I perch it on me. I suspect the advertised weight was sans battery–which would put many lead paperweights to shame. Might need to see about setting up some sort of lap desk to share some of the weight. It also has a touch pad mouse, which is taking some getting used to (I’m accustomed to that little pressure point mouse that IBM Thinkpads have). But on the plus side, the screen is HUGE. And the wireless card is sweet. Cable modem router goodness. I haven’t tested its range yet, but for where I’ll mostly be using it, I’ve had perfect connectivity. Matthew thinks I’m getting faster speeds on my laptop than he is on the desktop, connected via the cable. I’m dubious, but it’s lighting quick. Very nice.


Writing Stuff

Rewrote the synopses for “Inspirations End/Still My Beating Heart” as what I had before did indeed suck goats. Happier with my redraft, I emailed them off to Nathan.

Received word from the publishers of the Blasphemy anthology. It is official, the project is on “hiatus.” I suspect that means there’s a solid likelihood that I’ll never see the damn thing in print. Somewhat annoyed at the whole thing. That story has been in publishing limbo for years now.

As a complete antithesis to the Blasphemy fiasco (i.e. as a shining example of really professional publishing business practices), I received the contract from jinzi in the mail. Signed and mailed her copy back.

Words: Couple editing passes, but not as much productivity as I wanted because I was too busy playing with my new laptop. (I am not unaware of the irony of my “productivity tool” leeching away work time, thank-you-very-much .)

Club 100 For Writers
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