Author Archives: Eugie Foster

New notebook and “ten things” meme

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So I’ve got a new laptop on order, an HP Pavilion ze2000 to replace my IBM Thinkpad. We went out yesterday with the intention of buying a Compaq Presario from Circuit City which was having a phat sale. But when we got there, we learned they were totally sold out, with no backorder, and had been for a week. Disappointed, I went to Best Buy to see what they had, and saw a similarly phat deal on an HP machine. Since HP and Compaq merged, it didn’t take amazing powers of deduction and observation to realize that, for all intents and purposes, the Presario and the Pavilion are functionally the same. My new Pavilion should arrive next week, and will have integrated wireless LAN! Sweet. I need a laptop to write on, but I’ve putting off buying a new one while I could still use my Thinkpad. Plus I can deduct my new laptop as a business expense, which makes the splurge a bit less extravagant.

I frightened Hobkin with my big, scary coat. I wanted to give him a cookie because I felt so bad about leaving him for the afternoon to go computer shopping. But when he saw me, he fluffed up his tail and scampered under the hutch. Unfortunately, the new blanket he has (which is the nicest blanket in the house), is bulkier than he’s accustomed to, so he couldn’t get past it like he could with his old blanket. He lodged between it and the hutch opening with a *thump* and then flailed his little hind legs trying to work his way in. Eventually he managed to get under cover, but not before I got a stitch in my side from laughing so hard. The silly chicken-nose. I still gave him a cookie.

And Ten Things I’ve Done That You Might Not Have:
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Fantasm!

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Ye gods! Fantasm is right around the bend. The last Fantasm, the final blow out. Ooo.

And hey, on Thursday’s programming they’re having a “Fantasm Fannies” awards for celebrating “those who have made Fantasm the thing we all know and love. It will be an evening full of award presentation, entertainment, and music”.

If you’re a Fantasm goer, go nominate someone for an award. Go, shoo! And if you don’t know who to nominate, try thinking “banana” and “black vinyl” for inspiration for Ms Fantasm .

Moving on

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Went back into the office yesterday, but my heart wasn’t in it. Accomplished some stuff on my “things to do” list and then called it quits for the afternoon. Came home and watched The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy with Matthew. Fun flicks, but not really anything to ooh and ahh about.

I find that I’m in the market for a new laptop. I just need a bare-bones machine that can handle word processing and wireless Internet action–email, surfing, FTPing. Light, so I don’t feel like I’m sitting beneath a boulder when I have it on my lap, and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW would be nice. Maybe we’ll swing by Best Buy and Circuit City today.



Writing Stuff:

Received:
– Rejection from Flesh & Blood.
– Invite to submit something to a women’s erotica website from the editor, jinzi.

The god of publishing taketh, but She giveth too. Hey, it’s always flattering to get asked to write something for money. Thanks, wicked_wish for the recommendation!

Mailed out the Revenant Anthology contract for “Caesar’s Ghost” and emailed the editor my bio and a blurb to publish with the story. According to said contract, the anthology is slated for a June 15th publication date. Coolness. It’ll be out in time for Dragon*Con. Which reminds me, now that the guest application forms are online, I should see about filling it out and sending it off.

Beginning to send my middle-grade book out to agents. The whole agent submission thing is pretty new to me, but after seeing the numbers for Tobias’ survey, I’m thinking I want one.

Briefly broke the Tangent website. Well, maybe not broke, perhaps “dinged.” I was trying to add more sub-menu items and I accidentally created main menu additions and couldn’t figure out how to unpublish them. Several panicked emails to the webmaster later, and I fixed it and managed to add the sub-menu entries I was trying for. Whew.

U of Iowa Libraries Acquire Huge Collection of Science Fiction Fanzines

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This is the absolute coolest news I have heard in a long time! From: SFWA News, posted by Glenn Lewis Gillette:

Source: University of Iowa
Released: Fri 11-Feb-2005, 12:20 ET
Libraries: Life News (Arts and Humanities)
Keywords: SCIENCE FICTION, COLLECTIONS, LIBRARY, ZINES
Contact Information: Tom Snee

Thanks to an eBay-shopping English professor, the University of Iowa has acquired more than 250,000 science fiction fanzines and almost overnight has increased its stature as a prominent science fiction research center.

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Keeping busy

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The crud is slowly clearing from the house. Hobkin has renewed his interest in broccoli and cottage cheese, and we are no longer going through Kleenex at a phenomenal rate. But there’s still a lingering “I feel crappy” element. Ugh.


Writing Stuff

This cold and other various life events has totally thrown off my stride. Too many days have gone by without writing, so I’m dropping back to “Day 1” in Club 100. Sigh. I’m behind in writing crits too (I’ll get one to you yet for “Genescape,” britzkrieg!). Going to play catch up today, see if I can’t cleave through the rising tide of “things to do” before it crashes down on my head.

In “yay” news, E. Sedia reviewed The 3rd Alternative #40 for Tangent and had this to say about “Running on Two Legs”:

“Eugie Foster’s ‘Running on Two Legs’ is a positive tale, and the beauty of the language carries one along with the story . . . the protagonist is deeply sympathetic and believable . . . It is difficult to write a thoughtful story that features a terminal disease without melodrama, and Eugie Foster achieves it with style.”

Coolness.

And I got a note from the artist, Kirk Alberts, who’s going to be doing the cover art for my Scrybe Press chapbook, “Inspirations End/Still My Beating Heart.” He’s actually soliciting feedback! I get to have a say in how the artwork turns out. Wow.

I haven’t been totally lump-like, even though it feels like I’ve been galloping along at top speed, just to stay in the same place.

– I completed the blurbage for C. Dennis Moore’s Icons to Ashes.
– Signed and sent back the contract for “Year of the Fox.”
– On the Tangent front, I emailed a slew of editors to notify them of the address change for review copies. Several of them are going to start sending me electronic review copies, which makes me happy. It’s so much faster and cheaper to email PDFs or RTF story files to my reviewers. Plus, the overseas thing stops being an issue then. Tangent has reviewers in Canada, France, the UK, and now Australia, as well as the ones scattered across the U.S., so postage costs could quickly become scary. Also took on our first advertiser. Shiny front page banner goodness which, more importantly, is bringing in revenue.

Well, that’s it then. I’m unemployed.

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If you can read this, I either know you in person, or I trust you despite the fact we’ve never exchanged face mail. I may open this to more people later, but right now, I’m feeling the need for a modicum of discretion.

[Edit: 4/9/2006 – it’s been over a year, so I’m opening this post to just a flist lock.]

For those of you who didn’t know, I telecommute out of Atlanta for my day job, and have since 2001–a generous arrangement by my company of employment. However, it’s also a tenuous one. I fill out a yearly “remote worker” application which may be refused, necessitating that I either return back to where my company’s home office is (in the Midwest), or terminate from the company.

I just had my 2005 remote worker application refused. I’m not moving, so I’ll be unemployed starting March.

I’ve known this was a possibility for the last year, as my company has been re-evaluating it’s remote worker policy since the .com crash. Matthew and I have been saving, and I’ve been braced for this; I’m not freaked out or depressed by the news. But I have been with this company for nearly eleven years. There’s definitely anxiety at the prospect of losing my decade-plus meal ticket. My supervisor is talking to other folks in the company to see about finding me a local position after March. If something comes up, I’ll take it, but I’m not excited at the prospect.

What I’d really like to do is take this opportunity to switch career paths. I’ve worked in IT for a decade, and I’ve never found it to be a particularly rewarding occupation. If I can, I’d like to try to switch to writing and publishing, since, as anyone who knows me or reads my blog knows, that’s where my passion really lies.

It doesn’t help that I’m terribly unhealthy and need medical benefits, though.

The future is less secure than it was. But I’m okay.

Backups found!

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Thank Gahd! Our webmaster found online Tangent archives at The Wayback Machine. We’re in the process of trying to download them all, but it looks like they exist up through December 2003. Whew.

I spent many hours yesterday restoring the most recent ones. I’m hoping there will be a faster way, but for now, I’m cutting and pasting each one individually. Really, really hoping there’ll be a faster way. There’s a lot of old reviews.

Hobkin has a stuffy nose. He can only smell the sharpest tasting/scented food, so he’ll eat bell peppers and biscuits, but won’t touch tomatoes and cucumbers. Poor lil guy.

Here’s a picture of his nosie, because it’s just that cute:

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I live. Still dealing with the crud filling my sinuses and lungs, but I’m better. *hack cough sneeze* Although “better” is relative.

Watched Under the Tuscan Sun yesterday a la Netflix. Both Matthew and I liked it. It was sweet without being saccharine and had a dreamy, magical feel.


Writing Stuff

I voted in the Nebula Preliminary Ballot. Whee. My first voting action as an active SFWAn.

Have been very sedentary due to the creeping phlegm infiltrating my soul. But between naps I did manage to do a lot of work on Tangent, restoring archival reviews from 2004 for F&SF, RoF, Analog, Asimov’s, Paradox, and ASIM. Still have a ways to go but we’re getting there. Unfortunately, our old hosting server deleted our database which means we’ve lost a slew of data: archived reviews, membership information, etc. I think we can get 2004 reviews restored, but after that our archives are going to be pretty patchy. I contacted the previous webmaster in hopes that he’d have backups. He had a few reviews, but not many. Going to start emailing reviewers next to see if they kept copies. Argh.

*hack sneeze cough*

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Didn’t even going to try to go in to work today. What’s worse, Hobkin has been making snuffling/wheezing noises, and has been rubbing his nose with his paws. I’ve given him my cold! Now I’m wracked by guilt as well as sick as a dog.

Crappity crappity crud.


Writing Stuff

Received the contract for “Perfidious Beauty” in the Embark to Madness anthology.

Finished and published my Tangent review of this week’s Sci-Fiction story. Not sure what the deal is with the rest of the e-Market reviews. The editor for that side of Tangent has been largely MIA. . .