Author Archives: Eugie Foster

Funky bruising

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So I noticed some funky bruising on my thigh and arms after the weekend. Straining through the haze of revelry, I tried to remember what I could have possibly done that would have resulted in my blue-blackness. Drawing a total blank. Now, I’m a total lightweight when it comes to alcohol, but I didn’t drink that much. But all that revelry-haze straining did knock something loose, a remembered blurb about Imuran side effects. A quick surf later and yes, one of the “tell your doctor immediately” side effects is easy bruising.

After a chat with my rheumatologist, I am reassured that it isn’t the Imuran causing the bruising (since my platelet counts are apparently copasetic) but most likely the Prednisone I’ve been on for a year and a half. Long-term steroid use and all. And I say: This is supposed to reassure me??

I’ve been telling my doctor I want off the stupid Pred for months and months! I know what long-term use of the stuff can do to a body. And lo and behold, it’s doing it to my body.

Wah!

Going in on Friday for a CAT scan. Never had one of those before. I cleverly scheduled it for 1pm, and the instructions say not to eat for three hours beforehand. Hmm, that would be during my normal lunch. Dammit. By the time the thing is done with I shall probably be about ready to start gnawing on my arm.

Writing stuff:

Still fiddling about with marketing numbers in order to pretend that I’m doing something writerly while the words logjam in my head. Actually, I’ve got a story that’s beginning to coalesce. Been doing some research on the Japanese tanuki and finding myself intrigued by their mythology and charm. Got the dregs of an outline bouncing around, but nothing on paper yet. Not sure if this is a short story effort or a novella. Hoping to get it to burgeon into a novella, but right now I’ve got just about enough to make it a totally unsaleable length. Yup.

According to my records, “The Tax Collector’s Cow” marks my twenty-eighth sale. I’m two shy of thirty. Why is thirty a magic number? I dunno. It’s sort of an age of maturity number, I guess. It’s also nice and round. So, anyway, two more sales and I’m at thirty.

You hear that, editors? Want to give a gal a break and send me a couple more quick acceptances to make my numbers look good? Helloooooo!

Well, couldn’t hurt to give a shout out.

Back to the Grind

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Fully back to the grind it is. They made me use my brain at work. And it hurts it does, my precious. Also realized that catching up on my email using the “last in, first out” method is not a good way of rectifying an already-tardy correspondence situation.

Watched The Rundown last night. That’s the A&A movie with The Rock and Seann William Scott. Lots of gratuitous violence. Fun, with a couple giggle-out-loud lines, but unmemorable overall. I don’t feel the need to see it again. There was a bit of vicarious satisfaction at seeing Seann William Scott being pummeled, though. I blame it on pent up annoyance at his Stifler character in American Pie.

Writing stuff:

Wrote a review of the new Sci-Fiction story for Tangent, but zero word count on new stuff. Been futzing about with marketing stuffs in order to keep up the pretense that I’m being productive.

In my hardcopy files, I keep a folder for each story’s correspondence. For stories currently making the rounds, they amass rejections in a cheapo file folder–one of those manila jobbies that’s just a fold of paperboard with a tab at the top. I shove rejections into the folder every which way and that file tends to get a bit mussed looking. Sold stories graduate to pocket folders. One side pocket holds past rejections, the other acceptance letter(s), contract(s), galley proofs, etc. It’s a much neater filing locale with no paper edges sticking out or stray envelopes jutting.

I take an inordinate amount of glee in being able to create a pocket folder straight out for a story, thereby skipping the “it’s been rejected, dammit” step. “The Tax Collector’s Cow” was the sixth story I’ve sold on its first trip out (not counting the excerpts I’ve sold to the ELP library as that’s their only trip to market). Rah!

Sent off the “I’m all happy with your terms” letter to Spider/Cricket. I’ve got two more folk tales sitting on my hard drive, waiting to go to them. I haven’t run them through Critters yet, but since I didn’t send “The Tax Collector’s Cow” through the queue, I’m wondering if I need to.

But also, I’m loathe to glut the Carus editors with my submissions. Less loathe now that they’ve bought stories from me that were overlapping in consideration time. Hell, less loathe now that they’ve bought five stories from me. But still uncertain. I’m worried that I’ll end up competing with myself or wear out my appeal with them or something.

I’ve currently got a submission with them at Cricket and one at Cicada. The two I’ve got waiting are both Cricket bound. Right now I’m thinking I want to give them a three month gap between submissions. ‘Course by the time August rolls around and I clear off these two, I’ll probably have a couple more bottlenecked. Oh, well. Could be worse.

SALE to Cricket/Spider . . . and some rejections

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I sold “The Tax Collector’s Cow” to either Spider or Cricket, “depending upon which magazine can place the story first”! Spider is another magazine from the Carus stable. And yup, that means another sale at a quarter a word. Woohoo!!

In less good news:

I got a pair of rejections from On Spec‘s guest editor. If I didn’t know he was only a guest editor, I’d be disinclined to submit to them in the future. The comment “I’m sorry, but this is just ‘writing'” bugged me. I’m not quite sure what he was expecting, finger painting? Oh, well.

Also got a nice rejection from Amazing Stories asking to see more. And a “nice writing here but failed to grab” from F&SF.

And I had to write my editor at Tangent again asking him to find another writer for my current review assignment. It’s matociquala‘s “This Tragic Glass” up currently at SciFi.com. Sorry, eBear, but I’m afraid I’d be biased writing a review of your work since we’ve exchanged friendly banter on LJ and at the Rumor Mill . . .

Busybusybusy

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Apparently the Ms. Fantasm Pageant judging sheet from last year was lost down some bottomless oubliette on my computer. Had to create a new one from scratch. But at least the contestant forms were still intact. Both are printed out and ready to go.

I still only have TWO judges, although in a pinch I can always push dude_the on stage as the “man on the street” judge. Three will perfectly acceptable.

Didn’t sew the sash edges together yesterday. Will do that tonight. Or I will scrounge up some safety pins. Going to brainstorm and then print out the Q&A questions, then we should be set. Whew. Nothing like a flurry of last minute activity to make a girl feel hectic, or productive, or something.

Still have no idea what I’m going to wear.

Did I totally flake out or are there not going to be Concoction and Iron Bartender contests this year?

Writing stats:

*snort* Yeah, right. Got a couple more offers from Critters to do RFDRs on my novella, but I declined them as I’m going to mail the thing out tomorrow.

Received a note from the Blasphemy anthology folks. Promo material is winging its way to me. Hope it makes it in time for the convention. No sign of my copies of “Ascendancy of Blood” from Scrybe Press either, but it’s got another day to make it.

Oh my god, I just realized I haven’t done any prep for the panels I’m scheduled for! Omigod, omigod, omigod! *scampers off to compile notes*

Albuterol and coffee make me dizzy

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I just cannot get a handle on my stupid physiology. I discovered that Albuterol and caffeine in close tandem make me dizzy and lightheaded. Fun? Sort of. A helpful programming aid? Not at all! Grumf.

Have much Fantasm stuff to do. Need to sew the Ms. Fantasm sash ends together and get the Q&A questions compiled, and the entry and judging forms printed out, and I need to pick out what I’m going to wear. Again, Fantasm has snuck up on me and I’m all flustered at how many things I have yet to do for it.

Wait, do I have all the judges lined up? No?? AGH!! Okay, must send emails tonight. Damn, I totally lost track of time.

dude_the is here. He flew in this afternoon and then zipped up on the MARTA. The house is messy, but the skunk is bathed. Trade-offs.

Writing stats:
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A Bath for Hobkin, Albuterol, Writing

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Gave Hobkin a bath yesterday. It was actually not as traumatic and wetly destructive as previous bathing experiences have been. Not only did I avoid a sudsy tail to the face, but the bathroom does not look like a shampoo elemental threw a temper tantrum there. He flopped over on me immediately afterward, and I ended up with a damp skunk in my lap for several hours. His fur takes forever to dry even with finger combing and brushing. But he’s all fluffy and shiny and sweet smelling now.

This Thursday will be his second birthday. The fuzzwit will be two years old. He’s all growed up *sniffle*. There will be cake.

Discovered something rather odd. When I first started having breathing problems, I found that Albuterol didn’t do squat to help it, so I stuck my inhaler away in a bathroom drawer. But yesterday I was feeling a bit desperate, so I rummaged it out and used it. I started breathing easier very quickly. Took my inhaler with me to work this morning and used it this afternoon. Decided improvement again. That seems to indicate that there’s bronchial spasming at work, which I didn’t think was the case. Something I should bring up with my pulmonary doctor, I suspect.

Writing stats:

I keep pulling up the cover artwork of “Ascendancy of Blood” to admire. I’ve had illustrations/artwork done for several of my stories now, but this is my favorite. It’s just so totally how I envisioned it when I wrote it, and so beautifully executed. I keep looking at it going “PRETTY! Ooo” and grinning like a fool. Maybe I’ll make it the wallpaper on my PC desktop for a while, although that feels terribly narcissistic.

Still no new words, but I did do a couple good rewrite passes on the novella, enough so that I actually printed the whole thing out. (It does all fit into a Priority Mail Flat Rate envelope. Hurray.) When I make subsequent changes, I can just reprint individual chapters or pages as need be, maybe save a tree or so that way. I’m not expecting any major rewrites to happen now, depending on the last few RFDR critiques that may still come in. I’m aiming to mail it by the end of this week so I can avoid the post office insanity of tax day next week.

Trapped by skunk

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So Hobkin woke me up this morning at 6am, stomping and running around the house like a crazed furry cannonball. As it turns out, because of daylight savings (ffft), it’s actually 7am, but since I fell asleep after midnight, the difference is purely academic.

Played with frisky skunk. Fed hungry skunk. Contented skunk climbs into my lap and flops. Skunk is now asleep. I am awake and bleary-eyed, and pinned at the computer. Typical.

Been getting some excellent feedback on my novella. Enough to prod me to do some research which made me go “ooooo” (and do some rewriting).

I’ve wondered for a while what color spectrum non-primate mammals, specifically Hobkin, can see. People say dogs and suchlike are “colorblind” inferring that they can only see a monochromatic range of colors, but from my experience with our ferrets and Hobkin, they can perceive other colors than black, white, and shades of gray.

For e.g.: We have a bright blue acrylic fur mitt that we used when Hobkin was a baby to play various skunk games. Now that he’s all growed up, Matthew and I have noticed a proclivity for Hobkin to want to wrestle with blue things. He’ll go after non-blue things, but I’ve noticed especially that my turquoise turtleneck has teethmarks in the sleeve, as does the pair of light blue socks I own. He prefers to shake and maul into submission blue things.

So I did some surfing and discovered that non-primate mammals are normally considered to have “dichromatic” vision (versus primate vision which is “trichromatic”). That is, they only have the (S) and (M/L) type cones in their retinas, so they can see blues and yellows, but not reds or greens. This is the same as (or very similar to) the visual ability that people with red/green colorblindness have.

Which explains why Hobkin can differentiate blues, and yet can still be considered “colorblind.” Neat!

I’ve rewritten the sections where color is viewed through my protagonist’s eyes to make his vision dichromatic. He now only sees things in muted shades of blue and yellow, as well as black, white, and grays.

Well, I’m excited by it . . .