Author Archives: Eugie Foster

Oo! I just got the check from the editor of Erotic Fantasy: Tales of the Paranormal for “Inspirations End”!

I love markets that pay on acceptance!

Actually, I haven’t gone to see fireworks on the 4th of July for years. It’s not that I don’t like them, I do, it’s the going outside where there’s foliage and insects that I have problems with.

Just finished doing a substantial overhaul on my writing webpage. Frames and JavaScripty fun.

Watched Trading Places last night, the movie with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. Matthew has been waiting and waiting for it to come out on DVD. As soon as he saw it was available on Amazon, he ordered it. It came really quick too. Much fun. And Jamie Lee Curtis’ breasts.

Had another Angel Season 1 viewing fest on Thursday with Kristin, a (fellow) rabid Spike fan. She’d never seen the Angel S1/Buffy S4 cross-overs, even though one of her favorite Buffy seasons is 4. One really needs to see those cross-over episodes in order to get the full umph of the relationship arc. We watched something like nine episodes of Angel S1 straight. Now I can’t wait for Season 2 to come out on DVD! And James Marsters is going to be at Dragon*Con. Rrrrr.

We emptied out and powered down the hot tub for summer. It’s just way too hot to use, even with the air conditioner on (the little A/C unit in there is a trooper but it’s really not up for the task). It’s rather sad, the hot tub all empty and forlorn. Poor thing. We’ll fill it up and again when it cools down in Fall.

Matthew and I also spent several hours troubleshooting on the computer. After the Comcast transition, we noticed a really dramatic drop in performance–huge lags in response time to the point of madness. We ran a diagnostic at PC Pitstop and it flagged our CPU as running at 100%. Weird. And yikes. After a lot of trial and error (and watching the System Monitor react as we tried different things) we discovered that it’s the scanner. Our scanner software loads on startup and we think that whatever transition software Comcast ran for the switchover is in contention with some memory or resource that the scanner software uses. Unfortunately, we can’t turn off the scanner automatic startup unless we update the registry and neither Matthew nor I wants to muck with that. But at least we have a workaround. Boot–>wait for scanner software to load–>close out of scanner software. Voilà. Not happy with it. But at least we isolated the problem. And the strange thing is that the scanner still works. We can manually start it and scan stuff, but as soon as it launches, our performance time plummets and our CPU usage spikes to 100% again. Stupid computer brain.

To: All the writers on my friends list who have websites and/or think a link to promote their work or themselves on my website would be spiffy.

One of the writers groups I’m in started a flurry of banner and linkback activity and since I just went through this ISP switchover to Comcast, I thought I’d take the opportunity to update my writing homepage.

So, anyone interested in doing a link exchange?

mouseferatu, I’ve already got your back. But if you make a banner, toss it my way so I can post it.

And I’ve got your Four and Twenty Blackbirds banner up, wicked_wish.

Here’s my writing links page if y’all want to see: http://home.comcast.net/~eugienmatt/writing.htm

And for my shameless self-promotion side of things:

My banner:

Although I’m happy with just a text link too. If you want to link me as just a friend then please use this URL: http://home.comcast.net/~eugienmatt. If as a writer then this one: http://home.comcast.net/~eugienmatt/writing.htm

Promote promote promote.

Oh, and Happy Independence Day, everyone!

I just sold my horror story “The Reign of the Wintergod” to The Asylum Volume 3: The Quiet Ward anthology! Two sales in two days! Yowza

The Quiet Ward will debut at the Horrorfind convention in Maryland this August!

May this be indication of more floodgates opening. Pleasepleaseplease.

Woohoo!

WOOHOO!

I just sold “Inspirations End” to the anthology Erotic Fantasies: Tales of the Paranormal.

Hurray!

Color me absolutely, utterly, completely amazed. The transition to Comcast broadband from AT&T went totally smoothly. Our email is forwarding cleanly, and our webpages have been transitioned and even the image links are re-routing correctly. The only stumbling point is that Comcast said that our new homepage URL would be: mywebpages.comcast.net/eugienmatt and it turns out that it’s http://home.comcast.net/~eugienmatt, which I actually prefer, tilda notwithstanding. It’s a lot more similar to our previous address: http://home.attbi.com/~eugienmatt.

So this whole merger thing wasn’t a total fiasco for us after all. Zounds. The switch from Mediaone to AT&T was a lot rockier. I’m not pissed at Comcast when I fully expected to be today. Coolness.

Feeling a bit woozy. I’ve been in so much pain with my TOS this week that I was willing to put up with the allergic symptoms of the Clonazepam in order to get a bit of relief. As it turns out, I don’t think I’m allergic to it after all. I took it on Friday and last night, and I don’t appear to be reacting badly to it. Coolness. The pain’s better too. Although I feel it still there, waiting in the wings.

Our Buffy Season 4 DVDs came on Friday! Yesterday was a huge Buffy vid fest. Watched episodes one through thirteen straight through, only pausing to make dinner and chase Hobkin around the house. Tonight: episodes fourteen through twenty-two. Season four really rocked. When I compare it to season six or seven, I’m left scratching my head wondering what the hell happened. Was Joss just stretched too thin to give Buffy the quality attention it needed?

Haven’t done any writing this weekend. Trying to give my hands and arms a rest. But there’s a story beginning to percolate in my head. I’m waiting for it to coalesce a little more before trying to get it out. Right now I’ve got a character, a mood, and a world, and bits and pieces of plot. But the bits of plot are really fragmented. And I think there’s a theme I want to explore, but I’m not sure how it ties in.

I don’t usually write like that, but for some reason, that’s how the story is taking shape. Maybe it’s because of what I’m reading. Right now I’m in the middle of Greg Bear’s Slant. Bear has a very dense style that is both off-putting and intriguing. I like his world building but I’m not all that ga ga about his characters. It’s a strange read for me. I, like most readers I imagine, prefer to fall in love with a character and then experience their world and adventures from their POV. I feel like I (or Bear) am (is) going about this completely backwards. I don’t care that much about the characters, but the world and what’s happening is way cool. Whatever works, I guess.

We’ve been picking a bumper crop of wild blackberries from the sprawling brambles in our backyard. I don’t know how many we’ve harvested–enough for three desserts of vanilla ice cream and blackberries, plus the first bowl with just sugar. Am amazing amount of berries for plants that sprang up veritably overnight and that we haven’t watered, weeded, or fertilized. I love having wild blackberries growing in our backyard!

And Comcast’s “merger” with AT&T’s broadband Internet service impacts us on Monday. That’s the day when they’re switching all our email from @attbi.com to @comcast.net and our homepage URL to http://mywebpages.comcast.net/eugienmatt. They say they’ll be moving our web pages for us and will automatically redirect from our attbi URL. I’m more than a little anxious about how smooth this transition will be. Crossed fingers that this will buck the norm of being a lunatic fiasco.

From The Write Hemisphere (6/27/2003):

The press release from 3F Publications and Catalyst Press regarding their merger into deMoNic Books:

Nicole Thomas (owner, 3FPublications), and Monica O’Rourke (owner, Catalyst Press) completed the merger of their respective publishing companies, under the new name of deMoNic Books, earlier this week. The new management have completely re-evaluated their publication schedules, as well as the titles each imprint has slated for publication. Several anthologies have already been cut from the line- up, which include the cancellations of: Spirits & Sleuths, Cockroach Suckers, Fresh Blood, Obscure Visions and Lingering Dementia.

With financial hardships extending from residential to commercial, a small press stands little chance of lasting a year. O’Rourke and Thomas hope to beat that by uniting their companies under the parent company of deMoNic Books. The focus is now on just novels and short story collections, with less emphasis on anthologies. It is hoped that the restructuring of both companies under deMoNic Books will result in a stronger business entity and be in a better and stronger position to serve the horror community.

Further updates on publication schedules will follow.

reudaly didn’t you have something at Cockroach Suckers? It looks like that title’s going the way of the dodo.

Dang but news like this makes me really worried about the state of the publishing industry. Monica is a members of one of my writers groups. She hasn’t mentioned this merger yet, but grapevine sounds indicate it was pretty sudden. Hope DeMoNic Books works out. We need more quality, professionally-run publishers, not less.

dude_the has this to say about pre-ordering Blasphemy:

“Pre-ordering the Blasphemy anthology changed my life. Besides the warm glow it gave me for purchasing something that would make my small town pastor blush, it finally gave a sense of purpose to my life, something to look forward to. Lord knows, there is precious little else to look forward to in this world. You know, I think it also may have helped me keep the hairline I had when I was 26.”

–Paul from the Midwest, a qualified expert

Thanks, dude_the! I giggled right out loud.

Hurray! My excerpt of Troubadour and the Moon is finally up at the Eggplant Literary Productions’ Library.

I’ve heard that the editor/publisher of Eggplant is having some problems. I hope she manages to pull out of them and can keep Eggplant going strong. Eggplant has been a major player in the semi-pro scene for years now. And the way they treat writers and conduct business is way more professional than a lot of pro-paying markets out there.