Author Archives: Eugie Foster

Dragon*Con 2008: Other aftereffects and “A Nose for Magic”

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Something I neglected mentioning in my D*C08 write-up is that I had two, possibly three, Daily Dragon staff members come down with what they thought was food poisoning. They were out for a shift but came back within a day, shaky but determined not to miss anymore of Dragon*Con or another of their assigned desk shifts.

When I hear “food poisoning,” I tend to figure I’m pretty safe as I don’t eat meat, and most such poisoning episodes can be attributed to meat consumption. What I didn’t add to the equation is that the daughter of another of my Daily Dragon staff was recovering from the flu and that there’s been a lot of flu making the rounds this last month—also that this year the flu shots were pretty ineffective, missing the major strains.

I no longer believe the distress afflicting my staff was due to food poisoning. Rather, my main circle of convention interaction seems instead to have been plague-ridden. And, because my immune system is the stupidest immune system in the world, a fairly mild ailment which knocks regular folks out for a day flattened me for three. (*grumble* stupid human suit *grumble*)

So yeah, I had an uncomfortable weekend, and I’m still a bit wobbly. Also, my voice hasn’t come back yet, although my co-editors and husband assure me that I sound much less like a toad than I did last week. However, it means I got absolutely nothing accomplished all weekend. Ergo, I am playing catch up on my efforts to catch up from Dragon*Con.

Wah!

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
• Contrib. copies of The Pagan Anthology of Short Fiction: 13 Prize Winning Tales with my story, “A Nose for Magic.” Shiny cover:

“A Nose for Magic” is one I’m particularly fond of as it was directly inspired by Hobkin. After reading this newest one (he read it in zero draft, but I tend not to subject him to the final versions as I figure he’s already doing “above and beyond” duty as my eternal first reader) fosteronfilm said that I should have a collection of skunk stories published. I laughed, ‘cuz who would want to buy a collection of skunk-inspired short stories? Also, I didn’t think I had written enough of them to fill a collection. But actually, when I opened up my story logs spreadsheet, I think I actually may. But I’m still left with the question, would anyone actually want to buy a collection of skunk and skunk-inspired stories? Hmmm.

Dragon*Con 2008

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Dragon*Con happened. My voice is stripped (again), I seem to have left a passel of brain cells at the Hyatt, I’m still in a sleep deprived fugue state, and I’m trying not to think too hard about everything on my “to do” list. But it was good.

Things that stick out of the blur:

• My talk for Ann: I’ve done better; I’ve done worse. I think I went too fast, but I don’t remember seeing too many glazed-over/bored faces. And I sold out of the books I’d brought with me afterwards, yay!

• My Sunday panel wasn’t what I expected. The panel was publisher-heavy, which tended to veer the discussion more towards marketing, post-publication, and less towards selling to markets (pre-publication). As such, I had less meaningful to say on the topic but found it interesting to listen to the discussion of my fellow panelists.

• I got to meet and powwow with Stephen Segal (Weird Tales‘s Editorial/creative director) over lunch—which he also very graciously treated me to—meet Edmund R. Schubert, at long last—my IGMS editor—and catch up with Josepha Sherman, who I haven’t seen since Launch Pad last year.

• My Daily Dragon staff was fabulous. I decided this year to recruit some editorial assistance. In past years, I’ve focused on getting reporters and therefore looked for folks with writing skills. This year, I actively sought some editorial experience, too (which included recruiting my co-editor at the OLC, full_fathom5), so I could delegate more of my editing responsibilities. That worked out GREAT. I should have done it years ago.

Also, we got a new copier which didn’t jam and which cranked out the print copy in half the time the old one used to, so I could let my graveyard shift leave early, and every morning by the time I came down to the DD room, the print edition was already on delivery rounds. Very nice.

• Got to hang out and spend large chunks of time with several of my DC2K writers group—especially canadiansuzanne, reddherring1955, and Debbie—who were on my staff.

I think I’ll need another week to recover and get caught up (possibly a couple weeks), but all-in-all, I’m pretty pleased with this year’s D*C. Much better than last year’s which was too chaotic and stressful.

   


Writing Stuff

Newly published:
• “The Adventures of Manny the Mailmobile” (audio reprint) in Clonepod.

Hamsters at the Gates

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Yes, there has been a dearth of posts. The hamsters are at the gates, and they are bitey.

Dragon*Con is this week (GAH!), and the schedule changes—O the schedule changes. (Did I mention, “GAH!”?) Busy does not begin to describe it. I’ve let The Fix pretty much fall by the wayside this week and last. I’m hoping to publish a glut of reviews this week before the convention starts, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to squeeze in the time.

Various updates:

Hobkin is better, although he still has a bit of a limp. We’ve noticed that he limps less after walking around, so we’ve been trying to encourage him to move more—which is about as effective as one might expect. But he’s much better, which is a great relief.

dude_the flew in this weekend, and fosteronfilm immediately put him to work putting together bumpers, intros, and clips for the D*C Independent Film Festival. They were up all night and were still working when I woke up this morning (@5AM) trying to get aspect ratios to behave—and making various groaning and swearing noises. Poor Paul actually fell asleep wedged between two couch cushions with his laptop still encoding a clip.

Matthew’s birthday was last Friday. It was pretty low key. I made him a chocolate cream pie (his favorite) and got him a teragigabyte external hard drive, which he immediately put to film festival use.

I’ve got far fewer guest duties at Dragon*Con than last year, which is intentional; last year I was so busy and stressed out, I didn’t really enjoy the convention. I decided this year I wouldn’t over-schedule myself unto oblivion so I could try to have a little fun.

My schedule:
•Fri (8/29) Noon: Reprising my guest lecture for Ann Crispin’s Beginner Writers Workshop, “Marketing Short Fiction” Marietta (Hyatt).
•Sun (8/31) 5:30PM: “Writing for Small Presses and Magazines” with Mur Lafferty, Deborah Smith, and Lee Martindale, Manila/Singapore/Hong Kong (Hyatt).

And that’s it. Hallelujah! If anyone wants to swing by to say “hi,” I’ll likely be chained to my desk at Daily Dragon Headquarters. This year, we’ve moved to Chicago C-F (Exhibit Level) in the Hyatt.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
• Managed to get around 3K more words on Taijiya before I had to stop and devote myself to Dragon*Con prep, bringing my total count to 30.5K. Definitely not at zero draft, but at least I hit the 30K mark.

Received:
• 5-day Sale of “A Box of Spoons” to a new anthology project edited by Lee Harris (editor of Hub). Lee emailed me about a month ago inviting me to submit to one of two anthologies he’s editing that are coming out next year (in January and July). The publisher is a major one, although the specifics are still under wraps, and the pay is pro, so I’m verily stoked.
• Edits from Aeon of “Black Swan, White Swan” with a few requested tweaks. Last week. In the midst of Dragon*Con chaos. Somehow I managed to squeeze in the (very) minor rewrites and sent it off on Saturday. Very much looking forward to issue #15, which is due out any day now.

Skunk still limping and Triangulation: Taking Flight

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Thanks to everyone who expressed concern and well-wishes about Hobkin. He’s still limping, but both fosteronfilm and I think he’s better today than he was on Tuesday. We didn’t end up taking him to the vet, as what they’d probably want to do is take an x-ray, and I’m pretty sure it’s a soft tissue injury, and the x-ray procedure (the whole vet experience, actually) would undoubtedly agitate him which would risk aggrevating his injury. But we did call his godmother—the person he stays with when we’re out of town or at Dragon*Con—and got some suggestions for treatment.

It seems that a lot of domesticated skunks suffer from hip dysplasia, which is not surprising considering that most of them are from a single place which is undoubtedly causing some inbreeding issues. Although Hobkin is notably not from there, so I’m hoping that this isn’t hip dysplasia manifesting.

I do think it’s likely that this might be a sign of arthritis—although I don’t believe it’s the sole culprit, here. Hobkin is six years old, officially classified as a “senior” skunk, and I’ve noticed particularly with this season’s coat blowing* that there’s a lot more white around his muzzle and paws than a couple years ago. It sort of freaks me out thinking of our little guy as being “old.” I’m clinging to the hope that he’ll be one of the pet skunks who live a couple decades, but I know that’s unlikely. I also know that it’s inevitable that one day he will break my heart—the unavoidable consequence of loving someone who has a significantly shorter life expectancy than we do. It’s something I try not to dwell upon much, but this (baffling) injury has sort of brought that to the forefront of my mind.

Going to continue trying not to dwell upon that now . . .

*My GAWD there’s skunk fur everywhere! My car is coated in skunk fur, and that was only from one back and forth to his godmother’s last week. I’m worried that our vacuum cleaner is going to belly up from choking on skunk fur!

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
• around 200 on Taijiya. Did some clean-up, a bit of bridging, and some culling of words, so was a bit more productive than that count shows. Total words: 27.1K.

Club 100 for Writers: 4

Received:
• Contrib. copies of Triangulation: Taking Flight with my (reprint) story, “The Life and Times of Penguin.”
Shiny cover:

Limping Skunk and Aeon #15

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So Hobkin started limping last night. He was curled up next to me on the couch napping after dinner, he hopped down to use the litter pan–and by “hopped” I mean he casually crawled down the “doggie” steps–and fosteronfilm called me over ’cause he saw that Hobkin was wobbling and unsteady. After some anxious observation, we determined that he’s favoring his left hind leg. We think. It’s hard to gauge with 100% certainty exactly which side is the culprit on a critter with such stumpy legs. But I also tried to do a check of his “resistance” strength on both hind legs by picking him up and getting him to push at my hand with each paw, and his left was much weaker than his right. I also checked to see if anything seemed broken or dislocated, and I think we’re okay on that front, too.

We’re not sure what happened. Someone’s with him just about 24×7, so it’s unlikely that he injured himself earlier yesterday without us seeing. And he was fine when he climbed up beside me. I wasn’t watching him when he left to use the bathroom, but he didn’t make any noise or give any sign of hurting himself as he was leaving; I would have noticed that. The only thing we can figure is that he injured his hind leg while he was asleep . . . which is rather baffling.

Unsurprisingly, I was totally and utterly freaking out last night. When we had ferrets, one of the first overt signs of the onset of neurological or other major medical problems was weak hind legs. But Hobkin’s appetite is fine. He’s using the litter pan fine; actually, I’m pretty amazed at how good he’s being on that front, considering he’s limping. And he doesn’t appear to be in pain. Although it’s hard to evaluate pain in a skunk. Hobkin’s almost completely silent, except for a couple notable occasions when he’s been either frightened or angry. I don’t know if skunks vocalize when they’re in distress like a dog or keep quiet like a cat. I’m inclined to bet the latter.

Going to see how he does today, and if he doesn’t show improvement or looks to be getting worse, then it’s off to the vet’s. He was still limping this morning when he got up for breakfast, and I had to stifle an impulse to rush him to the vet today. But the vet is always a traumatic experience for the little guy, and if he’s strained or pulled a muscle, it’s possible he’ll hurt himself worse from vet-related agitation.

Poor Hobkin! Wah!

   


Writing Stuff

Was up north visiting the mom-in-law last week. Didn’t get nearly as much done as I had planned to (I never do; I don’t know why I keep expecting to be productive when I’m there). And got zero words down on the novel. @%&^*! Well, I did edit a load of Dragon*Con guest bios for the program book. And, with the much appreciated editorial assistance of elemess, full_fathom5, and terracinque, we finished all 400+ of them. So I did get some stuff done.

New Words:
• 2.5K on The Stupid Novel since we got back from Illinois. Working title: Taijiya. Total words: 26.9K.

It is now officially the most words I’ve managed to get down on a single work of fiction. It’s unlikely that I’ll be able to make zero draft as I’m rapidly hitting the point where I’m going to have to drop everything that isn’t Dragon*Con-related. But I’d like to make 30K. 40K, of course, would be better. . .

Club 100 for Writers: 3 (sigh)

Received:
• Notice from the fine folks at Aeon that my story, “Black Swan, White Swan,” will be in the upcoming issue, #15. Also, they listed me on the cover (*squee!*):

Transcriptase: author response to Helix controvery

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So yeah, extended radio silence here. My bad. I guess “been busy” doesn’t quite cover it.

Among the other projects I’ve been frantically plugging away at, I’ve been putting a lot of my time into Transcriptase, which is a group response to the recent Helix controversy from a number of the authors published there (including Elizabeth Barrette, Beth Bernobich, Maya Bohnhoff, Sara Genge, Samantha Henderson, Janis Ian, N.K. Jemisin, Vylar Kaftan, Ann Leckie, Yoon Ha Lee, Margaret Ronald, Jennifer Pelland, Vaughan Stanger, and Rachel Swirsky). Kudos belong to vylar-kaftan for bringing us together.

If you’re not familiar with what’s been happening, we’ve put together a statement and history, and several authors have written their own individual statements. Transcriptase also hosts our fiction and poetry originally published at Helix.

Go read.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
• 18K on the Stupid Novel in the last three weeks. Total words: 24.4K. And actually, it’s a different Stupid Novel. I’m taking “Honor is a Game Mortals Play,” my short story published in the DAW anthology Heroes in Training, and extending it into a novel. My muse, she is galvanized. The words and ideas are flowing so fast and furious, I can’t type them fast enough. I wonder if there’s any chance I can get this into zero draft by Dragon*Con? Probably not, but I’m trying.

I’m always the most prolific and inspired when I have too many things on my plate. fosteronfilm and I have been speculating that my creativity is hardwired to my stress center.

Stupid brain.

Club 100 for Writers: 34

Elephant oven mitt and review by Lois Tilton of “A Thread of Silk” in IROSF

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Thanks to amysisson‘s advice to try eBay in my quest for animal oven mitts, I purchased a new elephant-shaped oven mitt to replace the killer whale ones who we’ve retired. Just in time, too. fosteronfilm has been braving the dense and thorny hazards of our backyard to pick the wild blackberries that grow there. Last year’s drought decimated our harvest, and we barely had enough for a single pie. This year’s, though not as bountiful as previous years, is going to be much better. We’ve already got enough for one blackberry pie, possibly two, and the season’s nowhere near over.


*squee!* Although I don’t recall elephants having such fierce looking canines.

   


Writing Stuff

A new issue of IROSF came out yesterday, and I was happy-giddy to see that Lois Tilton had given a “Recommended” review to “A Thread of Silk”:

“While this tale is grounded in the well-known story of Taira no Masakado, Foster skillfully slips this variation in between the cracks of the historical account and the subsequent legends, warping it in a different direction. The ending of the frame story delivers a strong final twist”

! Read the whole thing here.

New Words:
• 200 on the Sudanese Pied Piper story. Not my most productive day.

Club 100 for Writers: 14

Wall-E, Planetary Stories/Pulp Spirit

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Went to see WALL•E on Sunday. I was worried that it wouldn’t hold up to all the hype and that I would be disappointed, but it was an utterly charming, clever, and visually lush movie. Loved it. The homages to 2001 had me hooting. And I’m both awed and impressed by how much personality and humor they managed to squeeze into animated ‘droids. I mean, I’m extremely easy when it comes to anthropomorphic empathy*, but they evoked an extraordinary amount of emotion and character with only a pair of eyes and “body” language in both Eve and Wall•E, not to mention the host of supporting cast of ‘bots which didn’t always even have eyes.

Definitely one of the top Pixar productions in my book (and I’m a huge fan of Pixar), up there with The Incredibles and Ratatouille. I’ve heard a couple critics say that they think the environmental message was delivered too heavily, but I don’t agree. Yes, it was blatant and upfront, but at the same time, it didn’t feel preachy. ‘Course I’m pretty green, so I think concern for the environment is a good attitude for kids (and everyone else for that matter) to internalize.

(As an addendum, I also really enjoyed the short, “Presto,” which ran before it, too. Humor a la classic Looney Toons with stepped up Pixar animation and a clever conceit.)

Roger Ebert said in his review of WALL•E:
“This story told in a different style and with a realistic look could have been a great science-fiction film. For that matter, maybe it is.”

I definitely think WALL•E qualifies as great science fiction.

As a tangential segue, I find it interesting that there’s an attitude which assumes that animated works somehow have less merit or meaning purely due to their being animated and/or that relegates them to the sole province of children’s entertainment. I’m not saying Ebert is doing that here, although I’m not saying he’s not either. But I’ve noticed with fosteronfilm‘s mom that she can’t seem to accept the notion that animated works are suitable entertainment fare for adults. She loves musicals and has a decided ’50s sensibility and taste in movies, and we’ve thought that a lot of the modern animated features would appeal to her. We’ve tried to turn her on to some of them, like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin—titles which have great songs as well as solid and classic storytelling—but she’s never been interested in them. Makes me wonder if it’s an age/generational thing.

*We’ve got a couple “retired” killer whale-shaped oven mitts which are singed, stained, and worn through in places that I can’t conceive of ever throwing out. Over the years, fosteronfilm and I have imbued them with so much personality—they used to complain about their jobs, screaming and ouching when we used them to pull things from the oven, and suchlike—that it feels wrong to even consider just dumping them in the garbage. I figure they’ve earned a lazy retirement in the towel drawer.

   


Writing Stuff

I met Jerry Page back in early 2006 at the Aberrant Dreams signing, and we’ve been corresponding since. (I’ve also managed to persuade him to write reviews for The Fix.) He edits the fanzine Pulp Spirit which is a companion publication to Planetary Stories. Anyhoo, we were emailing back and forth, and I commented about a column he wrote and the general contents of the last issue of Planetary Stories/Pulp Spirit. Jerry asked whether he could print my remarks in their letter column, “From the Vibrating Ether.” Of course I said he could, but I didn’t realize that they also had an ongoing “best letter to the editor” contest. Hee. My letter won. I’m getting an original, signed Mark Fults illustration (#1 at the bottom of the contest page). Sweet.

Received:
• 25-day personal pass from Podcastle from Rachel (velourmane) on a reprint accompanied by a request for me to submit a different story for them to consider which she read and liked. Works for me! Crossing my fingers that the rest of their slush committee likes it too.
• 61-day kindly pass from Withersin with invite to submit again.

New Words:
• 1000 on the SF WiP.
• 2000 on a new story, sort of a Pied Piper retelling inspired by the Lost Boys of Sudan.

Yeah, I’m all fragmented with what feels like half a dozen WiPs hanging about with none of them completed. I’ve been focusing on getting the writing gears in working order again, getting words on the page, no matter what those words are or whether I finish something. I felt like I needed to get back in the habit of regular writing before I could re-establish a “must finish story” routine. But I think it’s time to roll up my sleeves and get to “The End” on something. Preferably several somethings.

Club 100 for Writers: 13

Poll results and SFWA public service announcement: Fraudulant writing contest

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Thanks to everyone who responded to my “What Generation are You?” poll. As I figured, most folks who read my LJ appear to be Gen Xers (83 responses) with only a few Boomers (4), but I was interested to see that there were more Jonesers (32) than Millenials (17). Inteerezzting.

Now for something completely different, a public service announcement from the SFWA:

A bogus contest has been advertised on craigslist and elsewhere which is supposedly being run by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. SFWA has nothing to do with it, and it has all the earmarks of fraud.

In response to a cease and desist letter, this person has apologized and says that the posts will be removed from craigslist but he/she doesn’t know how to remove them from flixer. He/she claims that he will never do it again. SFWA and Writer Beware are monitoring the situation.

SFWA never runs writing contests of this sort, and is not associated with this contest in any way. If you find any other instances of this solicitation, please contact Michael Capobianco, the President of SFWA (email address can be found at the link above).

See the press release from the SFWA for more information, and also, Victoria Strauss has blogged about this contest on the Writers Beware blog.

While most of the places advertising this have taken down the ad, it’s likely that there are still many writers who haven’t gotten the news and, attracted by the promise of big money prizes and the prospect of publication in a prestigious anthology, may be intending to submit. Please spread the word so that folks don’t get taken by this scam.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
• Galleys of “A Nose for Magic” from the Pagan Anthology of Short Fiction and “The Life and Times of Penguin” from the Triangulation: Taking Flight anthology.
• Payment from Cricket for “The Raven’s Brocade” in their December issue and from Drabblecast for “The Wiggly People.”

New Words:
• 1150 on the SF WiP.

Club 100 for Writers: 6

“What generation are you?” poll and “The Wiggly People” at Drabblecast.

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Doing research for a new story which was inspired in part by some articles and studies on Generation X (born approximately between 1965-1980), Generation Y/the Millennials (born ~1981-1997), the Baby Boomers (born ~1946-1964), and Generation Jones—a sort of between generation wedged between late Boomers and early Xers containing folks born ~1954-1964 who share a lot of sociocultural traits with Gen X but who fall within the demographic of Boomers and who also share some cultural influences and hallmarks with them.

The perception is that bloggers and folks who read blogs tend to be Gen Yers/Millennials, “digital natives” who’ve had the benefits of and been around digital technology and the Internet for their whole lives. It made me curious to see where y’all fell.

So herein my completely unscientific poll:

   


Writing Stuff

I realized that I’ve dropped all my writing hamsters, and they’ve scampered to parts unknown. The only fiction I’ve completed this year is the story I started last year for Russian Winters, and I suspect the only reason I managed to wring “the end” out of it is because I had a deadline—which was extended three months, to boot. Session ended two months ago; I’ve wasted a lot of time when I should have been writing angsting about not writing. So I’m taking a leaf from my own book to remind myself that One Hamster is Still Juggling, and I’m starting up Club 100 for Writers again:
Ergo: 3

New Words:
• 800 on new SF story, working title “NANI.” It’s been a while since I did science fiction; I was pretty exclusively focused on fantasy last year. It feels good to stretch my science-geek writerly muscles, although I’m chagrined at how weak and flabby they are. This story will be grounded in social and developmental psychology, which very much plays to my academic background, but I’m finding I have to look up some really basic stuff ’cause I can only remember shadowy concepts and vague theories, and I’m needing specifics. It’s a bit distressing to realize how much information I used to have readily available for speedy retrieval and how little remains accessible without some massive joggling. My brain needs a better indexing system.

Received:
• Fan mail from a couple Cricket readers (forwarded to me by the fabu folks of Carus Publishing) for “When Shakko Did Not Lie” and “The Tanuki-Kettle.”

The first, from a 10-year-old girl, said:
“I have been getting this magazine for two years. I think it is the best magazine ever!!!!…My favorite story was ‘The Tanuki Kettle’ (July 2007). I also liked ‘When Shakko Did Not Lie’…I really like stories about nature and animals.”

And the second, from a boy (no age specified), said:
“I think you mag is better than any T.V. show or magazine I’ve ever heard of. Also in the January 2008 issue the story ‘When Shakko Did Not Lie’ is an excellent choice for Cricket. I would like it if you put more of that kind of story in your mag.”

I think I melted into a big pile of “awww!” after reading those. And to top it off, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Cricket, Marianne Carus, scribbled a line at the bottom of the second letter: “Those were great stories! My favorites, too.”

*squee!*

Published:
• “The Wiggly People” (audio reprint) in Drabblecast. Well, it’s not up yet, actually, but Norm Sherman, the editor/publisher dropped me a note on Monday saying it would go up today, so I’ve been hanging around the site, hitting F5 compulsively.

[Edit: It’s up now! Go listen!]