Author Archives: Eugie Foster

Birthday bash

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Had hella fun last night at j_hotlanta‘s beautiful sylvan abode, where he and britzkrieg co-hosted a dual birthday party. There was food (grilled portabello mushrooms, mmm), booze, and cake, and I had a smidge too much gin. A bit hung over this morning, because I am unable to hold my liquor–one Tom Collins in a tall glass. Yep, I am the lightweightiest lightweight there is.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
– 400 on the article for Writing-World.com.
– 300 on the child development article.

Received:
– Payment from Galaktika.
– Barbed-and-pointy shaft from my bank by way of a $15.00 “wire transfer fee”! [RANT] Isn’t it enough that I work like a dog to make peanuts; peanuts, furthermore, that the government double taxes me on because it’s “self-employed” income, although said government doesn’t see fit to provide me any reasonable, comprehensive health care option? Is it really necessary to smack further indignities upon my pathetic financial status with bank fees that swipe nearly 20% of what I earn? ARGH! [/RANT]

So yeah, I’m awaiting payment from Faeries and Ennea still. Previously I’d given them the go-ahead to wire my payment from France and Greece, respectively, but in light of the egregiously painful shafting I just got, I’ve emailed them to see whether there’s any way they can cut me a check instead.

Club 100 For Writers
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500/day
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On shaving a skunk and Tramadol

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And it’s back to the daily grind.

After hearing how much happier yukinooruoni‘s cats are in summer after being sheared, I wondered if Hobkin wouldn’t prefer to carry less fur weight around during the hot months. And then I remembered how much he hates being brushed and having his nails clipped (although, oddly, he doesn’t have a problem with me cleaning his ears), and I’m thinking we’d lose digits if we tried it. Ergo, skunk shall remain fluffy.

Wingstubs giving me some major grief, so I took a Tramadol last night. And not only didn’t it knock me out, but it seems to have given me a bit of a zing. I was up until 4AM, working. Huh.

   


Writing Stuff

In an effort to continue spring-boarding more paying work off my psych. degree, I went on a guidelines spree. And, of course, I found an ideal market right under my nose. The Cricket folks put out a Parent’s Companion publication as accompaniment to their ‘zine for 2-6 year-olds, Ladybug. They’re looking for articles written with “a thorough, up-to-date understanding of child development.” Bing!

Went through my old grad. papers for inspiration–which were stored in Lotus’s Word Pro, of all applications, and I had to scour the Internet looking for a freeware program that would let me open them before I could read them. So I spent most of last night compiling notes, references, and checking out new research, and I hope to get an article written this weekend. This one’s on spec rather than of the query–>greeen light variety, but I’m thinking the topic matter is such that it should be sellable to other venues if they turn it down. Assuming I don’t totally botch the job and write gibberish, of course.

Also put together a query/pitch for a nonfiction article for the China-themed issue of the kid ‘zine, Faces, and sent it off. They’ve got a pretty formal process for queries that includes a word count, an outline, and a reference list, with the end result being that I’ve all but written the thing by the time I finished putting together my query. It should definitely make writing it a no-brainer, should I get the green light.

Initially I hesitated about querying them because their guidelines specify that they buy all rights, and I’ve been assiduously avoiding selling all rights to my work, but I realized I’m far less possessive about my nonfic stuff. After all, I’ve been ghostwriting routinely since I started picking up more freelance work, and haven’t had any qualms about the “all rights” nature of that. Of course, they’ll probably send me a “thanks but no thanks,” which would make all this waffling moot.

Received:
– Contrib. copies of the June issue of Spider with “The Tax Collector’s Cow” in it. I was delighted to see five illustrations (by Jennifer Hewitson) for my story. Very shiny.
– Contract and payment from Best New Fantasy: 2005 for “Returning My Sister’s Face.”
– Payment for my last freelance gig.
– 1-day rejection from Escape Velocity on a reprint; they don’t take reprints. Oops.
– Comment at MySpace from the MechMuse folks that their audio production of “The Storyteller’s Wife” is proceeding apace. Quite looking forward to that, I is. I’ll be sharing a ToC with Kevin J. Anderson!

Club 100 For Writers
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500/day
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Emotional roller coaster . . . wheeee!

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So we dropped Hobkin off with his godmom, tossed the last minute sundries into the suitcase, and I was burning Escape Pod podcasts to a CD for the long drive, when we got a call from fosteronfilm‘s brother. In what can only be described as a miraculous recovery, my dad-in-law got better!*

It seems his system isn’t able to expel carbon dioxide properly anymore, and it had built up to a toxic level, resulting in this recent scariness. But with him on the respirator and them doing whatever it is they do to purge the CO2 out of him, he started perking up. They took him off the respirator, and as of yesterday, not only was he breathing on his own, but he was sitting up, lucid, and talking, and they’re expecting him to be able to go home soon! He still can’t get rid of CO2 on his own, but apparently they’ve got ways to deal with that.

Matthew called his mom, and she’s so confident in his recovery that she’s planning on going back to school next week**. After much discussion, fosteronfilm and I decided to postpone our exodus to Illinois until July–when we were planning on visiting originally–unless Dad-in-law worsens again.

Off we went to retrieve Hobkin, who was pretty excited to see us, although I’m sure also a bit puzzled at what all the to-and-fro-ing was about, and today I’m installed back in my office, happily working away.

This has been quite a week. I’m dazed and drained, but also delighted and very, very relieved. Thank you to everyone who sent your thoughts, concerns, and support. Y’all are wonderful.

*My opinion of their GP has plummeted to an all time low. It strikes me as egregiously irresponsible, callous, and incompetent to tell someone not to expect their loved one to recover, that there’s nothing left they can do, when there’s obviously still a reason to hope and procedures to try. I just want to slap that man into orbit.
**Although technically retired, my mom-in-law enjoys working and she teaches 2nd grade at a private academy–which is a way nicer job than her pre-retirement one, which was for a public school.

   


Writing Stuff

Started compiling references and material for the article I’m writing next for Writing-world.com.

Received:
– Galley proofs from Paradox for “The Archer of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon.”
– 91-day pass from OSC’s IGMS with a “we would like to encourage you you to send more of your work to us for consideration”

Dad-in-law update

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Thank you to everyone who offered your support and sympathy about my dad-in-law yesterday. Matthew and I greatly appreciate your kind words and thoughts.

We’re still in Georgia, scrambling to get as much cleared off our respective plates as we can before heading north.

Matthew’s mom called last night. It’s hard to get a clear picture of what the situation is from here, but they have my dad-in-law heavily sedated, and it seems his kidneys have now shut down. At one point he started waking up and began fighting the respirator, and they had to up his dosage to knock him out again. I don’t know what any of that means, prognosis-wise. Is it standard procedure to keep someone sedated full time who’s on a respirator? I can’t imagine it’s comfortable having a breathing tube down your throat, but is it something you can’t be conscious during?

The specialists have him on various meds, and Mom-in-law said that they’re watching to see whether they have any effect. But she doesn’t know what effect they’re hoping for. And no one seems to know or is willing to say whether there might be a chance he’ll be able to breathe on his own when they take him off the respirator.

   


Writing Stuff

Editing:
– Many editing passes and a rewrite on a story I’ve been sitting on after its last bounce. Working does help to keep me distracted.

Received:
– Contrib. copies of Faeries #21 with French reprint “Returning My Sister’s Face.” Still awaiting payment.
– Contrib. copy of Modern Magic at long last.

Club 100 For Writers
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Tosca & Dad-in-law

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Had a lovely afternoon with dire_epiphany, astralfire, and their son at the Atlanta Opera yesterday. Tosca is quite a violent and action-packed opera: jealousy, torture, threatened rape, murder, and suicide. Although I have to admit, plebeian that it makes me, I liked having the subtitles. It made it more accessible for those of us who don’t speak Italian and who aren’t sophisticated opera buffs.

Got home and fosteronfilm received a call from his mom. She and his brother took his dad to the hospital; seems he wasn’t doing well–couldn’t breathe, had no energy, and no appetite. His GP (a doctor I’ve been underwhelmed with from what I’ve heard about him) told Matthew’s mom that this was it; there was nothing else they could do and not to expect him to pull through this time. But one of his specialists–I’m not sure which one, lung or heart–seemed to think there was more to try. They put in a stint and a temporary (?) pacemaker, but my dad-in-law stopped being responsive while Mom-in-law was there. She had to go home, and after she left, he had some sort of crash that resulted in them putting him on a respirator. Dad-in-law has a living will that stipulates that he doesn’t want to be left on a respirator, but it sounds like he doesn’t have a DNR. Seems the hospital tried to contact Mom-in-law when he crashed to ask her what they should do, and when they couldn’t reach her, they went ahead and put him on it.

All-in-all, the situation is exceedingly grim. fosteronfilm and I will be going up there probably either later today or tomorrow. We’re both expecting this to be our farewell to his dad.

I’m a little more stoic than I thought I’d be right now. I haven’t had a melt down like I did in March. I’d like to think it means that I’ll be able to be the strength and support Matthew and his family will need at this time, but I suspect it’s more likely that I’ll just break down when I see my dad-in-law, as my track record on that front has been resoundingly unstalwart.

My dearest wish would be to never have to say goodbye to someone I love.

Optical Illusion

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dean13 sent around this link to a Very Cool optical illusion. I did it several times to see if it would affect the sequence, speed, or pattern of the illusion for me. (It didn’t.) And for my last “trial,” I kept watching for a while after all the pink dots had disappeared. My results:

1. The moving pink dot goes green very quickly, within a second or two of focusing on the black cross. I then see a green dot cycling clockwise through a circle of pink dots.
2. The pink dots disappear rapidly afterward, usually as the “green” dot sweeps over them. They go in swatches or clumps–several at a time in sequence. That is, the “green” dot swipes some off in one circuit, then another in the next, until they’re all gone. I do, occasionally, have some just fade out, without having been swept over by the green dot, but again it’s not individual dots but several in a sequence.
3. A green dot remains, circling in clockwork fashion.

After my last, longer trial, the pink dots fade in and out, also in swatches. They tend to be fainter than they were originally. I did get a return of the whole pink circle with the green dot circling them briefly, but they quickly got “wiped” out again.

dude_the, who is dyslexic and has some eye musculature wonkiness, had a different effect from the illusion; he had a harder time in general getting the pink dots to disappear. I’m really curious if and how the pattern of the dots disappearing across individuals correlates to reading strategy and speed. Also whether the illusion would manifest differently for an autistic person.

   


Writing Stuff

Okay, I recently broke down and made a foray into the hullabaloo which is MySpace.com (user name “eugiefoster”). I found and friended some of y’all, but for those of you I didn’t, I’d love it if you could give me a myspace hello. (Although I’m still not sure what the fuss is all about.)

And while I’m pimping, buy the shiny new magazine:

New Words/Editing:
– 1600 on the freelance gig, an editing pass on the whole shebang, and off it went. Now I really need to get back to work on the various and sundry fiction projects I’ve got on my plate.

Club 100 For Writers
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500/day
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Da Vinci Code blows goat chunks

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Wingstubs are better after a few days of enforced downtime. Amazing how that works. Had a lovely chat over coffee with yukinooruoni yesterday, and fosteronfilm and I went to an advance screening of The Da Vinci Code on Thursday.

The Da Vinci Code: Wow, did that suck. It sucked on a fundamental story level which made me go “this is what’s been sparking all the controversy, death threats, and hunger strikes? THIS??” As a couple caveats, no, I haven’t read the book (and it has now tumbled off those titles I’ve earmarked as “to read” and onto the blacklist of “I’d rather read the OED from A to Z”) and we sat too close to the screen which resulted in pronounced feelings of nausea/motion sickness from all the jerky camera movement. I think fosteronfilm enjoyed it marginally better than I did; he had the advantage of not being nauseous through most of the movie. But he and I are in agreement on the figurative it-was-pukeworthy elements.

Tom Hanks was particularly uninspiring in the lead role, the movie pulled any punches it might have been able to level at the Catholic church or religion in general, the story was chock full of plot devices and deus ex machinae, the big, shocking reveal was lame to the lamest power (Dogma did it way better and far more entertainingly) and the ending went on and on and on. Also, the jerky camera technique, in addition to making me physically ill, also made me want to shout at the cinematographer “pull back you ninny!” The action was too close and too fragmented, so it wasn’t even an enjoyable suspense/thriller/adventure flick.

In short, the movie blew goat chunks.

Don’t waste your money on this one, folks. Rent or re-watch Dogma instead.

   


Writing Stuff

Mega congrats go to wistling for taking second place in last quarter’s Writers of the Future contest! Woohoo! *flings confetti*

New Words:
– 1500 on a new freelance gig. $$$

Club 100 For Writers
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500/day
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Wingstubs and Sister of the Hedge

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Wingstubs were a searing ache all of yesterday. Realized that at some point I’ve got to let them rest. Figured it was better for me to choose my downtime rather than have my wingstubs decide for me. So I took a Tramadol and curled up with June’s Realms of Fantasy, Journey to the West, and a skunk.

dsnight‘s story in RoF, “Sister of the Hedge,” blew me away. It’s a dark re-examination of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, told via the POV of adjacent characters. Aurora, Prince Charming, and the fairies et al. are only seen through the lens of legend and superstition. This story illustrates both the best and worst aspects of religion, and combines it with some really chilling imagery. It’s exactly the sort of nouveau-classic fairy tale story that I absolutely adore. Fresh, thoughtful, and lushly told. Go. Read.

I should have some more enforced wingstub rest periods this weekend, which I hope will help. fosteronfilm and I are going to an advance screening of The Da Vinci Code tonight, yukinooruoni and I are having brunch tomorrow, and dire_epiphany is taking us to the opera to see Tosca on Sunday.

See? I’m getting out more.

   


Writing Stuff

My guest blogger post at A Writer’s Vanity, “Stuffing My Eyes with Wonder or Why I Write,” is up.

New Words:
– 200 on the YA novel. Then it just hurt too much. Decided to do the non-chronological writing thing and am hopping scenes. Hoping I won’t have to dump too many of them.

Received:
– Payment from Writing-World.com for my “10 Myths About Writing for Kids” article. Also, the editor sez she’ll probably publish this one in July.
– Payment from my researching freelance gig. Yay, money!
– Email from Surreal informing me that my manuscript is being returned unread because they’re closed to submission right now. Thank you, please come again. Doh!

Club 100 For Writers
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Casanova and Mirrorstone

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Watched Casanova last night. Heath Ledger did a reasonable job as the lead, but I would’ve liked the most notorious hedonist and lady’s man in history, “the world’s greatest lover,” to smolder and sizzle, and instead he was essentially a flirty playboy. Then again, it was a Touchstone movie; there wasn’t even any blood in the sword fight scenes. Admittedly, it’s a bit unrealistic to expect Disney to do sizzle.

I was very amused to see Oliver Platt in it, cast in the exact opposite role that he played in Dangerous Beauty, another movie (the superior one) set in Venice during the same time period.

Apparently, Casanova flopped in the theater, which I think is a shame. It was a fun romantic comedy with lushly beautiful costumes and cinematography. Shot completely on location in Venice, it did a fine job of capturing the magic and romance of the City of Canals.

One day, I’d like to see Venice. Right after Paris.
   


Writing Stuff

It’s public now (and it seems it was mentioned in Locus too), so I can finally squee about this! The Frog Princess story I wrote last November, “Princess Bufo marinus, I Call Her Amy,” was for mroctober, who is editing a fantasy anthology aimed at teen girls published by Mirrorstone Books!

Mirrorstone is the YA imprint owned by Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro (ex-TSR) and its titles are in every chain store in America. The final ToC needs to be approved by the Mirrorstone folks, and my froggie tale is not guaranteed passing muster, but mroctober (who is a fount of keenly discriminating judgement and brilliant taste) liked it and wants it, so I maintain high hopes. *squee squee squee!*

New Words:
– 750 on my guest blogger post for A Writer’s Vanity. It’s not up yet, but I assume Jason’ll post it later today.

[Edit: It’s up, it’s up! Clickie HERE.]

– 200 on the YA novel, and I’m already dissatisfied with it. I think the opening needs more of a kick. Pondering. Ponder ponder. Also been thinking about trying to resume work on A Harmony of Foxes.

Club 100 For Writers
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500/day
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Rufus Sewell-athon

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At the recommendation of grendel317 and dream_wind, I added Cold Comfort Farm to our Netflix queue. fosteronfilm was dubious as apparently he’d seen the 1968 version and it had traumatized him as a wee boy. “Orphaned girl goes to live with scary relatives!” he cautioned. But I knew y’all wouldn’t point me at a dreary and depressing tale.

And my faith was not misplaced. I loved Cold Comfort Farm! Quirky and funny, and yes, Rufus Sewell was uber hawt. I drool in his general direction. I had some trouble with the accents, occasionally squinting at the screen (because that helps, ffft) when I couldn’t parse the dialogue and then turning to Matthew with a “what’d he say?” ‘Course Matthew is worse at accents than I am, but that’s the virtue of DVDs: pause and re-playable. And, of course, Kate Beckinsale was adorable. I highly recommend it, and gobs of thanks to grendel317 and dream_wind for the suggestion.

Craving more Rufus Sewell, we then got out Dark City to re-watch. That’s simply an excellent SF-noir movie. The voiceover is unfortunate (are there any good voiceovers?) as is the casting of Keifer Sutherland, but those negatives are more than adequately compensated for by Rufus Sewell (and his bare rump in the opening scene), Jennifer Connelley–who both sizzles in her torch song numbers and pulls off loving/scared/concerned wife with total credibility–and The Strangers, deliciously-dark-and disturbing bad guys. And really, the set, ambiance, and mood should be credited as characters too, since they’re as tangible and salient as the people in this film.

Rufus Sewell. Yum. Might be time to re-watch Dangerous Beauty. Matthew suggested I see She Creature, but I need more convincing.

   


Writing Stuff

I think I’ve come up with a topic/theme to blog about for my Writer’s Vanity guest blogger spot tomorrow: “Why I Write and the Sense of Wonder.” Just gotta squeeze all the thought fragments together and come up with a coherent bit of wordage. Whoa, didja see that hamster go? Erm, yeah.

New Words:
– 1300 on a new YA novel. Going to try this again. Meep. Just taking it one page sentence at a time.
– Been letting my backbrain dwell on where to take the picture book. This is harder than I expected, and I expected it would be pretty damn hard. Oof.

Received:
– Thumbs up on another query/pitch to Writing-World.com. Now I have to write the article.

Club 100 For Writers
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500/day
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