Author Archives: Eugie Foster

Cheesecake and Beefcake

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Cheesecake cravings assuaged. glenn5 swung by on Tuesday to reprise our dinner/movie/pie nights, and he brought a key lime cheesecake. Mmm. I made Pad Thai, but didn’t quite get the proportions right–too many noodles and not enough kick to the sauce–but glenn5 very graciously said “yum” anyway.

We watched The Lavender Hill Mob and Tomorrow Never Dies, which makes me quite curious about the new James Bond. While it’s not possible for them to come up with a nummier Bond than Pierce Brosnan, I’m willing to give Daniel Craig a shot.

   


Writing Stuff

Having a bit of a clash with my inner “you suck” demons these last few days. I’ve been wondering if I’ve become a complacent writer, laurel-reclining as result of the string of sales I’ve had. Have I stopped challenging myself, taking risks, and experimenting outside my comfort zone? Am I writing to capitalize on what I’ve sold rather than trying my hand at more venturesome projects? And am I ever going to break into the “Big 3”??

Contrarily, am I over-thinking my technique, bogging down my prose and losing the story in the process? And then there’s my seeming inability to get to work on, much less finish, a novel.

Yes, I know, I know. Quit wallowing in angst and just put words on the page. Meep.

Received:
– 34-day sale of “The Goddess Queen’s Battlefield” to GrendelSong, my second to these fine folks. It’s slated for publication in their Autumn Equinox 2007 issue. The story was inspired by Suzanne Vega’s “The Queen & The Soldier,” a song that britzkrieg introduced me to. Thanks for the muse food, sweetie!

New Words/Editing:
– 600 on the collab. piece I’m doing with mtrimm1. *lob*
– 400: the start of the Swan Lake story that David Niven and Vincent Price want me to write. Spent some time last night/early this morning (as in 1AM early) researching all the myriad incarnations and interpretations of Swan Lake there have been, including the Mercedes Lackey retelling, The Black Swan.
– 300 on a new freelance gig. I’m going to take all of y’all’s advice and count those in my “words written”/Club 100 tally. Haven’t decided yet if they’ll have the same weight as fiction, but they ought to count.
– Poked and prodded a story I’ve been sitting on that wanted a time out plus final spit-polish before being shoved unto the breach. I like the story very much, but I’m having a hard time classifying it. In the end, I screwed my courage to the sticking place, chucked my “is this a good fit?” wafflings out the window, and sent it to Cicada. While I’m an advocate of the “don’t self-reject” school of submission, I still have this thing going on, particularly with the editors/markets that I’ve had repeat sales at, wherein I’m all anxious about disappointing them, so I find myself hesitating to take risks, submission-wise. Because, of course, seeing the same ole same ole from a writer never gets stale (*snort*).

Ah, rejectomancy at its finest. Or actually, would this be acceptomancy?

Writers are insane. If we didn’t start that way, the biz turns us into twitching, neurotic wrecks.

Club 100 For Writers
      9

500/day
      23

Cheese and Another Restless Night

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fosteronfilm‘s email circle–a society of which dude_the and dean13 are members of–has engaged in a long-ranging debate on the merits of various types of cheese lo these last few days, with topics ranging from Roquefort v. Gorgonzola to the politics of the cheese oligarchy to the best place to buy and consume cheese locally and abroad. I, an innocent bystander, have been agog at the heated and impassioned discourse, and the one time I tried to enter into the fray, I was quite roundly dismissed as being a mere cheese aficionado-wannabe. Fine, I sez. I’m going home and taking my brie with me. But I’m now craving cheesecake.

Had another restless night last night. Even disabled the motion detector–we’re going through a bit of windy weather, and the holly tree beside it has grown unruly such that its branches are close enough to trigger it if stirred by a strong breeze. This is a slightly different sort of insomnia than I’ve had before. While I seem to be able to get to sleep, I can’t manage to stay that way for more than an hour or two at a stretch. I’m wondering if this bout of sleep dysfunction might be due to the green/black tea blend I’ve been imbibing recently to boost the Adderall. Switching back to herbal as of today.

Eventually, I headed into the bedroom while Matthew was still working in the living room, hoping a more comfortable napping place would help, and then I got hit by the “it’s-dark-I’m-alone-can’t-sleep-clown’ll-eat-me” jitters. So I called Matthew in to keep me company, and he reassured me that no clowns or other baddies would dare set foot in our house because it’s guarded by fairy-types, courtesy our own fey beastie, Hobkin. (Who, while not big on the guard critter front himself, does put in a good word on our behalf.) He then went on to assure me that any boogles or goblins who came visiting would surely only be looking for a cookie, or perhaps a beer, so I needn’t fret. I was all safe and secure.

And y’know? That did it. The willies went away, and I was able to get another couple hours of much-needed sleep. I love my husband.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– An email from Christopher Cevasco, the editor of Paradox, alerting me of the domain and email addy change of his ‘zine. I’ve had a story under consideration with him for almost five and a half months (167-days), so I took the opportunity to query about it. And, it seems I beat him to the draw. He informed me that he wants to publish “The Archer of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon” in the forthcoming June issue (#9), and the contract will be going out later this week.

*squee!* This is my second sale to Paradox, and I’m delighted to be able to make an encore appearance between those fine pages.

– 54-day “There’s a sense of maturity and authenticity in your portrayal of these imperfect people and tangled relationships, and the ending brought tears to my eyes . . . but” rejection from Strange Horizons with an invite to submit again. Sigh. Evoking tears just ain’t enough anymore, dangit.

4AM awake bad

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Blah. Woke up at 4AM this morning. The motion detector light went off outside and made it seem like twilight to my fuddled senses, thereby rousing me. Since I was awake, I decided to check email and then go back to sleep. Big mistake. Huge. Checked email, and three hours later, I was still awake, so went upstairs to work in the library. Now the dearth of sleep is hitting me, but if I nap now, I’ll lose the day.

Should I take an Adderall and have some tea or go back to sleep? Decisions, decisions.

My brain’s too muzzy to be coherent, therefore I give you skunk pictures:


With Hobkin, it’s often a puzzle figuring out which end is the head. fosteronfilm calls him a skunk-fungus when he’s like this–striped mushroom skunk. Yep

Continue reading →

“I know that I’m right, ‘cuz I hear it in the night”

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The other night while I slept, fosteronfilm watched a couple vintage horror movies: Diary of a Madman and Eye of the Devil–and I could swear Vincent Price was in both of them, although IMDB assures me it was David Niven in the latter. Snippets of dialogue filtered into my half-dreaming consciousness, and my submerged mind fused both films together. My sleep-self became convinced that Matthew was watching some sort ’60s re-imagining of “Swan Lake” that incorporated Guy de Maupassant’s invisible Horla monster. Being a fan of retold fairy tales, and the ballet was one of my favorites as a little girl, I tacked up a mental “make sure we ask Matthew about this movie later” post-it note because I might actually want to see this genius creation of Hollywood.

Of course, after I woke up, I proceeded to baffle my husband by demanding a synopsis (“Swan Lake? Wha?”), and then we went to work unraveling the knotted snarl of Eugie’s brain space.

It seems that Diary of a Madman is indeed a retelling of “Le Horla,” and there’s a character in it named Odette. (Odette is the heroine’s name in Swan Lake.) Eye of the Devil, apparently a film with a similar theme as the better-done The Wicker Man, has a character in it named Odile–the anti-heroine’s name in Swan Lake. Amusing fluke, but there were no swans and no lakes. Alas.

Now my mind is percolating with ideas for doing a retelling of Swan Lake. Vincent Price and David Niven have reached out beyond the grave and galvanized my idiot muse, who apparently has a predilection for ’60s-era schlock horror flicks.

“When you close your eyes and go to sleep
And it’s down to the sound of a heartbeat
I can hear the things that you’re dreaming about
When you open up your heart and the truth comes out”
–The Romantics, “Talking in Your Sleep”

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– Feedback from the client on my freelance work. They thought my research was “excellent and exactly what they are looking for.” Happy back-petting to commence.
– The next installment of the collaboration story I’m working on with mtrimm1. Ball’s in my court. Now where did I put my hockey stick?
– Word from the editor of Modern Magic that the anthology is now available. Yay! But also that I’d have to wait until the 10th to get my contrib. copy. They’ve only got the initial print-on-demand ones currently on hand–for filling orders through Ingram–while they wait for the traditional offset printed ones to get to them. I could’ve opted for one of the POD ones, but I’d rather wait to get one from the print run–whining, instant-gratification monster notwithstanding.
– 8-day reprint “sale” of my horror story*, “The Reign of the Wintergod” to the Maniac Press anthology Blood, Guts, & Psychopaths.

Note the quotes around “sale.” This is a royalty-paying, trade paperback, POD anthology. To date, my payout from sales to those sorts of publications has amounted to a big, fat zero.

The business model of such projects tends not to be conducive to writers getting money. The editors/publishers can typically “buy” as many stories as they want (although this one has a stated target of 20 in the GLs) without any risk, since they don’t have to pay the writers upfront. They also usually stipulate in the contract that you don’t get paid until your royalties hit a certain threshold . . . which becomes more and more unlikely the more authors there are since the amount is split between them. And being POD, there’s no incentive for the editors/publishers to promote their titles. And finally, (although this is more to do with small, start-up editors/publishers who then disappear or lose interest, and not the business model itself), royalty statements tend to stop coming (if they ever manifest) as time passes.**

Normally I don’t submit to these on principle, and I will never again surrender first publication rights to them, being a devout follower of Yog’s Law. But this story is one of the darkest and squickiest I’ve ever written. It was originally published in The Asylum 3: Tales from the Quiet Ward, another POD, royalty-“paying” anthology (from when I was less worldly and less cynical about the nature of POD anthologies, and actually labored under the starry-eyed belief I’d get some money from that “sale”), which has since been dropped by its publisher (Prime Books) and is therefore out of print. I’ve had little success at finding a paying reprint market for it; it is a pretty hardcore little piece. But I still think the story is a good one; it was a top-ten finisher in the 2003 Preditors & Editors Readers’ Poll in the Best Horror Short Story category. So when I saw this open call for submissions, I figured, hey, if these guys accept it, at least it’ll be back in print, I’ll get another pretty trade paperback out of the deal, and, if that most unlikeliest of unlikelies happens and I actually see money, it’s cake.

*I’ve noticed my horror output has flatlined since I stopped having a day job to go to. Huh. Funny coincidence that.
**Which reminds me that I haven’t received a royalty statement from Scrybe Press in over a year, although I’m supposed to get them semi-annually. Well, at least those chapbooks did earn me something initially. Sigh.

Aeon Flux, Final Fantasy VII, and the Hungarians like me

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Thanks to everyone who offered up their insight and wisdom to answer my “what are these flowers?” inquiry yesterday. I think the consensus is that the first is a mock orange and the second some sort of azalea.

Watched Aeon Flux, and it would’ve been passable as meaningless SF fluff if it hadn’t been Aeon Flux. Some of the imagery was excellent, faithful to the weirdness and mood of the animated series, and gave the beginning of the movie an otherworldly feel. However, they emasculated Trevor Goodchild, made him an altruistic goody-good without enough common sense to anticipate a coup (or dodge a bullet). And what they did to Aeon herself! Oof. Patently, with the two main characters so distorted, their relationship lost all the kick (literally and figuratively) from the animated series. Also, none of the clever, caustic dialogue from the animated series was in evidence, and the hackneyed, cliched effort to write a SF screenplay was truly pathetic. It seems that the screenwriters had never done SF before and it shows. They were also going to make Aeon pregnant, but fortunately, saner brains in Hollywood kiboshed that abomination.

Peter Chung was pretty aghast at what they did with his creation. I hope they paid him well.

Still, Charlize Theron was impressive, even more so considering that she did most of her own stunts, even after she’d herniated a disk ten days into shooting. That woman’s got beauty and grace down pat, she does. The commentary track mentioned that she’d been classically trained in ballet, and that’s pretty obvious to anyone who has a smidgen of dance background; the series of grand jetés she does in the movie, leaping from roof to roof, were absolutely flawless. Wire work or no wire work, you don’t get that kind of turnout and extension unless you’ve had a teacher hound and harangue you about proper alignment during your formative years.

Also watched Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Or rather, I watched part of it and slept through the rest. Granted, I don’t play the game. Actually, I don’t play any computer games; I don’t have the time to commit to a diversion with that sort of addictive potential. I don’t really get the appeal of them–which is absolutely for the best and I’m more than content not to explore this cultural phenomenon on a personal level. But this movie utterly baffled me. The characters, their motivation, the storyline, the world, everything was one big “huh?” The animation was pretty enough, but not particularly engaging. I guess you need the background of the game in order to make sense of it. Even the battle scenes left me blinking.

fosteronfilm managed to sit through the whole thing. His review for anyone curious.

Hollywood has let me down. It’s up to V for Vendetta to restore my faith in shallow, big-budget entertainment.

   


Writing Stuff

Finished up my Apex Featured Writer interview answers and emailed them to merebrillante.

Discovered, to my great amusement, that Galaktika is doing a poll for best story in issue #193. As of this post, “All in My Mind” (or “Minden itt van a fejemben” in Hungarian) is #1, beating out offerings from both Fritz Leiber and Frank Herbert. Woot!

I took a screen shot of the poll so that even if (as I fully expect) I get knocked from the top spot, I will always have proof that once, ye verily, I beat out Fritz Leiber and Frank Herbert.

Stuck a fork in my mongo freelance research project and sent it off. A world of hurray and a continent of whew. That was some big-time brain squeezings. But hard work and stress notwithstanding, I really enjoyed it. (I shall also really enjoy getting paid.) And I’m pleased with my final product; I think I did good. Moreover, I also feel like I did something worthwhile. Helping to put together coursework that will assist teachers in effectively imparting literacy skills to young children gives me a big ole sense of glowy validation.

I guess I hadn’t realized how very much I missed being active in my academic field. I shoved all my regrets and misgivings about going into the private sector totally under the carpet of my subconscious, and they obediently stayed there for over a decade. Probably just as well. I had enough soul-sucking-induced restlessness at my day job without further dissatisfaction to gnaw at me.

Briefly, very briefly, I had a stray “maybe I should try to get my PhD” thought, but that’s really not feasible, or the least bit realistic. But at least I can hope and aspire to do more educational freelance gigs.

If I can manage to get regular work lined up–enough to pay the bills, and that’s a big if–this might be totally doable. I don’t have a problem pulling 12-14 hour days when I love the work, and while I can’t expect all gigs to be as ideal a fit with my interests and background as this one was, this is so much better than being a cubicle monkey.

Stopping to smell the flowers

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Went outside to feed the cat this morning* and was inundated by the most amazing scent–sweet and delicate and decidedly floral. It was like perfume, but not the bottled, artificial variety, more like perfume the way it’s supposed to smell. And I followed my nose until I came to this flower:


Sprouting from some unnamed and unknown ornamental horticulture specimen in our front yard.

It’s lovely, and it blossoms only briefly. Anyone know what it is? Continue reading →

Happy Anniversary to Us!

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It’s our anniversary. Fourteen years ago today, fosteronfilm and I were married in a private ceremony beside a waterfall in the Pocono Mountains. Matthew is my best friend, my sweetheart, my helpmeet, my confidant, my joy, and my sanctuary; he’s my everything.

Happy Anniversary to us!

And, amusingly apropos, a link ganked from teflaime: The Kama Sutra as performed by gummi bears.

   


Writing Stuff

7 out of 7 sections on the research/writing freelance gig completed. Counting on my toes, yes, that is indeed the whole thing. Whee! Donedonedonedone.

Before sending it off, I want to do a few passes for editing and style, and make sure I didn’t contradict myself somewhere or make any embarrassing gaffes. But for the most part, it’s ready to go.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: writing nonfiction is tons easier than writing fiction.

And for my next freelance job, I’ve tentatively tossed my hat into the ring for a gig to write up wedding veil descriptions. Ah, the glamorous life of a freelance writer. Snerk. Until I get concrete specs and confirmation, it’s back to work on le fiction. Except my gears seem in need of oil. I’m having a hard time disengaging from analytical scientist mode and activating creative fantasist mode. *shakes muse*

As a serendipitous segue, I’m writing up my answers for two interviews: my Apex Digest featured writer one (psst: Buy a Best of Apex Digest 2005 chapbook, yo!), and also one from a college student who found her way to my ferret and skunk website, and is writing a paper on animal rights and how the Internet has impacted the movement. So, yeah, I need to make sure I send the right interview to the right interviewer or crazy wackiness may ensue.

Received:
– The tentative ToC from dsnight for Heroes in Training. Tentative still, so I can’t post it, but I can engage in some preliminary squeeage. *squee!*
– 111-day personal “pass” from Fantasy Magazine. They “thought the story was well-written, but . . . ” Snartleblast.

Remington Steele and Apex Digest Best of 2005 anthology

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Completed five and a half out of seven sections of my research/writing freelance gig, and the 1.5 sections left are all applied, so I can lay off the theory, note taking, and brain scrunching.

Therefore, with a whole week left until my deadline, I took a little time to breathe this weekend . . . which still translated to 10-hour days working on the project. But having a few hours free in the evening felt pretty decadent to me.

Because Pierce Brosnan is teh hotness, I watched the first four episodes of season one of Remington Steele with fosteronfilm, courtesy Netflix. I didn’t see it when it first aired, but I’ve been curious about it, because, well, Pierce Brosnan and all. It was fun, not terribly well written, but not atrociously so either, but definitely somewhat time-branded. However, it did exactly what I wanted it to do, which is show lotso yummy Pierce–looking very young–albeit in three-piece suits.

So yeah, the second season one disk is going into our Netflix queue.

   


Writing Stuff

This whole writing for pay thing, I like it. It’s nice having the certainty of a paycheck as I’m working on something. It’s almost like having a job. Almost.

Published:
– “Oranges, Lemons, and Thou Beside Me” in the Apex Digest Best of 2005: Volume II anthology.

Table of Contents:
“Layers” by Mike Simon
“Big Sister/Little Sister” by Jennifer Pelland (jenwrites)
“An Odd Day in I-Forgot” by Athena Workman
“Oranges, Lemons, and Thou Beside Me” by Eugie Foster

This sweet little chapbook is only $2.50, and if you buy it with Volume I, both of are only $4.00.

You know you want it. Buuuuy it . . .

Received:
– In a conjunction of timely serendipity, an email from Matthew Tait, editor/reviewer for HorrorScope, letting me know he’d reviewed “Oranges, Lemons, and Thou Beside Me” in Apex #4.

Blurbage:
“It’s a well-rounded tale with appealing characters, and brushes on incestuous erotica as Sabin – the war vet – tries to veil his feelings for his twin sister who greets him upon returning. An important plot twist involves their servant, with a finale that will not be easy to deduce and is shocking in its shrewdness.”
–Matthew Tait, HorrorScope

And issue 4 of Apex is sold out, so if you want to read the story, you have to buy the anthology.

Beastie updates

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Went out to feed the cat this morning, and I saw the teeniest, tiniest, adorablest snail latched onto the edge of her food dish, undoubtedly brought out by the deluge we had last night:


That’s my thumb on the left for size comparison.

I think the kitty knows I’m trying to get closer to her. She’s been visiting and chowing down on the food I set out during the wee hours of the night when I’m unlikely to be peering out the window. Getting a little anxious; I’m running out of leftover ferret food.

In other beastie-related news, Hobkin hasn’t sicked up in over a week, which makes me very, very happy.

   


Writing Stuff

I’ve hit the Eugie-overwhelmed, brain-useless-now stage of my research project, so I switched from poring over theory to writing up the applied sections. Making good progress. I’ve got three out of seven sections completed–give or take a citation or two. Hoping to have a couple more squared away by the end of this weekend.

Received:
– Preliminary sketch from Dragonfly Spirit for “A Patch of Jewels in the Sky.” I know it’s not industry practice to involve the writer in the art selection or development, so I don’t expect to be consulted, but I always really appreciate it when I am. Also, *squee!* I think it’s going to turn out to be quite spectacular.
– 91-day form “no” from Polphony. Sigh.

Researching, yo

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Researching. Researching. Researching. fosteronfilm had to drag me out of the library last night for dinner. There’s just so many papers and articles I need to read, and those spin me off into online ad hoc research. Don’t have time to eat, dammit.

I remember why I chose this area in college; I’m finding the subject matter utterly fascinating. Although I noticed that I’m not even bothering to go over the statistics sections of research papers; I just jump to the conclusion paragraphs. I have a feeling all those advanced stats classes are well and goodly flushed out of my system. Sigh.

   


Writing Stuff

basletum is interviewing me for his “Giving it Meaning” column at The Sword Review. Been pondering my answers between reading Dev. Psych. articles. I’m trying to convey my philosophy that having an insightful, relevant theme is what lifts a story from the realm of entertainment into that of art without sounding all highfalutin’ and ostentatious. The thing is, I do believe there’s nothing wrong with a story just being entertainment; a lot of mine are, and I make no apologies about it. But I think I’m coming across as pretentious. Maybe I just need to embrace my inner beatnik.

Received:
– Contract from GrendelSong for “Shim Chung the Lotus Queen.”
– Reprint sale of “Only Springtime When She’s Gone” to Apex Online. This’ll go up in May to accompany my “Featured Writer” interview. Yay!