Author Archives: Eugie Foster

Sunday: Day of Chocolate

By | |
21 Comments

Feeling better today. Not well, but better. Got me a pot of green tea and a snack bowl of chocolate chips–once fated to become cookies, now they are pure, unadulterated chocolate therapy.

It occurred to me while we were up north that both my mom and fosteronfilm‘s share an odd quirkiness. While we were there, we wrestled as much of the cooking and cleaning tasks away from his mom as we could (a Herculean undertaking in and of itself). I decided to make some beer bread on Friday to go with dinner, and mid-ingrediant assemblage, I discovered that she doesn’t have any measuring spoons. Not one. And she’s only got one measuring cup–a heavy Pyrex thing with demarcations for a range of increments.

I could work with the jumbo Pyrex measuring device, but that didn’t help with the smaller measurements I needed for salt, sugar, and baking powder. She did have a Gloria Jeans coffee measuring scoop, but frustratingly, it didn’t say anywhere on it what size it was. I took a wild guess that it was 1 tablespoon, but upon consultation with Matthew (after I had already measured out and dumped in the aforementioned ingredients), I think it’s more likely it was 2 tbls. This resulted in the completed beer bread being too dense and salty, although husband and in-laws assured me it was fine. But then, they’re obligated to say that, even if I served them unbaked dough in silt. But kindly relative sentiments aside, it was too dense and salty.

It seems that Matthew’s mom doesn’t use measuring spoons. On those occasions where she needs to dump in a tablespoon or a teaspoon of something, she uses tableware to approximate it. I remember my mom doing the same thing when I was little. So now I’m wondering if it’s coincidence or a generational thing.

Anyway, the next time we go up to visit Matthew’s folks, I’m packing along a set of measuring spoons.

   


Writing Stuff

Researching Japanese poetry and song styles, specifically Imayo, the popular song form of the mid- to late-Heian Era. Got a little carried away with the researching yesterday, resulting in relatively few words on the page.

The thing is, I’m not a poet. I’m in awe of writers like mtrimm1 and time-shark who can pull off both prose and poetry with facility, but I really can’t. I do prose and that’s it. Period. But the story I’m working on requires that I have a few lines of Imayo speckled in as part of the storyline, which leaves me having to come up with something appropriate that’s both authentic-sounding and that doesn’t make me (or more importantly readers) want to cringe. It doesn’t even have to be a full poem, in fact it shouldn’t be, because a full poem–even one as short as an Imayo–would risk grinding the story’s pacing to a snail’s limp, but I’m ye verily angsting over those couple of lines.

Meep.

New Words:
300 on “Birds of White Rhythm.”

My thoughts were pretty fragmented yesterday, and with the poetry thing and all, I ended up skipping scenes. Great for forging ahead when I’m stuck on what’s going to happen next, but now I gotta figure out how to connect the pieces.

Club 100 For Writers
      2

Saturday: Day of Pain

By | |
29 Comments

Today is going to be all about the chemicals versus the pain. Thus far, I have downed: 1 20 MG Adderall XR capsule, 2 Sudafeds, 2 Extra Strength Tylenols, and 1 pot of green tea. Hoping that the wracking headache and drooping sense of fatigue lift shortly. I think it must be something about the turning of the season. I seem to remember having similar headaches at this time last year. Unhappy sinuses, maybe? Or maybe it’s the little man with the iron club inside my skull. Ow.

Also, to my great distress (and near myocardial infarction), the smoke alarm went off a little while ago–the one right outside the library door where I’m working. Very double not good on nerves or for headaches. I’m still rather baffled as to what set it off, as well as what prompted it to cease its ear-shattering wails. I’m thinking it was a mischievous fey or ghostie. Or perhaps it was the cinnamon in my cream of wheat.

My brain hurts.

   


Writing Stuff

reddherring1955 put together three fantastic writerly “Ten Reasons” lists: “Ten Reasons Why I Write,” “Ten Negative Things I Have Learned (Mostly About Myself) from Writing Fiction,” and “Ten Positive Things I Have Learned from Writing Fiction.” I’d link to them, except the big chicken has friends-locked that post ( you know I love you, Swamp Queen).

Edit: reddherring1955 unlocked her post! Therefore, I give you listie goodness.

Received:
– My contrib. copies of April’s Cricket with my story “The King of Rabbits and Moon Lake” in it. Cricket always puts out a gorgeous publication, and this is no exception. My story has three illustrations in it (by Patrick Gannon), and I spent a chunk of yesterday afternoon squeeing over them. Actually, and I’m a little embarrassed admitting this, but every time I read “The King of Rabbits and Moon Lake,” I get teary-eyed. I feel particularly foolish when my own stories make me cry–the realization that my writing brain is manipulating the rest of me, or something–and in this case I’m weepy and sniffling like a ninny over a tale of bunnies and elephants. Still, red-rimmed eyes notwithstanding, it’s those stories that tug at my emotions that I end up loving the most. I’m so glad this one found such a good home.
– 137-day pass from Cicada. Alas, it wasn’t a good fit, falling between what they’re seeking for either Cicada or Cricket. But I also found out that my Cricket/Cicada editor is also a fan of Doctor Who, which is just way cool.
– 3-day email from the assistant editor of Baen’s Universe letting me know she’s passing my story up the line for consideration by Eric Flint. Crossing my fingers. A lot.

Gin, tater-tots, and explodie things

By | |
15 Comments

Yesterday, I drowned my not-writer’s-block in gin, gorged on tater-tots, and watched a light and fluffy blow-em-up movie: Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Yeah, gin is probably not the healthiest way to deal with writerly frustrations, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. And considering what alcohol does to my system (my GI tract is in full rebellion today), it’s not like I don’t pay for my mild excesses–very mild even, I had one drink. I’m such a lightweight.

But hey, it worked!

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
700 words on a new Japanese Fantasy: “Birds of White Rhythm.”
It seems that after I made peace with the notion of not working on either the novel or the folktale, my muse relented. I even managed to come up with an appropriate title right off the bat.

Or, I suppose it could’ve been the gin.

Club 100 For Writers
      1
After a couple days of not-writer’s-block I’m back to 1 again. Sigh.

500/day
      18

Colin Firth and Big Monkey

By | |
12 Comments

Finally got to watch Pride and Prejudice, the mini-series with Colin Firth. Yup, there’s oodles of yumminess there. fosteronfilm was perplexed as to what it was I (and all the other Firth-fans) found so delectable about Mr. Darcy. I summed it up as “sexy-but-vulnerable-arrogance,” but I don’t think he gets it.

Also saw the new King Kong, courtesy Netflix, and I really liked it. When I saw it was 3+ hours, I thought I’d be clamoring “big monkey already, dammit!” through the whole beginning, but surprising myself, I thought it was well paced. The characters had depth, even (or perhaps especially) Jack Black’s, and I am Naomi Watts’s newest fan. Not only is she teh hotness, but I’m astonished how much emotion she managed to convey with so few lines. And, of course, there were indeed many excellent big monkey scenes. Although why anyone would ever want to go to Skull Island is beyond me. Giant leggy worms . . . *shudder*

   


Writing Stuff

It appears the Tangent forum has been discovered by spammers, and they are seriously ticking me off. There’s especially one repeat spammer who I’ve IDed and reported to their ISP’s abuse address, and he STILL keeps posting his stupid little spam links. I delete them as soon as they pop up, and I’ve asked our webmistress if there’s a way to block individual IP addresses but haven’t heard back from her yet. Anyone know of anything else I can do? Argh. So annoying.

Received:
– Contrib. copies of #292 of Ennea with “Fade to Black” in Greek in it. Rah.
– Galley proofs of “Souls of Living Wood” from William Horner for Modern Magic. Also got to see the full-sized artwork that’ll be accompanying my story, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. I don’t know if I’m allowed to display it, so if you’re curious, it’s the house illustration on the Fantasist Enterprises Modern Magic page. But bigger.
– 50-day “well received here, but . . . ” from Abyss & Apex with invite to submit again.

New words:
Zero. Zip. Nada. There’s no such thing as writer’s block. *twitch* There’snosuchthingaswriter’sblock! *pant pant pant*

Whimper.

The Heian Era is still very much at the forefront of my muse processes, and I’m wondering if I should just run with one of the stories ideas there instead of trying to force a folktale or novel chapter when those simply aren’t gelling right now.

I hate my muse.

Muse food from Lethe Press!

By | |
37 Comments

Lookie what mroctober gave me! Muse food from Lethe Press! Aren’t they beautiful?


From left to right: The Story of Oriental Philosophy by L. Adams Beck, Legends of the City of Mexico by Thomas A. Janvier, Shallow Empire, poetry by Sou MacMillan, Stranger Than Fiction: Welsh Ghosts and Folklore by Mary L. Lewes, and Irish Witchcraft & Demonology by St. John D. Seymour.

I’m already nose deep into The Story of Oriental Philosophy and making periodic forays into the Sou MacMillan poetry. Squee! Thank you, Steve!!

But now I really need to grow another head so I can devote one to reading full time.

   


Writing Stuff

Got an email from a fellow writer in Budapest whom I didn’t know was Hungarian. She saw that a Hungarian translation of “All in My Mind” was forthcoming in Galaktika in April and sent me snaps. I asked her if she’d be willing, if I sent her the English version, to give me a summary of how good the translation was. I’m always a bit anxious to know how my foreign language translations turn out. One of my writers group peeps is Greek, so I’ve got a thumbs up from him on the Greek translations, and I can more or less stumble through the French on my own. But for the Polish and now Hungarian translations I’ve just been crossing my fingers.

Anyone out there read Polish?

This meme has been floating around my flist, and since my muse decided to play hide-n-seek yesterday (mostly hide), here’re my 10 things:

Ten Things I Learned from Writing Fiction

1. Write. Write more. Keep writing. Then write something else. Don’t stop writing.
2. There are stories out there begging to be written. Once you start looking for them, you’ll find them everywhere. Just remember not to get so wrapped up finding the stories that you forget to write them.
3. There are no rules to writing, just guidelines. Use what works for you and don’t angst about going against the common wisdom.
4. Get other people to read and critique your work. They’ll catch things you miss, and you will miss things, no matter how vigilant you are.
5. If you want to be published, you must have a thick skin. Rejection is a part of the biz, as is criticism–and sometimes most crushing of all, indifference. Don’t snark at folks who reject your stuff; take it in stride and either learn from it or let it roll off (or both). After all, they’re not rejecting you, just that particular configuration of words you put together.
6. Trust your instincts, but be open to suggestions. No matter how good you are (or think you are), you can always be better . . . or wrong.
7. If you thought being a writer meant you’d never have to talk in public again, you were mistaken. (*sigh*)
8. Write for you. Write what you love. Write what you want to read. Be passionate about your story, your words, and your characters. Cherish what you write with a burning, fiery, obsessive madness. It’s the best (and oftentimes only) reward for writing. Anything less and you might as well be a cubicle monkey; cubicle monkeys earn a helluva lot more for their souls.
9. Writers are insane, especially if they do it full time (see #8). If you hang out with writers, expect some dementia to pop up.
10. Writing is staggeringly hard (see #9).

Received:
– Payment from Oceans of the Mind for “The Few, the Proud, the Leech Corps.” Yay!

Editing/No new words:
My muse was not kind. I did one editing pass on the second section of The Novel, tentatively titled The Goddess of Beauty and War, and then *poof* no words. Snartleblast. Since I got so many folks clamoring for that Egyptian folktale, aiming my muse that-away instead.

Also did do a couple editing passes on “A Thread of Silk” and did indeed decide to stick on an prologue.

Club 100 For Writers
      13

Returned from the Midwest and COBRA

By | |
29 Comments

We got home safe and sound. The snow stopped; the roads were clear. Hobkin was glad to see us and has spent the last couple days cuddled against my side–which makes it difficult to do anything but lie there being a skunk pillow. But now I’m refreshed and recuperated, and Hobkin is adhered to fosteronfilm‘s side. Time to charge back into the trenches.

Received official word that my COBRA benefits expire at the end of August–a fact I knew, but having them send me a reminder letter has ramped up the stress. I’m hoping that my HMO will be willing to continue covering us under an individual policy, but I’m not sure how likely that is, considering all my pre-existing health conditions. And if they do, I have no idea how much it’ll cost. Of course, if they don’t, I’m royally screwed. I keep wanting to go “I’ll worry about this later” but it’s almost April. Too much later and I’ll be out of time as well as medical coverage. Urk.

I could really go for a national health plan about now. Stupid country.

   


Writing Stuff

Alas, I didn’t make it onto the Campbell Award ballot, but I hadn’t really expected to. However, I have to admit being rather crestfallen that Tangent didn’t get a Hugo nod. Pook.

Crits for “A Thread of Silk” continue to trickle in (thanks aliettedb, basletum, and wbledbetter!). So far, it’s being well received. I’m seriously dwelling upon splitting the epilogue into an epilogue and prologue.

During a very long stretch on I-24, I plotted out the next couple scenes on my novel. If the muse is kind, I want to get those on the page today.

Received:
– Contrib. copy of Here & Now #7. Finally.
– Contrib. copy of Oceans of the Mind XIX.

Snow??

By | |
9 Comments

Err, it’s snowing up here. That’s . . . unexpected, not to mention worrisome on a couple fronts: we’re taking fosteronfilm‘s dad in for some scheduled labwork today and I don’t like the idea of him being out in the cold and snow, and also we were planning on heading back to Georgia tonight. We can certainly handle some snow driving–fosteronfilm and I are both Midwestern-born and learned how to navigate snowy expanses–but I don’t like it.

Plus, it’s almost April. What’n heck is it doing snowing? Apparently I’ve forgotten some of the vagaries of the Midwestern climate.

   


Writing Stuff

Nothing on the new words front has happened for the last couple days, but I hadn’t expected it to.

Received:
– 15-day sale of “Shim Chung the Lotus Queen” to GrendelSong
– Status update from Aeon on a story I subbed there in December letting me know that they’re behind on their slush and catching up.
– A pair of Critters crits for “A Thread of Silk.”

DIL update: much relief and happiness

By | |
41 Comments

Thank you to everyone who sent their support, thoughts, and well-wishes about fosteronfilm‘s dad. The news is all good. We arrived at the in-laws yesterday morning, checked in with my MIL, and then went to visit my DIL in the hospital.

He looked and sounded fantastic and was eating with appetite. The lung specialist dropped in, followed by the heart specialist, and we got the complete rundown about his condition and his prognosis, which is much better than originally thought.

He was indeed in critical condition when he came in last week, but they’re thinking that was due to an acute condition–most likely lingering effects from the infection from his earlier angiogram a couple months back–rather than a sudden worsening of his chronic heart/lung troubles. When they did an echo cardiogram of his aortic valve on Monday, it showed that what had been a critical blockage of the opening circumference on Thursdays had returned to its previous “severe” blockage–with “severe” being leaps and bounds better than critical. It’s still functioning at less than half normal, but it’s manageable and what he was at before Thursday.

It’s a degenerating condition, and they expect he’ll need to go in for the angioplasty procedure in a year or so–and it’s a variation of the standard angioplasty so needs to be done by specialist-specialists–where they’ll knock off the accumulated calcium around the valve. The procedure only has an effectiveness of about six months, due to the nature of the disease–the calcium accumulates again very rapidly–but it can be repeated. There’s 5-8% risk of stroke with the procedure due to danger of the dislodged calcium entering the bloodstream in addition to the other dangers with these sorts of procedures. But he’s holding steady now, on more meds to improve his breathing capacity, on oxygen round the clock, and they expect he should be able to maintain this level of functionality for a year, until they need to re-visit the angioplasty option.

I almost burst into tears (again) of relief when I heard the news. (I’ve been fairly useless this whole trip.) I’m so, so happy at this turnabout.

Matthew and I brought DIL home yesterday, and we all had a nice dinner together and called it an early night. Matthew’s brother swung by to get updated and caught up, and plans to come over again tonight. Matthew and I are running some chores for the in-folks today–grocery shopping and a trip to the hardware store–and we’re cooking dinner. Trying to make sure that his mom, who is intent upon bustling about and doing the attentive hostess thing, doesn’t, and instead takes it easy. And, of course, striving to ensure his DIL is comfy and doesn’t overexert himself.

I feel like the monster-beastie that’s been sitting on my chest for the last week has finally gotten off. A million hurrays.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– one no, one still pending, and one “this seems like more of a Weird Tales story so I passed it along to them” from Sean Wallace of Fantasy Magazine at 38-, 80-, and 79 days respectively.
– Contract from Jason Sizemore for “Nothing of Me” for Aegri Somnia.
– 48-day audio reprint SALE+contract of “The Storyteller’s Wife” to MechMuse. On a serendipitous note, I burned to CD the MP3s of issue #1 of MechMuse for the drive to Illinois and listened to over half the stories in the car, so now I’ve had a chance to hear what sort of publication it is. And lemme say that I am very impressed. The actors they hire are excellent, and the stories I’ve heard have been top notch, especially the two by David Barr Kirtley (who also happens to be a fellow Phobos Winner). The editor informs me that “Storyteller’s Wife” will be in the May ’06 issue alongside a story by Kevin J. Anderson. Sweet.

Heading north

By | |
15 Comments

Got a call from fosteronfilm‘s mom. They’re not doing the surgery today, but possibly tomorrow. Matthew and I are heading up there later today. Rushing to drop Hobkin off with his godmother, pack, and get everything organized. Not sure how much I’ll be online for the next few days.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– My check from Cricket for “Li T’ien and the Demon Nian.” Shiny.
– Email from the editor in answer to my query regarding whether he’s still interested in considering “A Thread of Silk.” His answer: yes. But he also told me that the funding for his project got slashed, so the pay I could now expect if he wanted to buy it would be significantly below “pro” rates. Hmm. That news will require some pondering. I’ll worry about it later.

Editing:
Many passes on my rewrite of “Nobodies and Somebodies.” Stuck a fork in and sent it off to my Aberrant Dreams editor. I think it’s a stronger story; here’s hoping he agrees. It’s slated for their July issue.

Club 100 For Writers
      12

Coffee therapy and DIL update

By | |
18 Comments

britzkrieg very thoughtfully lured/nudged me out of the house yesterday for coffee. I definitely needed a change in scenery. We chatted for several hours on a wide range of topics: pets, hubbies, writing/editing, our varied states of health, etc., and it was so therapeutic getting my mind off things. Felt much more focused and relaxed afterward–relaxed despite the grande mocha britzkrieg treated me to; that’s pretty salient indication that I needed an afternoon out.

fosteronfilm called his folks. His dad sounds pretty good. It was very touch and go on Friday and Saturday; he was in emergency care all that time, and they weren’t sure if he was going to make it, but he’s stabilized now, although still going through periods of disorientation. It seems the hospital folks are wanting to try something after all, according to my mom-in-law, now that they think he’s strong enough to undergo treatment. So my dad-in-law is going in for some sort of surgery on Tuesday. Unfortunately, his folks’ grasp of medical procedures leaves us a bit uncertain as to what that will be.

It seems there were two options: 1. Full open heart surgery, the cracking his ribs and putting him on a heart-lung machine variety. And 2. I believe a balloon angioplasty. I say “believe” because the description from his mom was along the lines of “some other invasive, but not that invasive surgery that involves a balloon which would have about a 6 month benefit if successful.” After a search on “heart,” “surgery,” and “balloon,” Google informed me that it’s probably an angioplasty.

DIL was all “just do the open heart and get it over with” and MIL appears to have talked him out of that and into the angioplasty. I’m agog that they were even considering open heart, but maybe they’re at the point where they’re running out of options. I wish I knew more. At least (so sez my Google-fu) it’s possible to do an angioplasty without having to administer a general anesthetic, making it a much less traumatic procedure than the alternative.

I’m clinging to optimism . . . tinged by frustrated confusion.

   


Writing Stuff

Still waiting on the notes from the editor regarding my middle-grade novel-to-picture book rewrite. Tempting to start on it without the notes. Also tempting to get back to work on the novel I’ve been neglecting. And likewise tempted to start on an Egyptian folktale. I haven’t submitted anything new to Cricket since last year, and I’ve been devouring Ancient Egyptian Magic in my non-copious free time. My brain is beginning to bubble with ideas.

So much to write. So few mes. How did I do this when I had a day job??

New Words:
600 on my rewrite of “Nobodies and Somebodies” for Aberrant Dreams. After I got back from my outing with britzkrieg, inspiration hit as to how to address the editorial request, and I was off. Going to give it another couple passes to smooth out the prose in the new section, and then send it off to ye olde editor. Pleased to have another major item (nearly) checked off my Things to Do list.

Club 100 For Writers
      11

500/day
      17