Category Archives: LJ

Took a Clonazepam. Pain better, and the world’s all soft and fuzzy. Maybe I should go lie down now . . .

Wheeeee!

Early AM insomnia. Arms hurt. Four rejections this week:

– F&SF: “nice writing but . . . ” from JJA. I miss the “alas”es from GVG.
– Arabella: “elements that appealed but . . . ”
– NFG: “grabbed the attention of the editors but . . .” they’re also willing to see a rewrite, which is something.
– Fantastic: “closed to subs until 2005”

Pook.

In other writing news, the editor of Scrybe Press said he’s going to try to get Carrie Hall to do the cover art for “Ascendancy of Blood” and wants to publish it as a chapbook. I’m excited to see how that’ll turn out.

But, no new words. No rewrites. I hurt too much. I shouldn’t even be typing this journal entry. Stupid extra rib.

Okay, my TOS has returned something fierce. I actually took off all of yesterday and Tuesday afternoon from work because of the pains zinging up my arms. Been downing Clonazepam like candy. The upshot is I’ve been sleeping pretty heavily. But the downward side of things is my brain feels pretty muggy. And I still hurt.

Of all the ironies, my muse came a-calling too. 1000 more words on the little fantasy I started and it’s done. Zero draft completed. It’s a short piece, a sort of mystic/spiritual examination of war as a theme. It was inspired by one of the songs on the CD britzkrieg gave me for my birthday: “The Queen and the Soldier” by Suzanne Vega. The lyrics stuck me with me, haunting me with images until I sat down and hammered out a story to frame them. So, hurray, my first completed story of 2004. Having Matthew first reader it, and then up to Critters it goes. But also, ouch.

Wish I could learn how to type with my toes.

Got a note from the editor of Song of the Siren. The January 2004 issue is live. “Second Daughter,” my fairy tale that originally appeared in issue #44 of Brigham-Young’s Leading Edge magazine, is now up. Rah!

britzkrieg and her fiancé came over last night for dinner and a movie. (A double date ). Matthew made a veggie stir-fry and after some excellent gabbing–we always have great conversations with them–we split off into chromosomal groupings for the passive entertainment portion of the night.

The boys went upstairs to watch Zulu on the 60-inch home theater system, and britzkrieg and I stayed downstairs and watched Thelma and Louise on the smaller set. I’ve been wanting to see T&L for ages now, but Matthew has been less than enthusiastic about it. I’m so glad I finally saw it. Some truly beautiful cinematography in that movie.

Hobkin was a sweetie too. I think he’s getting more laid back about the whole “people in his territory” thing. Thank goodness.

Woke up ridiculously early this morning, though. Stupid, whacked-out circadian rhythms.

I came across a review of In the Outposts of Beyond at epinions.com:

“Read enough anthologies in a row and pretty soon the stories all seem the same in your memory. The ones that stand out are the ones you mention when suggesting to a friend they read it. If I were to tell one of my friends to read In the Outposts of Beyond, I’d mention Ralan Conley’s “The Walking Man” or Eugie Foster’s “A Little Soul Music.”
–C. Dennis Moore

I’m grinning like a loon.

Thanks to the folks who responded ’bout my domain registration question! I decided to go with hostingdude.com as my registrar, although godaddy.com was a close second. There was a ten cent difference between their prices, but identical services otherwise.

*drum roll* I now own http://www.eugiefoster.com. Hurray!

I’ll be pointing it to my comcast URL. Didn’t need to mess with hosting or anything that way (since Comcast is already taking their pound o’flesh every month). My new domain name should be live as soon as all the registration stuff propagates through the proper channels–they said in 24-48 hours.

Neat. I won’t have to worry about my stupid ISP changing again.

That was a lot easier and cheaper than I thought it was going to be. I feel like I ought to have done it a long time ago. Oh well, better late than not at all, I guess.

Now I get to change all the contact info. on my cards and everything . . .

Okay, I’m beginning to mull over finally biting the bullet and registering my own domain name. Any hints, tips, suggestions on folks to use or pitfalls to avoid?

Thanks!

So I took a clonazepam for the first time in months last night, both ’cause my arms and hands are hurting again, and I haven’t been sleeping very well. The upshot of that is, I slept like a dead thing. Rah! The less uppy part is that I hit snooze three times on my alarm clock before dragging my groggy self out of bed this morning, and didn’t have time to put my contact lenses in before going to work.

And the drive to work was . . . fun. I felt spacey and light-headed, which is, of course, exactly what you want to be feeling while maneuvering a large piece of metal through commuter traffic. But, fortunately, I was focused enough not to get into trouble. And as soon as I got to my desk, I poured myself a great big cup of steaming hot coffee.

Half an hour later, I was very, very happy. Apparently a dose of caffeine mixed with the dregs of a clonazepam buzz is a good recipe for a warm, fuzzy state of being. Or maybe it was the discovery that the deadline I thought was next month, isn’t actually until March.

I’ve been busting my tail at work, cranking out specs and code for a major upgrade my company is doing. I finished the first batch of thirty-four modules I was given, and like a good worker bee, I asked my team lead for more. He handed me fifty more programs, and I began muttering under my breath “hard work never goes unpunished” as my new mantra.

Feeling overwhelmed, I sent a note back to him to verify the timeline as he’s an excellent TL and I couldn’t believe he’d load me with so much work with such an impossible deadline. I had to be missing something. He replied, telling me that yes, I’ve got two weeks more than I thought I had. Whew. It’ll be tight, but it’s enough. So I dig in.

This morning, I open up that old email to check some detail or other about the project, and my eyes flit upon the date he gave. Somehow, I had misread “mid-March” as “mid-February.”

I don’t have two extra weeks. I have six. Woo!! Nice surprise. And the world is a calm and loving place once again.

Although my arms still hurt.

Writing stats:

1000 words on a new fantasy story. What happened to the other new fantasy story I’d started? It’s sitting on my hard drive, sad and forlorn. Blame my muse, the flighty strumpet.

Ended up with twenty-seven crits on my Critters story. Hoping to get some work done on the rewrite over the weekend.

Haven’t been sleeping well all this week. Between just having a restless time of it, Hobkin’s been restless too and keeps hopping up and down next to me all night, waking me up every time he does it. To make matters worse, I’ve been seeing an encore of my early AM insomnia. Been barely able to make it through the workday, calamity-free, even slamming high intensity coffee. Not good. And my hands and arms, which for several months have been pain-free, have started giving off warning tingles and little zapping shooting pains again. Dammit.

Writing stats:

Finished the rewrite on the Magic Realism piece. It’s out. Fwoosh.

The Urban Fantasy that’s up at Critters will be coming down after today. It’s got twenty-four crits now–a nice, manageable number. I expect a few more to trickle in between today and tomorrow, but I’m fine with this level of feedback.

I’m hearing some dissatisfaction with the ending, which has brought about something of a quandary. This story has a pretty heavy addiction theme. I didn’t intend to submit this to On Spec for their “Me and Mr. Jones” issue, but two critters now have suggested I do so. Problem: it’s 1000 words longer than On Spec‘s maximum stated length. So, do I want to totally overhaul the ending and gut some of the earlier bits to see if I can cull 1000 words? Or do I just want to do a less aggressive rewrite and just skip sending it to On Spec? Ponder ponder ponder.

No new words, though. My muse is undoubtedly napping somewhere. At least one of us is getting some sleep.