*Shameless pimping and self-promotion alert!*
A little bird told me (thanks, basletum!) that The Fix has been nominated for Best Review Site in the P&E Readers’ Poll.
If you like what The Fix is doing, it’d be greatly appreciated if you would vote for us.
/Shameless pimping and self-promotion
I’ve been feeding a couple feral cats. Actually, at first I thought it was just one, but upon closer inspection, I realized it was two (which explains the amount of food being eaten, as I couldn’t fathom how a single kitty, even a single starving kitty, could snarf that much down). In my defense, they look pretty similar, both gray tabbies with white feet:
Kitty 1 (pictured) seems to have hurt her (his?) paw, favoring the right front one. Don’t know if it’s an old wound or a recent one. You might be able to see that she’s holding it to her chest above. She was limping a couple weeks ago, but appears to be able to walk on it now.
Kitty 2 looks almost exactly like Kitty 1 except her tail is less fluffy, and her white feet are shoes only, lacking a white sock up to her elbow that Kitty 1 has.
They’re both extremely skittish and won’t come to the bowl if either I or fosteronfilm are on the porch, although Kitty 1 will crouch beside it on the edge of the porch—just out of reach—while we’re filling it, waiting for us to go back inside before coming to eat. I’ve tried to make friends with her, but she’s not inclined to have our relationship grow any closer than it is, meowing plaintively at me if I linger, talking to her, as though asking me (politely) to please leave so she can get on with her breakfast.
My plan was to trap them both and take them into a vet’s to be fixed (and looked over) and then releasing them. They’re both very feral, and I can’t imagine either of them becoming tame enough to make the transition to being an adoptable housecat. But now I’m rethinking whether I ought to trap them or not. britzkrieg informed me that she recently trapped a feral just a few blocks away from our place (in j_hotlanta‘s yard) which ended up testing positive for FIV. It was too feral to be adoptable, and a FIV-positive kitty can’t be released back into the wild, so she had no choice but to have it put to sleep.
The odds are higher than I like contemplating that any feral in such close proximity could also have FIV, and I don’t want to have to euthanize these kitties. I know it’d be more responsible to bring them in and have them evaluated (assuming I could trap them), but the thought of my well-meaning action resulting in tragedy gives me the shudders.
Pointy-sharp quandary.
Received:
• 13-day SALE of “Beautiful Summer” to the Killers anthology (edited by Colin Harvey, to be published by Swimming Kangaroo Books). This came last month, actually, so it’s an end-of-year hurray rather than a first-sale-of-the-year ring-in.
• Contracts for “A Thread of Silk” from Baen’s Universe and “Daughter of Bótù” from Realms of Fantasy.
• 22-day (or so) rejection from Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling for the story I submitted for their next anthology. Sigh. Disheartening and disappointing is an understatement, but I’ve been clinging to my “it was an honor to be invited” mantra.
Published:
• “When Shakko Did Not Lie” in the Jan. 2008 issue of Cricket, and it’s the lead story. Yay! “Shakko” has been awaiting an issue to be slated in for some time, and it’s been a while since I read it. Getting the contrib. copies and reading my story over was a little like seeing an old friend you’ve not heard from in ages, familiar but also new. Very pleased that it’s out now.
Shiny cover:
Back from Christmas with the fam-in-laws. Managed to miss the truly icky weather, although driving up, the winds were fierce. When I stepped out of the car at a rest stop, it almost blew me over. I think we actually got better mileage from the tailwind.
Got much shiny stuff, including this awesome Shakespeare action figure from my brother-in-law and his wife:
A pair of fairy doors from fosteronfilm—they’re both 10″ high, the perfect size for fairy folk. (I think we’ll install the red one in Hobkin’s area so his fey visitors will have a convenient entrance):
And gadgety goodness, my hubby got me a GPS!
Aside from the convoluted, tesseract-esque confusion which are the Atlanta streets, my direction sense (or rather the lack thereof) borders on the tragic. It’s a regular occurrence for me to call home ’cause I’ve managed to get myself lost or turned around and can’t figure out where I am. Hee! Having this gizmo is downright liberating. Now if I can only figure out how to install it directly into my brain . . .
2007 Writing Year in Review and 2008 Resolutions
2007 was a bit of a mixed year for me. Good stuff and not-so-good, encouraging successes and disheartening rejections, and a worrisome drop in productivity overall.
Looking over 2007’s Writing Resolutions, I determined to:
• Finish a novel.
Sigh. I made good progress at the beginning of the year but then was derailed when I got invited to submit to a couple anthologies.
• Write 500 words a day, every day, barring weekends, holidays, and the legislative session.
Nope here as well. Again, I made a good start after session, but . . . see above re: derailed. Fooie.
• Don’t stress the hamsters and don’t be afraid to turn some away.
Hamsters hamsters hamsters. Lessee, I resigned from my assistant editor position with The Town Drunk, went on hiatus at Critters, and my monthly Writing for Young Readers column ended with 2007. Tangent fell apart (much stupidity there), but within hours of that debacle, I agreed to helm and re-launch The Fix. The Fix is now to the point of taking up about the same amount of time that Tangent did, but for a couple months, it took up all my free (i.e., writing) time. And, of course, I’m still the director and editor of The Daily Dragon, which takes out about a month for prep and organizing.
So my hamsters are still a juggling act in progress.
2007’s highlights and accomplishments, I:
• Agreed to re-launch and helm TTA Press’s The Fix which went live in mid-October.
• Survived another year as The Daily Dragon‘s Editor/Director.
• Made 22 fiction sales, including repeat sales to Realms of Fantasy, Cricket, and Escape Pod, and broke into Interzone and Jim Baen’s Universe.
• Saw 24 works published, including stories in Best New Romantic Fantasy 2, OSC’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, Magic in the Mirrorstone, and 3 stories in Cricket.
• Conducted an online workshop on Worldbuilding for the Carolina Romance Writers.
And herein my Writing Resolutions for 2008:
• Finish the ^#$!@# novel.
• Write 500 words a day, every day, barring weekends, holidays, and the legislative session. I really want to focus on this as my word count went way down this year. I only managed to write four new stories (although I plan to complete a 5th before session starts) and 15K words on the novel. 2007 was my least productive year since I started writing professionally. Badness badness badness!
• Be more willing to say “no” when new hamsters come a’beggin’.
Happy 2008 to all!
Agh! This month is zipping by too quickly! I can’t believe Christmas is next week! Haven’t sent out any Christmas cards (and I think it’s past time to concede that I’m not going to this year), and hardly anything is wrapped. Also, things are ramping up at work. Had a few days last week that felt like session was already upon us. (Eek!) And I definitely want to finish the WiP before session begins.
But, in the flurry of December, fosteronfilm and I have managed to catch a couple of fun flicks. We attended the Sweeny Todd advance screening on the 5th as well as Enchanted last week. Delightful pair of movies…in totally different ways—although the idea of a Sweeny Todd/Enchanted double feature appeals to me in a twisted fashion, and hey, they’re both musicals!
But between them, I liked Sweeny Todd best. Tim Burton’s just got a macabre gift for lushly beautiful cinematography, and with a stellar cast of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Alan Rickman, it was gruesome, lurid, and decadent—a gothic fantasy of a movie. Check out fosteronfilm‘s review.
After the final scene, I leaned over to Matthew and giggled: “Everybody die. Die die die”—my favorite mantra when I’m stressed out, overwhelmed, and being attacked on every side by hamsters. (I’ve found it works much better for lowering the blood pressure than “om mani padme hum.”) Matthew’s heard me mutter it under my breath on several occasions, and it happens to also be the perfect synopsis of the movie’s plot as well as its theme. Hee!
Received:
• 240-day SALE of “The Tortoise Bride” to Cricket. This makes my 13th sale to the Cricket Magazine Group and my 11th to Cricket magazine. Woot! I hadn’t sold anything to the Cricket folks in over a year, and I was beginning to fear I’d lost my appeal to them. So I was verily ecstatic to get their stamp of approval on this one.
‘Course now I don’t have anything in their slush pile. Wonder if there’s any chance I can get my current WiP and a new folktale written before session starts…not very likely, but I know I’m capable of producing that amount of wordage in that timeframe; I’ve done it before—although I think that was before I agreed to helm Tangent and now The Fix. Hmmm.
• 95-day pass from IGMS. A bit dismayed at this one. I’ve sold to them before, and this was a form rejection from the assistant editor. Trying not to engage in rejectomancy…
• 147-day complimentary and personal “not for us” from Spacesuits & Sixguns with invite to submit more.
• 139-day kindly no on a reprint from Rachel at Podcastle after holding it for a second round.
New Words:
• 1500 words on “Morozko.” (4272/3500) And, yep, my word-count-fu is totally on the fritz. I’m just hitting the last scene. Undoubtedly there’ll be room for culling when I start into my rewrite/editing, but at 1K+ over my original estimate, I don’t think I should be trying to gauge story lengths until I recalibrate my story-length-o-meter.
So I got an email this morning from fosteronfilm with the subject “Famous last words” reading:
The Germans can never attack through the Arden.
The Hindenburg will work fine on hydrogen.
The Christmas tree will be perfectly safe from Hobkin on the lower speaker.
The last sentence being, of course, foolishly uttered by me this weekend as we were putting up our Xmas decorations. Seems this morning, while I was at work and Matthew was asleep, the fuzzwit pulled some ornaments down, turning one into so much Styrofoam confetti, and terrorized a wooden mouse.
We’ll be moving that tree higher . . .
Received:
• 619-day SALE of “A Thread of Silk” to Baen’s Universe. Woohoo! This one was definitely worth the wait! I’ve been dying to break into these folks.
New Words:
• 500 words on WiP, “Morozko.” (2785/3500)
Caught an advance screening with fosteronfilm of The Golden Compass over the weekend. I’m not sure if it’s because I read the book so recently or whether it’s a reflection of the movie, but it felt cursory, full of narrative intrusion and lacking the depth of worldbuilding that the story has. Still, it was a beautiful film, and I enjoyed it, especially the daemons—also my favorite part of the books*—which were fabulously executed. The filmmakers managed to convey a rich expressiveness of the CGI critters through facial expressions and body language, doing total justice to the visual medium. The acting was solid, too. I was especially impressed by the lead, Dakota Blue Richards. Shiny.
(fosteronfilm wrote a more complete review for anyone interested in his take—also, he hasn’t read the book.)
*I haven’t read the third book yet, so please no spoilers!
Received:
• Payment from Cricket for “The Tanuki Kettle.”
• Note from basletum inviting me to contribute a nonfiction article to the book on writing he’s putting together for Double-Edged Publishing, Perspectives on Writing. Of course, I said I would.
New Words:
• 1300 words on WiP, “Morozko” (2335/3500). It’s chugging along nicely, although my day job folks keep wanting me to do work . . . sheesh, the nerve 
Well, on the plus side of things, the new story is going well. On the minus side, my brain’s not so much. The other day, I was deep in writer-mode as I stood on the MARTA platform, waiting for the northbound train to take me home—eager/anxious to open up my laptop so I could jot down my ideas before they slipped away. Train pulls in; I scamper to a seat and happily commence typing away.
Twenty-five or so minutes later, end of the line, everyone off. I look up and realize I’m at Doraville, not North Springs.
DOH!!
In my creative fugue, I got on the wrong train. And not only did I fail to notice that the train I was boarding was Doraville-bound, but I also totally missed all of the periodic announcements informing me of that fact—which, in my defense, were far more mumbley than usual.
Had to take the southbound back and transfer to the North Springs line, tacking on another forty-five mintues to my already hour-long, home-going commute. And since I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss the transfer station, I put away my computer and twiddled my thumbs during that leg of it.
Yepper, I’m losing my mind.
Received:
– Payment and a Christmas bonus Amazon.com gift certificate (!) from my editor for my December (and last) Writing for Young Readers column. *sniffle* I miss that hamster already.
– Note from the CRW folks inviting me to conduct another writing workshop for them. I agreed, so I’ll be teaching an online workshop on Character Development for them next October.
That promises to be enjoyable. “Character development” is much like “adventures and discoveries in psychology” for me. Will post more details and links to register for it down the road.
New Words:
– 1000 on Russian fairy tale re-telling, “Morozko” (working title). I’m thinking this one will come in at around 3.5K, but I no longer trust my word-count-fu. It’s steered me wrong too often recently.
Thanksgiving was lower key than I planned. For most of the weekend, I slumped on the couch, alternating between pitiful whimpers and pained moans. Between the little men hammering inside my skull, the sundry aches and soreness of the rest of me, and a queasy tummy from popping Tramadols*, I only managed to venture forth from the house once.
Hobkin and fosteronfilm took turns sitting with me and being comforting, of which I am verily thankful for.
I think a weather-related pressure change is the culprit. I’m better now, although my sinuses are still giving off threatening twinges, and my shoulder is one shrug away from becoming (once again) a knotwork of “ow.”
*How in the name of anything holy could anyone even consider using Tramadol recreationally? I took two 50mg pills, twice a day—less than the maximum dose specified on the bottle, let me add—and even the thought of food made me turn green(er).
Received:
• Contract from Llewellyn Press for “A Nose for Magic.”
• 253-day cordial pass from Aberrant Dreams.
• Invite from squirrel_monkey to submit to a Russian themed anthology she’s editing. It’s the next (I assume) in an anthology series, forthcoming by Prime Books, each drawn from a different world mythology (the first being Japanese Dreams which includes my story, “The Tears of My Mother, the Shell of My Father”—due out this monthish). Of course I said “yes.” I love world folklore/mythology/fairy tales, and this will give me an opportunity to explore in greater depth Russian fairy tales, which I’ve always adored.
New Words/Editing:
• 1000 words on my last (*sniffle*) Writing for Young Readers column: “Happily Ever After.” I thought it fitting that the topic for the final one be “endings.” Did several clean-up passes and sent it off to the editor.
And thus, I set down another hamster and bid it a teary farewell.
Published:
• “The Raven’s Brocade” in the December issue of Cricket:
I’ve said it before, but it bears saying again. I really love seeing my stories in Cricket. The artwork which accompanies them is always so wonderful.
It’s been a while since my wingstubs and/or shoulder have troubled me, but this weekend, my painfree stretch ended in a triple encore presentation of wingstub aches, shoulder spasms, and a headache. Ugh. Not sure if my wingstubs freaked out my shoulder which caused my headache or my headache made my shoulder tense up which aggravated my wingstubs, or any of the myriad possible cause-and-effect scenarios, but the outcome was me whimpering on the couch for two days straight. I even took two Tramadols last night. One usually zonks me out and leaves me woozy (but painfree and happy) the next morning, but two didn’t even make me yawn. And my shoulder still feels like a twisted knot of unhappiness today. Wah!
I wonder if it’s a delayed tension/stress reaction from last month. If so, I’m grateful for the delay, as I couldn’t have afforded to lose a weekend in October, but I’m even more perplexed by the mystery which is my physiology.
fosteronfilm made sympathetic noises, plied me with snackie tidbits, and let me use him as a shoulder support, and we had a Kevin Kline romantic comedy marathon, starting with Dave, then progressing to In & Out, Fierce Creatures, French Kiss, A Fish Called Wanda, and wrapping up with Soapdish. So yeah, not great on the productivity front, but it did force me to have a leisurely weekend.
The senior editor of Mirrorstone Books sent out a little promo meme to the authors of Magic in the Mirrorstone for their website, and a meme is meant to be posted. Ergo, my answers:
My Name: Eugie Foster
Title of story in Magic in the Mirrorstone:
“Princess Bufo marinus, Also Known as Amy”
Sum up your story in one sentence:
A modern-day adaptation of “The Frog Prince” where a young man’s loyalty and compassion will decide the fate of an imperiled PDA, an overdue English paper, and Amy, the frog—err, toad—princess.
When I was a teen, I thought I would have a career as a:
Psychologist. Up until my second year of graduate school, I expected my future to be filled with lab coats, clipboards, and enigmatic statements of “hmmm.”
Favorite book when I was a teen
I can’t pick just one! Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein, Dune by Frank Herbert, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee . . .
Favorite magical spell?
Brain Clonus Temperarus – I need a second brain I can sit in a corner that can read everything piled up in my library that I haven’t been able to find the time for.
If I could have one magic item, what would it be?
A Stick of Prodding. Also being an editor, I find myself frequently needing to poke, prod, cajole, and coerce other writers come deadline crunch. I can see it now: “Hey, your article’s due tomorrow!” *prod* “How’s the assignment coming along? *poke* Actually, could I have a Stick of Time Multiplication instead?
Which is better: zombies or unicorns?
Can I get a zombie unicorn?
Why you should read Magic in the Mirrorstone
Because it’s brilliant, of course!
Received:
– 31-day personal pass with feedback and an invite to try again from Clockwork Phoenix.
Had a follow-up appointment with my rheumatologist. Also had to jump through fiery hoops of doom to get my Adderall refilled through my p-doc. The clinic where both are located is somewhat out of the way for me, and with Adderall being a controlled med, Murphy guffaws big-time if I try transferring it to another pharmacy since they can’t fax or otherwise electronically transfer the ‘scrip like other meds. Experience has taught me such attempts only bring about debacles galore, ergo the whole two birds, one stone thing.
But I should have known to expect a headache. It’s always a huge fiasco whenever I need to get a refill, made worse by the egregious ineptitude of my HMO who won’t allow fosteronfilm to take care of the red tape for me, despite my having filled out a legal waiver giving my consent and permission for him to do so on my behalf. Add to that the cost we’re paying for health insurance through my employer is increasing by 10% next year and that my HMO is the most expensive one they offer, and it’s aggravating, it is.
I’d want to switch plans, except I really, really adore my rheumatologist. Not only is he the doctor who managed to get me out of a two-month-long flare-up and keep me stable for years now, but he’s a real doctor to me. He treats me like a person, not just a list of symptoms, and actually remembers little personal details about my life and medical history, unlike all the other medical professionals I’ve seen who I doubt would be able to pick me out of a lineup. If I don’t mention something that troubled me in the past (as in years in the past, even), he takes the time to ask about it: whether I’m better, if I’m still experiencing it, etc. He’s a great doctor, probably the best I’ve ever had.
He also makes me giggle. He has a bit of a temper*, but it’s not an evil-scary temper but an endearing-grandfatherly temper. After my appointment, I witnessed a tirade to his nurse about some difficulties they’re having with their computers and the tech support who’re supposed to fix it. It made me twitter and want to give him a hug.
So I guess I’m sticking with my current HMO and health plan, despite all the other myriad aggravations.
*He yelled at me the first time I saw him for not seeing a specialist before about my lupus–which I hadn’t done due to the brilliant advice of my previous doctor who told me–even as my flare-ups were getting more regular, longer, and harder to recover from–to just treat the symptoms when I had them.
The Fix has reached routine maintenance mode, my deadlines are in a manageable state, and I just finished the story I’ve been fretting about.
It’s official; I’ve hit an even keel.
And it’s . . . weird. I feel downright disoriented not having to juggle a bazillion things at the same time, not freaking out about deadlines, or not stressing about the massive pileup of items on my things-to-do list. Huh.
Well, as predicted, my even keel hit just in time for the holiday chaos to commence, so I can’t imagine it’ll last. Although I think I really ought to want it to last. And maybe now I can get some work down on that %#&@! YA novel that I set aside in June and haven’t picked up since.
New Words:
– 1250 words on “White Rabbit” which I’ve re-titled “Biba Jibun.” Hit zero draft over the weekend and had fosteronfilm first-reader it. It ended up being 6K, and I’m miffed that I couldn’t get it down to 5.5K or less. Importuning a couple other folks to look it over now, and then it’s off to the Datlow/Windling duo.
Meep.
God, I hope it doesn’t suck. When I finished the zero draft, I felt pretty elated, pretty pleased with it. But I gave it a couple days and did an editing pass. Subsequently, I’m far less elated and much less pleased with it.
Again, I say “meep.”
