Category Archives: LJ

New job, yay!

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So I started my new editor jobby at the shiny Capitol building on Wednesday. And I love it here! Not only do I get to see glenn5 every day, but this is just the coolest job EVAH.

Been timing the commute and getting it streamlined. Travel time takes me between 1hr 15min to 1hr 30min one way, which is the longest commute I’ve ever done–bumping my drive when I was in college from Bloomington to Champaign, IL down to second–but most of it is on the MARTA train, which makes all the difference. I can read, write, listen to music and podcasts, or sleep even. So far, the trek up and down the Capitol building steps has felt more arduous. (*pant* I’m so out of shape. *wheeze*)

glenn5 took me to lunch on my first day, and walking downtown reminded me of why we decided to move here in the first place when we were contemplating a relocate. I really love Atlanta, its energy and feel. Happy jobness.

However, my other hamsters have gotten a bit more unwieldy, as I’ve lost some productivity time due to transit et al. With Dragon*Con looming, I’m finding myself way stressed at how much I’ve got to do still for the Daily Dragon. And I’ve started getting emails from people clamoring about when we’re going to get the program schedule up. Meep.

And we seem to have a wasp’s nest nestled at our house’s foundation. I discovered it when I went out to retrieve the lawnmower after fosteronfilm got stung when he was mowing the lawn on Tuesday–at which point he hobbled in so I could give him an ice pack, Benadryl, and vasty gobs of sympathy and head petting. (I didn’t get stung. I’ve never been stung by a bee or wasp, largely, I suspect, because when I see them coming, I don’t freak or flail, but simply back away. ‘Course that means I have no idea whether I’m allergic or not.) Then, because he did not learn from his experience, he went back out yesterday to finish the lawn, and, yep, got stung again. So he’s banned from the yard until we get that taken care of. Can anyone recommend a good, inexpensive exterminator?

   


Writing Stuff

Haven’t gotten much in the way of new writing done, and for the first time ever, I’ve got stories languishing that I need to send out. Usually I rapid-fire them back into the marketplace when they get rejected, but I either haven’t had the time to do so, or I’m waiting for other subs to clear from markets before I can send them out. Glargh.

Received:
– 211-day very cordial, personal, and at times amusing rejection from the Until Somebody Loses an Eye anthology after making it to the final round of consideration. Snartleblast. A lot.
– 3-day “no GUD” from GUD.
– 27-day personal and congenial “sorry” from Pseudopod on a reprint with invite to submit again.
– Email from the MechMuse editor wanting to confirm how my name is pronounced so the voiceover person doing my intro bio thingum for “The Storyteller’s Wife” won’t get it wrong. He also said my story’s slated to be one of the first ones going up for their summer 2006 issue. Very excited. I love hearing my stories read aloud.

Retail therapy . . . shiny.

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So, yeah, we kind of went nuts yesterday. We went into Best Buy to pick up some DVD-Rs for fosteronfilm to use for the D*C film festival. While there, we also got a 250GB external hard drive and, uh, this:


It’s a Sony VAIO VGN-TX750p/b notebook. 1.2 GHz processor, 80GB hard drive, with a DVD-RW. And it weighs 2.76 lbs and can run for up to 7.5 hours on battery! It’s my dream laptop. And it’s so little! For comparison, we set it next to my HP Pavilion when we got home. I couldn’t decide if my Pavilion would eat it, or if it was a mommy computer and the VAIO a baby. So teeny tiny.

I tried and tried to get away, but it seduced me with its tiny cuteness.

   


Writing Stuff

I’m one of the featured authors in Aberrant Dreams‘s Writer’s Challenge. To participate, select a picture from the ten pieces of artwork on display, compose an outline and synopsis to accompany it, and choose one of the featured authors to write your story. You may also also opt to have one of the characters named after you. If your synopsis is selected, it will be written by the author of your choice and published in a forthcoming issue of Aberrant Dreams as well as a hard cover anthology. So if you want me to write you a story, go play!

Dean Ansley dropped me a line pointing me to the pictures he took at Frolicon. Here’s my all-time favorite of one of the panels jackzodiac, tstauffer, and I did, complete with bottles o’booze prominently featured before our giggly-ass countenances:

Serial commas and Maddy

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Been working on editing the guest bios for the Dragon*Con program book. I shall probably fume myself into an aneurism on this one, but the growing trend toward omitting the last serial comma is really ticking me off*. I want to bash over the head with a bucket of sporks those idiot English teachers who are telling kids that it’s okay not to include it!

The only style manual/grammar resource where I’ve ever heard such practice being acceptable is the Associated Press one, which omits them due to space constraints. All American authorities: The Chicago Manual of Style, Elements of Style, The Gregg Reference Manual, Oxford University Press, etc. say to use the serial comma because it reduces ambiguity.

So why aren’t people using it?

Well, at least I’m not the only one who finds this tendency aggravating.

Yes, I’m a grammar geek. Ye verily, I have embraced my nerditude.

*I’m less peeved by Brit and Aussie writers who do it because their style manuals waffle on it more, and they’ve got other things to worry about, like whether to put the punctuation on the inside or the outside of the quotation marks.

   


Writing Stuff

I got a piece of mail from the excellent folks at Cricket that perked me up, although when I first opened it, I was momentarily confused. The communique inside was addressed, “Dear Pussywillow and Ladybug”–which are not names I recall going by–and there wasn’t an explanatory note to aid my comprehension. But after a moment, a few more neurons roused themselves, and I realized “Pussywillow” and “Ladybug” were the names of a couple of the bug characters featured in Cricket. It then dawned on me that they’d printed and sent me an email they’d received from a little girl, Maddy age 11. She loved the April 2006 issue and specifically mentioned my story, “The King of Rabbits and Moon Lake,” as one that she enjoyed

Fan mail from a young reader! I’m tickled that a little girl was so enthusiastic about reading, and specifically about reading something I wrote, that she took the time to send a letter to the editors. Happy writer me.

Brain flying at quarter mast

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One of my DC2K writing group friends had a heart attack and is now in the hospital, recovering after emergency surgery. Been getting updates from reddherring1955 as she visits her in the ICU; she’s in great spirits and the prognosis is excellent. She’s slated to have a triple bypass in three weeks, and everyone’s expecting it to go well. She might (although it’s a long-shot “might”) even be able to make Dragon*Con still! I cannot express the hugeness of my relief that she’s doing so well. After the recent loss of my DiL, my emotions are so raw, I was totally freaking about her.

Still trying to catch up on everything that I had to let slide while fosteronfilm and I were in Illinois. I start my new job next week. Yay! But also nervous fretting. Meep. I’m thinking I need to slow down so I can double check my work. I keep screwing up. I’ve made a slew of editing mistakes, forgotten a doctor’s appointment, neglected to reschedule lab work, accidentally thrown away a signed contract slated for the mailbox (and then had to rummage in the trash to retrieve it when I realized what I’d done), and numerous other flake-outs, memory lapses, and oopses.

I’m so frustrated with myself right now!

I’ve been eyeing the bottle of leftover Prozac in our medicine cabinet, speculating whether it might be time for me to go back on antidepressants. I dunno. I’m definitely in a morass of psychological disequilibrium, but I think it’ll pass in a couple weeks or so, when I’ve caught up on stuff and have established my new work-a-day routine. But right now, it feels like I’m holding it together by focusing on the now, except I keep dropping hamsters, right and left on the now.

If you’re waiting on me for something, you might want to send me an email. Odds are, I’ve forgotten it.

   


Writing Stuff

Hear ye, hear ye! Jetse de Vries, editor of Interzone, is going to have a vendor’s booth at Dragon*Con this year. Jetse is looking for responsible volunteer-types to help man it. Check out this post on the TTA forum for details. There may still be comp badges available. Also, Jason Sizemore, editor of Apex Digest, will be at the same booth, so it’s a doubly great opportunity to schmooze.

All you writers attending Dragon*Con who have a little free time during the con should drop Jetse a line!

Received:
– “Though I still feel that your story has many lovely elements . . .” rejection from the editor who requested to see my middle-grade novel reworked as a picture book. Damn. Double and triple damn.

This might be a good day for retail therapy. Or ice cream. Although I think I’ve gained something like four pounds in the last couple weeks. Feh.

Home again home again

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Back from Illinois. Exhausted and drained, both psychologically and physically. I broke down multiple times at both the wake and funeral, but mostly held it together. I had the foresight to bring lotso Kleenex.

Seeing my DiL all preserved and made-up for the first time at the wake was the worst. It didn’t look like the man I remembered at all up close–too plastic and smooth–but from a little distance, he did, and a couple times, I caught myself thinking, “I hope DiL’s not feeling left out. He’s all off by himself and no one’s talking to him.” And then, of course, I’d have to deal with another bout of teary-eyes when I realized that I didn’t have to worry about him feeling excluded and that it didn’t matter that no one was chit-chatting with him because he couldn’t hear them, would never have another conversation with his friends and family ever again.

Been trying to take it easy, trying to ease back into things. But there’s tons of work to catch up with that has already waited a week.

And, after all, life goes on.

   


Writing Stuff

Received a lovely review at Novelspot for my Inspirations End/Still My Beating Heart chapbook:

“Eugie Foster’s vampire stories have everything a good vampire story needs to have . . . The author is a great story-teller, who pays attention to details, creates great characters, and uses a highly enjoyable style. Her choice of words and her use of language gives a very special flavour to these writings, which makes it hard to put this book down. For those who enjoy vampire fiction, this book is highly recommended. ”
–Ilona Hegedus

Published:
– My August Writing for Young Readers column, “Writing for Tweens.”

Received:
– 57-days to a reprint sale (+ contract) of “Second Daughter” to Her Circle Ezine. It’s slated for their fall issue. Their contract is odd, a bit too vague and Spartan for my preference, lacking even the bare-bones, standard legalese that I’m accustomed to. But it’s for a reprint and they’re not asking for anything weird. Eh, as long as they pay me . . .
– Email + contract from Stephen Eley confirming that the Pseudopod editors loved and want “Returning My Sister’s Face.” Their contract, of course, is completely in order.
– Status update from Mech Muse that their Summer issue (with the audio reprint of “The Storyteller’s Wife” in it) will be going up Aug. 21.
– 272-days to an “after careful consideration we have decided to decline” on a story held for the second round of reading at IGMS. Fooie.
– 3-days to a “not what we’re looking for at this time” with personal (and a bit contradictory) feedback. One editor liked my prose, the other found it too florid, but it was the ending that didn’t sell them. Alas.

An absence in Illinois

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Thank you to everyone for your words of condolence, sympathy, and support. They and y’all are greatly appreciated.

We made it safe and sound to Illinois. The drive was long; we got caught in rush hour traffic on I-294 yesterday morning, which was . . . unpleasant.

The wake will be this afternoon and the funeral tomorrow morning.

The obituary is lovely, but it seems incomplete to me. It doesn’t mention my father-in-law’s quiet sense of humor, or how infectious and warm his smile was, or his great, booming voice when he recited poetry or Shakespeare at the dinner table, or how much he loved going to the symphony and watching movies at home with his wife. It doesn’t talk about his sense of whimsy, unexpected and charming in a man who, upon first impression, seemed so stern–until you caught the twinkle in his eye. And it doesn’t remark upon his love of ice cream, his favorite dessert above any other, or how he enjoyed gazing out the window at the rabbits and raccoons as he washed the after-dinner dishes. So many things it doesn’t say. His stubbornness and his compassion, the strength he gave his children, the encouragement and approval he gave me–sharing with me the struggles and joys of being a writer; he truly was a father to me, much more so than my birth father ever was. And most of all, it doesn’t mention the gaping hole his passing has left behind.

He was much loved and is dearly missed.

The inevitable draws nigh

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My mother-in-law called. DiL is not doing well, had to return to the ICU again and is very weak. The doctors wanted to put him back on a ventilator, but MiL and DiL were adamant that that wasn’t going to happen. He’s said “enough,” he’s done. After talking it over with DiL, they’re having the hospital people remove all support machinery and equipment except oxygen and pain meds. They don’t expect him to last more than 24-48 hours.

It seems that I won’t get a chance to say goodbye to him after all. I wish he could have gone home; I wish we could have taken him home in July when we were there. Now, they don’t think he’d survive the move.

It’s awful and sad. He so wants to be able to die at home in his own bed. It’s such a small thing, and it makes me heartsick that he can’t have that.

We’re readying ourselves to head up north.

Lighter hamsters!

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So I didn’t end up buying new shoes. fosteronfilm was feeling blicky after fighting off a mini-migraine, and a few hamsters came out of the woodwork to harry my ankles. So we stayed home and re-watched the first two X-Men movies to prep to see the 3rd, and I did some hamster herding. But no fear, I still plan to celebrate our new-found financial security by purchasing a pretty accessory item. Although now I’m thinking I want to buy a new purse instead.

With the reality of my new job, I suddenly find that the hamsters I’ve been juggling have become lighter and more aerodynamic. Just knowing that I can put some down without having to be concerned about starving is a huge load off my mind. Plus, I’m enjoying the juggling again, when before I was just wanting to fling ’em away as fast as I could.

Nice hamsters. *pets*

X-men: The Last Stand was shiny. It would seem to wreak havoc with the comic book X-men universe, which is why I suspect a lot of the fans really panned it, not to mention all the plot-device-ish writing. It was pretty, and there were many explosions, which is what I was going for. Nevertheless, I found it to be a downer. Oh, well. There’s still Superman Returns to see.

   


Writing Stuff

I normally don’t have time to write Tangent reviews anymore, aside from the rare story here and there to fill in for conflict-of-interest situations, or the occasional special issue/publication I’ll snag to review; having first pick of review material is, after all, one of the perks of being the Managing Editor. The name Harlan Ellison® in the table of contents of the September issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction caught my attention. He’s one of my all-time favorite writers, one of the main reasons we attended our first Dragon*Con (the other big reason being Ray Bradbury, who also attended that D*C).

I’m awed by the man’s sheer fire when he speaks. I’ve met him–and got hit by an embarrassing episode of star struck, barely managing to babble something trite and inane along the lines of “I’m your biggest fan!”–and I aspire to write prose as visceral and compelling as his. So, of course, I had to review this issue of F&SF.

As it turns out, Harlan didn’t offer up a new story (alas), but rather the kernel of a story idea, a la a writer’s group “Shelley” exercise. Cool and interesting to see the results. My review here.

Received:
– Contract from Realms of Fantasy for “The Devil and Mrs. Comstock’s Snickerdoodles.” It’s slated for publication in the Feb. 2007 issue. I was hoping that it’d make it into an ’06 issue, but since they pay on acceptance, it’s all good. And I seem to have gotten a per-word raise compared to my last sales to them. Sweet!

® Harlan Ellison is a registered trademark of the Kilimanjaro Corporation

It’s official. I’m an Editor!

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Squee! I got the job! I got the job! I’m going to be an Editor for the Office of the Legislative Counsel of the State of Georgia!

I’m gonna get paid to be a Grammar Nazi, with full health benefits and everything! And I’ll actually be doing something that I consider worthwhile, making legalese more accessible to lay people. Plus, I’ll be working with glenn5, who’s the wonderful-fabulous-awesome person who recommended me for the position in the first place!

Happy dancing in the streets!! I’ll be working in the beautiful Georgia State Capitol building. When I went in on Wednesday for the test/interview, I was ga-ga to wander around the place to soak in the ambiance. Rose marble! Sweeping staircases! Ancient, dark-wood furniture! Writerly inspiration galore!

I’m going to celebrate by buying a new pair of shoes.