Category Archives: LJ

Speedy-fast writing update

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My cup overfloweth with hamsters. Ergo, quick post.

Took the MARTA into town today to visit with glenn5 and to try to qualify for my dream editing job. I second-guessed myself into making the wrong call on three of the questions, which I just want to scream about now. I should’ve gone with my first knee-jerk instinct, dammit. Too anxious to blog about the details, but if I get this position, I shall be very, very happy. And if I stressed myself into bombing the qualifying test, I’m going to be very, very mad at myself. *twitch*

   


Writing Stuff

Published:
“Nobodies and Somebodies” is now up at Aberrant Dreams! Go read, yo!

Received:
– Payment from the fine Cricket folks for “The King of Rabbits and Moon Lake.”
– Ditto payment from Writing-World for my first column installment.
– 2 55-day rejections from Escape Pod with lotso personal bits to ease the wah.
– 2-hour sale (Nope, that wasn’t a typo. Two hours) to Escape Pod–or possibly its sister podcast, PseudoPod–of a reprint of “Returning My Sister’s Face.” I barely had time to log the submission before I got the acceptance back. Woohoo! Podcasty goodness!

Workaholic is Me

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Saw a re-run show on 60 Minutes last night about modern workaholics. They claim that work weeks are averaging 60-80 hours rather than 40 these days, and they blame the digital age for the increase: BlackBerry devices, smart phones, Wi-Fi, and related ilk.

It’s true that both fosteronfilm and I are working 80-hour+ weeks pretty regularly–heck, I routinely work 12-14 hour days, 7-days a week–and yes, like the couple they featured, sometimes we do indeed email each other in the same house, or even across the same room, rather than get up and go talk. But I dunno if I blame technology for my increased nose-to-keyboard time. I don’t have a BlackBerry–although I do indeed covet one with much wistful-eyed longing–and our cellphone is on the lowest minute plan available, relegated to “emergency only” usage. Plus I had easy Internet access (although not Wi-Fi) before in my old day job when I only worked a measly 40 hours (actually 38.75 hours) a week.

See, it’s not gadgets prompting my increased industriousness; it’s love. (And to a lesser extent insanity paired with anxiety over impending starvation.) I love what I do. And I’m thinking it’s gotta be the case with these other work-freaks too, because if you don’t love something, you’re not going to throw yourself into it for 80-hours a week, no matter how juiced-up the pay is.

Even when I’m ghostwriting website content about vinyl siding, I love the simple act of laying words on the page and getting them spruced up fine a hundred times more than I ever cared about what I was doing at my old workplace. And the times when I can actually produce content which interests (or fascinates) me, or best of all, fiction that makes me weep from the sheer intensity of the emotion I’m pouring out, why, that’s a better high than jumping out of an airplane at 14K feet.

And I’d better love it. The pay sucks, the benefits are nonexistent, and the lumps are pretty lumpy. There’s more disappointment in this game than gold stars, even for a writer who can manage to make regular sales.

So yeah, I love it. Good for me. That’s enough frivolous validation; there’s writing that needs doing.

   


Writing Stuff

I started getting back into my fiction yesterday. Haven’t written a word of it since we got back from Illinois. Then a flurry of emails came in; I stopped to reply to them (Dragon*Con work), then that segued to some outstanding (as in on the back burner, not the excellently cool “outstanding”) Tangent work, and I realized I needed to get some freelance words on the page. Suddenly my day was mostly over and me with only a few sentences of fiction written.

My fiction muscle is atrophying! I can feel it getting all limp and flabby. I need to bulk up dem hamsters, quit juggling them, and start using them as dumbbells. Or projectiles . . .

In the news-to-cheer-about arena, I asked my Cricket/Cicada editor, Deborah Vetter, if she’d be willing to be interviewed for my Writing for Young Readers column at Writing-World, and she agreed! Sweet! Major-big children’s lit. editor Q/A goodness forthcoming. I’m aiming for September’s installment.

And also in the yay news category, I got a very glowy review from sartorias for “The Archer of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon”:
“Eugie Foster’s “The Archer of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon” gave me that frisson I get when reading Chinese myth . . . I forget for a time I’m reading in English—recalling the same enticing sense of Beyond the Fields We Know that I got when first exploring Chinese tales in library books when I was small . . . Jealousy, love, power, mercy, and ferocity imbue the beauty of the tale with real emotion, but what binds it together and fixes it among the stars is the question of whether the finite can find harmony with the infinite.”

Read the full Tangent review and Sherwood’s comments on the other stories in Paradox #9: HERE

New Words:
– 2000 on a freelance jobbie.

Received:
– 9-day “Didn’t hold” from JJA of F&SF. Big, pointy disappointment on this one. I really had hopes that this story would make it past JJA, and he didn’t even finish it. Pook.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2, ahrrr!

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Avast, me hearties! Caught a matinée of Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest with me mateys fosteronfilm and Patrick yesterday. Blimey, but Bill Nighy as CGI tentacle Cap’n Davy Jones was absolutely amazin’, shivered me timbers he did, aye. A little darker than t’original, ahrrr, and with a decided The Empire Strikes Back feel’t. Nevertheless, the look of t’were enough to boonswaggle me deadlights. Although now I got a powerful urge t’spout pirate-isms and swing me a cutlass. Ahrrr.

Me bucko, arkhamrefugee, has petitioned me t’display pirate colors for Dragon*Con, which appeals t’this landlubber. But I needs to pillage me t’proper garb fer the occasion. Ahrr, a pox on me empty coffers. I wonder if t’editors would consider paying me in doubloons.

   


Writing Stuff

Yo-ho-ho! “The Bunny of Vengeance and the Bear of Death” in Fantasy Magazine #1 received t’Honorable Mention in Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction Twenty-third Annual Collection!

Good tidings, alases, and anxiety

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Feeling better today. Much sleep and taking it easy seems to have nipped the impending flare-up before it could fully manifest (I hope). Whew.

Voted yesterday in the Georgia primaries. In the interests of actually having our vote make a difference, both fosteronfilm and I and became Republicans for the day so we could vote against some of the loonier loons. I felt a bit unclean, marking the little “Republican” box on the voter registration form, but some of the crazies who are running for office down here just make me shudder. We were also quite interested in the “special” vote to either annex the unincorporated bit of Alpharetta we live in into Roswell or incorporate us into our own town. We’re pleased to now be living in the new city of John’s Creek! It was something of a landslide too. Even better, the scariest conservative loonies lost.

Astonishing.

This might be the first election in all the time we’ve been here where the issues we cared about actually went the way we voted. Ah, the joys of living in a red state.

   


Writing Stuff

The premiere issue of The Town Drunk goes up tomorrow. Excited! And also more than a bit anxious.

Neither “Penguin” nor “Lesbian Zombie” made the Parsec short list, alas. Long-faced and bummed. But it was an honor being nominated, august company . . . screw that. Waaah!!

*sniffle* Well, at least the two Escape Pod podcasts that did make the short list are excellent: “Hero” by Scott Sigler and “The Trouble With Deathtraps” by Marjorie James. If you haven’t listened to them yet, go to!

Hamsters, hamsters, everywhere!

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The Dragon*Con staff meeting was Saturday, whereupon I bolstered my Daily Dragon staff, bringing myself up to fully loaded (I think), and dire_epiphany asked me to adopt a hamster. Or rather, a third of a hamster. bevlovesbooks and sara1221 have already agreed to co-adopt the other two-thirds. Of course I agreed to be responsible for the care and juggling of my hamster segment ’cause I can deny dire_epiphany nothing . . . or almost nothing.

Also got a note from a computer gamer person in Poland who writes fan-variety gaming modules. Seems he’s working on a diary for a female character on the project he’s currently working on, and is using my blog (tone, I gather, rather than content, although that part is a bit fuzzy) to imbue it with realism. He asked if I’d be interested in reading and providing feedback on it. While I continue to be up to my ankles in wayward hamsters, I have to admit I was both flattered and intrigued, so I agreed to be a consultant. I’ve never worked on a computer gaming project before. I think it’ll be fun.

And lastly, I’m battling a lupus/MCTD flare-up. My own fault, this one. I haven’t had a flare-up in a couple years, due in large part to the daily dose of Imuran I’m taking. But while in Illinois, with my comfy routine thrown off, I forgot to take a dose. Of course I took it as soon as I remembered, but I began feeling kind of blah within 24-hours. I could have probably staved a flare-up off by keeping on a rigorous Imuran-taking schedule. But when we got back home, I forgot again–daily routine still in uproar–and last night, I fell asleep early, at around 6PM and slept for twelve hours straight (another indication of an impending flare-up), and fosteronfilm didn’t realize he needed to wake me up to take my Imuran. As a result of three missed/late doses in as many weeks, I’m tottering on the edge of a full-blown flare-up. I keep flashing hot and cold, on the brink of fever, my body is all stiff and achy, and my throat’s sore. Not good. I simply do not have the time to get sick now. Crappity crappity crap. It’s probably some hamster-mutated plague . . .

And just now, I started coughing, and I heard Hobkin suddently start making these rasping, coughing sounds too. The cuteness of him coughing at the same time as me is way overshadowed by my anxiety. I hope I didn’t get the little guy sick!

   


Writing Stuff

New Words/Editing:
– 600 on my “Writing for Young Readers” column article for Writing-World.com, a bunch of editing passes, a squint or two, and it’s off. Big, grown-up columnist, me.

Received:
– 209-day personal “Although we discussed it exhaustively, I regret . . .” from Cricket. Waaah!! *sobs*

To make matters worse, the next market I want to send this story to is closed to submissions until Mid-August. Snartleblast! Also, that again drops my submissions to the bug ‘zines down to one. Urg. Must send them something else soon.

Hobkin, treading the stewpot’s edge, and human company

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Hobkin came thiiiis close to being turned into a stew this morning. Been staying up late both because I’m doing the frantic-circus-juggler-with-too-many-hamsters dance, and because my time sense is still wonked out from last week. Got to sleep last night near 2AM, and at 6, the little fuzzwit decided it was time for breakfast.

Y’know, it’s well-nigh impossible to sleep through being walked on by a skunk. And if a person can somehow manage that feat, a snuffling nose in the ear is really the final nail in the “just five more minutes” coffin.

So yeah, four hours of sleep and I get up to launch into my day o’ work. Ugh. Thank God for Adderall.

In other, less sleep-deprived news, britzkrieg swung by yesterday so we could exchange refrigerator magnets for purposes related to The Town Drunk (I think klingonguy will be pleased). We go live in six days on the 20th with our first “issue.” Woot!

And Patrick and Christie have been popping over to help fosteronfilm with Dragon*Con film festival screenings these last two nights, which means I’ve been watching film slush, an activity I’ve been actively striving to avoid this year. At least it’s 2nd tier film slush. But the fabu company makes it worth it.

   


Writing Stuff

Spent some time hunting around online for an Internet fax program. There’s now been a couple freelance clients that have wanted me to fax contracts/confidentiality documents to them (although I think the fax machine is a relic of antiquated business practices, much like the ticker tape machine, and should in all properness be laid to rest) and I wanted to see what my “I’m not buying a fax machine, dammit” options were.

There’s a bunch of online pay services where I could email them a document, they fax it over for me, and then they scan in and email me any incoming faxes, but I wanting software that would allow me to send faxes directly from my own computer over my modem since I don’t foresee having enough fax needs to want to keep paying a regular fee. Plus the confidentiality and privacy issues made me a bit leery. I was contemplating a trial version of Fax Wizard, and then it occurred to me that since I’m on broadband using a Wi-Fi hookup, I don’t have any way to access a standard fax protocol like a dial-up modem could. While I might be able to theoretically convert documents and send them as faxes from my cable Internet connection, I sure as heck wouldn’t be able to receive them. So I gave up and emailed the client asking if they’d rather I snail-mailed the signed document to them or scanned it into a secured PDF and emailed it.

Faxes. Feh, I sez.

Also sent out a Daily Dragon “please confirm, yo!” staff email yesterday, and good thing too. I lost one of my reporters (*grumble* he had to wait until I contacted him before telling me he couldn’t make it?), but I’m hopeful that yukinooruoni will be able to help me out in finding a replacement.

New Words:
– 1200 for a freelance gig.
– 300 on my column article for Writing-World.com.

I wanna get back to fiction *whine*. Maybe after this next batch of articles gets out the door I can return to writing stories.

Received:
– A note from Shawna at Realms of Fantasy that the taped-shut-but-empty SASE I’d received was just a mix-up and hadn’t at any time contained my contract for “The Devil and Mrs. Comstock’s Snickerdoodles.” Whew.
– Shiny check from a freelance gig. $$$

Home Again Home Again

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We’re back in Georgia after another grueling drive, and happy to be home. Hobkin’s pleased too; he spent last night cuddled up with me, and spent the first hour or so after I carried him in running around the house cheek-rubbing all the baseboard corners, re-establishing his territory (when we re-paint the interior some time in the dim and hazy future, it’s going to be a dark color) and making sure nothing had changed in his absence.

Thank you to everyone who dropped a comment with well-wishes and thoughts over this last week. Apologies that I haven’t responded individually to y’all. But you can be sure that your outpourings of concern and support were greatly appreciated.

DiL is still in the hospital but getting stronger daily. He’s eating on his own, and I believe they’ve started him on physical therapy. Still stubborn as all get out and clamoring to go home. They’ve also installed the pacemaker, a complication-free surgery. Unfortunately, the tests came back that they ran after his last fever spike and he’s got a Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection, which they didn’t know before they put in the pacemaker. He’s now quarantined within ICU and people have to wear face masks when visiting him. Both fosteronfilm and MiL banned me from seeing him–over my squawked protests–once the results came in, all jumpy about my stupid compromised immune system. Grumpf. Bunch of worrywarts. You’d think with an overactive immune system I’d be less susceptible to infections instead of more. Stupid lupus.

I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye before we left. I’d be very distressed about that, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to see him again sans infection, when he’s back home.

   


Writing Stuff

Didn’t get nearly as much work done as I’d hoped last week. Not really a surprise, considering, but I’m now stretching myself full out in an effort to catch-up. My hamsters have embarked upon a breeding program while I was up north, the irksome things, and none of the new hamster-spawn appear to be aerodynamic.

The last Dragon*Con all-staff meeting is this weekend, which heralds the start of in earnest Daily Dragon prep. I’ve also been officially approved as a guest again this year. Right now, I’m scheduled to be on bevlovesbooks‘s panels “The Power of the Old Stories: Mythology and Folklore in YA” and “So, You Want to Write a Kid’s Book?” for her YA Lit track. I believe jackzodiac is hoping to put together a panel for Writers for Relief, and I’m anticipating that Ann Crispin will want me to reprise my guest lecture for her Beginning Writers Workshop. Another chock-full schedule. Much fun, but also loads of public speaking anxiety.

I saw that my other Escape Pod story, “The Life and Times of Penguin,” was also nominated for a Parsec Award. That’s both of them! Squee! Crossing my fingers that at least one of them makes the short list.

And Escape Pod now has an LJ: escapepodcast. EP was a lifesaver during the drive to and from Illinois. During David D. Levine’s “Tk’tk’tk”, I totally lost track of the miles and got swept away to an alien world . . . that was also somewhat Asiatic in feel. Very nice.

Received:
– Payment for my 2-part Multicultural Writing article from Writing-world.com.
– Contrib. copy of Apex Digest Best of 2005. Shiny!
– My taped-shut-but-empty SASE from Realms of Fantasy for “The Devil and Mrs. Comstock’s Snickerdoodles.” Erm. I expected it to contain my contract, and now I’m stressing that the contract was lost en route. Have dropped a note to Shawna to alleviate my anxiety.
– 46-day “thanks but no” from Forgotten Worlds. Bummer. But less of one now that I’ve learned that FW doesn’t include a contrib. copy with their payment. While I’d rather get money over a contrib. copy, I sort of expect both.

New Words/Editing:
– 1200 on a freelance gig. Got 300 to go and I can send this one off. This was a longish assignment.
– After 29-crits from Critters.org for “Black Swan, White Swan,” I did several editing passes and stuck a fork in. Fly, little swan story; find a good home and make me proud!
– Put together the outline for my first writers-world.com column article. Right now, the plan is to call the column: “Eugie Foster – Writing for Young Readers.” It’s not flashy or exciting, just plain jane straightforward. But I think that’s best. Plus, I couldn’t think of anything cute.

DiL off the ventilator and asking for ice cream

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They took DiL off the ventilator today, and he’s breathing well on his own. A world of hurray. He’s awake and responsive–although a bit disoriented–and stubborn as all get out. He keeps pulling off the oxygen mask and trying to talk, although he shouldn’t because of how raw his throat is, and everything he says is a variant of “leave now” and “I want to go home.” He’s also asking for ice cream, but he’s not allowed to eat until tomorrow because anything he’d swallow right now would aspirate into his lungs.

I wish we could give him some ice cream. And God, I wish we could take him home. When the nurse, MiL, and fosteronfilm and I told him he was too weak to get out of bed, much less stand and walk out, he said he’d crawl out of the hospital if he had to. I’d feel the same way in his place.

Although his heart, lungs, and kidney are ailing, my DiL’s a stubborn man, and his will is strong as a rocky iron strong thingy. It’s heartbreaking trying to get him to stay still. And the nurses are looking rather peaked around the eyes already. One of them has already threatened to put him in restraints if he keeps trying to pull himself out of bed.

Notes from the hospital

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They’ve got WiFi at the hospital, a small but appreciated blessing. The coffee here, however, is a bit raw.

DiL had a fever last night, so they’re postponing the pace maker surgery. fosteronfilm and I have been reading out loud to him. He seems to appreciate the Thurber. He actually grinned after one of them: “The Shrike and the Chipmunks.”

They’re going to try to take him off the ventilator again tomorrow. Last time they tried, his throat started swelling shut due to irritation from the tube, so after an hour and a half they had to replace it. But he was taking breaths on his own before that. He’s strong enough to breathe unassisted. If only we can just get him over the swelling and the intermittent fevers.

Hospitals, not cheery places.

Updates from Illinois

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In Illinois now visiting the in-folks. The drive up was grueling and we had to pull over for a few hours in Kentucky to sleep. I’m exhausted, even on 20mg of Adderall, and my time sense is all whacked.

DiL is in the hospital on a respirator and heavily sedated. It’s more than a little surreal seeing him like that. He doesn’t look like the man I know, but rather like someone based on my DiL’s blueprint but the artisan wasn’t able to capture the nuances of personality and energy that make a person who they are.

We managed to talk to a pair of (second line) doctors yesterday. The primaries, of course, were off, it being the 4th holiday. But from what we were able to gather, the prognosis is more positive than MiL initially thought. They’re installing a pace maker in the next day or two, and expect him to recover from this current hospitalization. There’s some concern about the breathing tube, though. They’ve tried to remove it twice now, and he couldn’t breathe on his own after a short period of time. And they think his throat may have swollen due to the tube’s irritation, which of course makes it rather awkward trying to remove it again. But at least the machine’s on its lowest setting, and he is initiating each breath on his own.

When we first went to see him, he was less sedated. His eyes opened when we came in, although it was obvious he was still really out of it. But when I asked him to squeeze my hand, he did. I’m very glad there’s an amnesiaic effect with these meds he’s on. This isn’t an experience he needs to remember.

MiL doesn’t know what to do with the fractured communication situation. Obviously, DiL can’t speak with the tube down his throat, and he’s too weak to write. So when he’s awake, he can only shake his head or flail his hands, and she’s not really able to anticipate what questions to ask to best suit a shake/nod/flail answer. I tried to teach him a little sign language–just a bob of his fist for “yes” and an ASL “N” for “no” but I don’t think he was awake enough for it. Maybe I’ll try again when he’s less sedated. I’d like to teach them both the ASL alphabet, so he can spell out rudimentary words and express some basic thoughts, but fosteronfilm thinks it’ll be futile. And considering that MiL just recently learned how to pump her own gas, and always goes to the same gas station because that’s the one she knows how to do, I’m afraid he might be right.

We brought Modern Magic and fosteronfilm read “Souls of Living Wood” to DiL, which he seemed to find soothing. Then again, they’d just upped his med dose.

Also got to meet some more of the Foster-side family: a couple of fosteronfilm‘s first cousins. Matthew has a big ole Catholic family-horde, and there’s a lot of people and names who I’ve either met once in the midst of a big event (funeral or wedding) or never met, and it’s hard to wrap my mind around who’s who without a solid face and one-on-one to anchor it all in. So I very much liked getting a chance to get to know these cousins and hearing about how they all played and ran amok as kids. Made me go “awww.”

Y’know, it’s somehow easier talking to family, even brand-new, never-met-before fmaily. It’s weird, since these are essentially strangers, but I felt more comfortable and at ease around them than some people I’ve hung with umpteen times. And his cousin, Mary, is a speech pathologist who works with autistic kids. How cool is that??

Good people. I’d like to stay in touch with them.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
– 2100 on a freelance gig. Trying to keep working while up here, but it’s a bit . . . distracting.

Published:
– “The Dragon’s Breath Seed” is now up at Reflection’s Edge. Go read, yo.

Received:
– Payment for “The Dragon’s Breath Seed.”
– Royalty payment for “Oranges, Lemons, and Thou Beside Me” from the Best of Apex 2005 chapbook, as well as payment for “It’s Only Springtime When She’s Gone” at Apex Online. Shiny.