Category Archives: Blog

State of the dad-in-law

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Heard back from fosteronfilm‘s folks about his father’s angiogram.

The fantastic news: His dad’s okay and at home now. I’m so relieved. I absolutely adore my dad-in-law and I was stressed to the eyeballs thinking he might not pull through the procedure.

The bad news: The doctors had to keep him overnight because they had problems stopping the bleeding. My dad-in-law regularly takes blood thinners as part of his medical regimen, and apparently even though he did stop taking them several days before the angiogram, it still negatively impacted his ability to coagulate. He’s home now, but the doctors gave some rather alarming instructions to my mom-in-law with regard to looking for and what to do in case of blood clots and resumed bleeding. I think they ought to have kept him in the hospital for another day or so, especially since he’s going back for follow-up today anyway. But as long as there don’t turn out to be any complications, I shall suppress my displeasure with the doctor people.

The so-so news: They didn’t perform the valve replacement. Once they got in, they didn’t think doing it would result in improved quality-of-life, making it not worth the additional risk.

The mostly good news: After discussing things post-surgery with the in-folks, the doctors were appalled to discover that my dad-in-law wasn’t seeing a lung specialist. Hell, I’m appalled that he’s not seeing a lung specialist. I hadn’t realized he wasn’t. After my experience with going to a rheumatologist to treat my Lupus/MCTD instead of just a GP, I would’ve been badgering and pleading with him about it if I had. But at least now the in-folks are going to send him to one. Better late than not. Although it may mean some unfortunate difficulties as I don’t think there’s an appropriate pulmonologist locally for them.

Also, something that we tried to impress on them, that he ought to be on regular oxygen, was hammered home by a series of nurse-types (three cheers for the persuasive powers of pretty young women). He’s an ornery one, my dad-in-law, and doesn’t like using on oxygen tank. When his GP put him on one months back, my dad-in-law promptly sent it back. He claimed it wasn’t helping and that the tubing was bothersome and/or defective. Over the holidays, it was fairly obvious that he ought to be on oxygen therapy, so I’m extremely pleased that they’ve managed to convince him of the necessity of it.

The irksome news: Unfortunately, the medical people have only given him one tank of oxygen that he’s supposed to use for the whole house, both upstairs and down. But of course my in-folks can’t be expected to lug a heavy oxygen tank up and down the stairs, so instead of giving them a second tank, the medical folks gave them 50 feet of tubing! Like that’s going to make it easy for him to use, between it kinking up and both of them tripping over trailing tubes. He was already unhappy with how annoying the previous, shorter tubing was to deal with. While we were there, I spent some time unkinking and sorting out the length they had (something like 30 ft), and no wonder he got disgusted with it. It was a mess of twists and snarls. I can’t see how oxygen could have gotten through that chaos of tubing. And what a shocker that he said it didn’t help; it wasn’t getting to him! Grr. Now why didn’t they give him two tanks? And surely there must be a more efficient method of managing the tubing than simply handing over a fifty-foot coil. A hose reel would be an improvement. I’m very worried that he’ll get fed up again and refuse to use it after a while.

In other news:
Our lovely USPS carrier (who probably hates us because of all the magazines, books, and assorted heavy stuff we force her to lug to and from our doorstep) left me a birthday parcel the other day from dude_the: Word Menu, a reference book that I’ve been coveting since I saw pleroma‘s. Squee! Thankyouthankyou!

Checked the HP website for a status update, and my laptop is now making its way back to me from California. Thank God. Unfortunately, they don’t say what they did to it or whether they repaired it or just threw up their hands and packaged up a replacement one. I’ll find out soon enough, I figure, but I’m quite curious to know whether they were able to identify and isolate the problem.

   


Writing Stuff

Did an overdue Critters critique.

Received:
– Payment from Aberrant Dreams for “The Son that Pain Made.” Hurray!
– 3-day “we do think you’re on the right track but . . .” from Baen’s Universe. Fooie.

I’m getting a bit antsy to make my first sale of 2006. No doubt a sign of neurotic addiction after my excellent December showing, but there’s no reasoning with the anxiety monster.

New Words: 100 or so in an editing pass of “The Better To . . .”. I want to get that one out to market, but I think it needs some serious tweaking.

I’m very displeased with myself with regard to how I’m not getting back into the swing of writing after the holidays. I’m counting on the arrival of my laptop to rectify that, but I’m still miffed that I can’t seem to muster the discipline to write. The house is cleaner than it’s been in months, but it’s all cat waxing. (Or should that be skunk waxing?)

Club 100 For Writers
      76

Congratulations to pleroma and sruna!

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A HUGE congratulations to pleroma and sruna on their New Year’s Eve engagement! I got all squeeie and gushy when I read about pleroma‘s romantic and elegant on-bended-knee proposal. fosteronfilm and I are overjoyed for you both!

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
– My contrib. copies of Apex Digest #4 and payment for “Oranges, Lemons, and Thou Beside Me.” Hurray! Although it looks like the post office really went to town on the poor package–maybe drove over it with those little mail golf carts or stomped on it a couple time in cleats. However, despite the fact that the envelope looks like it’s been mauled by rabid aardvarks, the contents came through mostly unscathed. There’s a slight ding on one cover and some wear on the edges and spine of another one, but nothing was torn or otherwise mangled. And Jason Sizemore very cleverly stuck my check deeply and securely into one of the copies so it neither fell out through either of the USPS-inflicted gaping tears, nor was it folded, spindled, or mutilated in the course of the rough transit. Whew.
– Payment for “Only Springtime When She’s Gone” in Neometropolis #7 made via electronic transmission of monies, so no shipping and handling wear-and-tear. Although there were PayPal fees. Urg. Trade-offs.
– Invitation from Story Station to consider submitting a non-fiction piece for their Teacher Articles. Huh. That had never occurred to me, but it might be fun, not to mention a nice addition to my writing resume. It’s not big money by a long shot, but $10 for 500-600 words is acceptable, depending on how long it takes to write those 500-600 words, of course.

New Words: 100 or so on an outline for a story idea. I will embark upon big word count productivity . . . soon. Anytime now. Yep.

Club 100 For Writers
      75

Laptop voyaging and The Town Drunk

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According to the FedEx website, my laptop is on the delivery truck in CA, on its way to HP. Waiting waiting waiting. I don’t like waiting.

   


Writing Stuff

With The Town Drunk opening to submissions yesterday, I got my first taste of slush reading. And y’know what? I liked it! How twisted is that? It might be the giddy flush of an exciting new project, but I’m finding it to be both an enlightening and enjoyable experience–no doubt due in great part to the awesome submission system britzkrieg set up. I can understand how slushing could be overwhelming, as I only went through around half a dozen manuscripts yesterday before deciding I wanted to switch gears, which is a pretty small number compared to what folks like JJA or Douglas Cohen doubtless wade through on a daily basis. But I’m all fresh-faced and eager now.

Reading slush is different from reading to critique or review, or reading for pleasure for that matter. With critiques, I’m trying to analyze what worked and what didn’t, and suggest fixes, often reaching into the “what Eugie would do if she’d written this” bin. When reviewing, I’m again focusing on the what worked/didn’t work aspect–without the fix suggestions obviously–and dissecting the story’s component pieces in an effort to convey to an audience the rationale behind my impressions. When I’m reading for enjoyment, I try to distance myself from the mechanics and assorted elements of a story and strive to immerse myself into the tale. If I do pause to consider the technical aspects, it’s usually to admire, appreciate, and catalog them for my future writing consideration. (If I’m picking out what’s wrong with a story I’m reading for pleasure, it’s usually a sign that it’s stopped being pleasurable and I’m about to put it down.) But slushing sort of falls between pleasure reading and review reading. While it’s either a “yes, I liked this” or “nope, pass,” I’m also evaluating whether I think a story will be enjoyed by a larger audience and if it fits into a market’s mission statement/goals. And I’ve begun to have “this writer shows promise even though this story didn’t float my socks. I wonder what their next submission will be like?” thoughts flit through my head, which is pretty cool.

New Words: Did a pair of editing passes on “Beauty’s Folly,” culling about three-hundred words, and packaged it up. Decided not to send it through Critters because I’m feeling cocky–probably a decision I shall regret later. But for now, I’m winging it out to market.

Club 100 For Writers
      74

Laptop service plan contemplations

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Okay, holiday’s over, and I’m back in the writing saddle (err, office chair). I miss my laptop ludicrously much. The temporary workstation we’ve got setup for me is functional, but little things keep bugging me. Like the table I’m using as a temp. desk isn’t quite wide enough to accommodate keyboard and mouse pad, so when I mouse too far to the right, the stupid thing plummets off the edge, which is not conducive to the creation of scintillating prose. *grumble*

But according to the FedEx website, my laptop is well en route, and should be in the hands of HP by tomorrow. The holidays slowed things down a bit, but I knew they would. I’m on the brink of buying a two-year warranty extension for my laptop before the original expires. It seems that it might be a wise and cost-effective purchase, plus I can’t seem to work well without my shiny laptop and the alternative is risking the need to buy a new one if it malfunctions again. I don’t usually buy service plan thingies and it’s left me feeling waffly, but all things considered, I think it’s a good idea. If this power shutdown issue had happened while it was off warranty, I don’t know how much it would’ve cost to fix, not to mention I’d probably be spitting and pulling hair by now instead of just mildly put out.

And hey, the cost should be tax deductible. None of the five . . . six, now eight recently published/outstanding markets paid me before the end of 2005, so 2006 should be a better year for deductions anyway.
   


Writing Stuff

Got some critiques to write, a very overdue review to complete, and then it’s back to work on the novel. Or maybe one or two short stories that I’ve got bouncing around in my head currently–one for dsnight‘s Heroes in Training and one for Apex Digest’s Aegris Somnia anthology. Traveling typically gives me good story ideas . . .

Received:
After two months of nail-chewing and fretting, I discover that the story I’ve had languishing at Baen’s Universe never made it to them. Thankfully, dsnight alerted me that I might consider querying or I’d still be la-la-laing and compulsively hitting my email refresh key. So, after a query and re-sub, I receive a 2-day “you’re on the right track, but . . . ” form reject. Alas.

New Words:
Two passes on “Rue and Ruin” and finally it’s done. I have stuck a fork in and deem it crispy. All sixty (!) pages are bundled up cozy in a submission packet and will go out tomorrow when the USPS revives from their government holiday. Haven’t sent out such a thick piece of mail in a while. I need a postal scale . . .

Also did a pass on a story which has been in limbo for four years. Normally I would have gotten it out earlier, but the editor wanted to buy it, which puts vast extensions on my patience. But after having to wait two years before hearing that she actually wanted it (after sending me a confirmation email to a query that she was still considering it and “quite likely to buy it” five months in), finding out the “sold” status on a public newsgroup that I queried in desperation, and then waiting another two years (with assorted queries in there) for contract or other follow-up from the editor, I think the bell has rung on this market and it’s time this baby got back into circulation.

I hadn’t looked at the story since I submitted it, and I expected it to need a fairly intensive clean-up. Surprising myself, it read pretty solid. It wanted a couple sentence-level tweaks here and there, and I needed to fix a capitalization error, but other than that, I’m satisfied with it. I like this story. I remember now I quite liked it when I wrote it. I’d avoided thinking about it because of the interminable wait issue. I probably should have given up on this market way sooner and sent this story elsewhere. Oh, well. Live and learn.

Club 100 For Writers
      73

Happy New Year

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Happy New Year! Welcome 2006. Farewell 2005.

It occurs to me that I haven’t taken any Prozac in several days and none of my Effexor withdrawal effects have returned. Hurray! I’m clean! Huge, HUGE thanks go out to t_rex for suggesting Prozac as a means to step off the Effexor. I’m very glad to finally be rid of all anti-depressants. Adderall much better.

fosteronfilm hung up my new mirror, which prompted a manic cleaning spree. The master bath is now shiny. The rest of the house, not so much.

Yesterday we rang in the new year with a low-key celebration. We watched the new Doctor Who episode, “The Christmas Invasion,” while sipping Tom Collinses made with Bombay Sapphire gin. While I will truly miss Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, the tenth Doctor is hawt. I was somewhat skeptical when I first saw him, because he seems so young, but after watching him in action–ooo, yummy! Me likie. Rawr.

   


Writing Stuff

I’ve started my end-of-year writing bookkeeping. My head hurts already. Or maybe I’m hungover–although that seems unlikely as I only had one drink.

And, *drum roll please* The Town Drunk, britzkrieg‘s new webzine, is now officially open for submissions. Make us laugh! (With you, not at you. Cross my heart.)

Published:
“The Son that Pain Made” is now out in the Jan. 2006 (#6) issue of Aberrant Dreams alongside their “Reader’s Eye On . . .” interview of me. Also, the editor informed me that they recently switched printers so I’ll also be receiving a contrib. hardcopy of this issue. Coolness. Go read. It’s free! Snazzy cover art:


I’m not sure what it says about me that I really relate to the cover girl.

Full-length Vain Eugie and Writing Year in Review and Resolutions

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Thanks to everyone who swung by with Happy Birthday wishes yesterday!

Went out to Fung’s for my birthday dinner and then came home to do cake and prezzies. fosteronfilm got me a fuzzy sweater and an animal print pillow as well as *drum roll* a full length mirror! At long last, after thirteen years of marriage, I finally have a mirror long enough to see my shoes in! I’d resorted to standing on the bathtub rim or lifting my feet above the counter in order to gauge the effect of an ensemble; I’ve hinted and begged for a full-length, and I figured it was a lost cause–sort of a male/female thing where the hubby teases me about having so many shoes, and I rail against his callous disregard of my girlie proclivities. And now I finally, finally have one!

He’s going to install it in the bathroom today. Hurray!

   


Writing Stuff

Published/Received:
– “Li T’ien and the Demon Nian” is now out in the Jan. 2006 issue of Cricket. I got my contrib copies in the mail yesterday–a very happy b-day bonus–and there are no fewer than four gorgeous illustrations done by artist Ju-Hong Chen of my story. They’re perfect! I had to make a pharmacy run to pick up a refill of my Imuran and I took a contrib. copy with me to beam and squee at while standing in (the interminable) line. Made the wait whip by in a warm and fuzzy glow. (Although I think I embarrassed Matthew with my bubbling–and loud–enthusiasm.) The artist got the Nian monster perfect:

– An invite from Jason Sizemore of Apex Digest to be a featured writer and to contribute to the subsequent featured writer anthology. Of course, I accepted!
– 86-day “nope” from On the Line. (Tbtthhh to them!)

2005 in Review:
I had a pretty good year, writing-wise.
– I took over as Managing Editor of Tangent. Ellen Datlow in her introduction in the 18th Annual Best of Fantasy and Horror called me “capable” in that role: “By the end of the year, [Tangent] was in the capable hands of Eugie Foster, who caught up with most of the reviews and by the New Year had it all running smoothly with new reviews being posted in a timely manner.” I’m giddy to be praised by Ellen Datlow herself as well as having my name in that most hallowed tome. ‘Course I’d rather have my fiction mentioned there, but hey, it’s a start.
– Found an excellent agent for my middle-grade novel.
– Had my first (and second, third, and fourth) author interviews.
– Made 28 sales including 12 pro, 9 reprints, 5 foreign, and 2 audio.
– Saw 23 stories published.
– Wrote to completion 15 short stories slapping down approx. 93K words in the process
– Survived another year as Editor/Director of the Daily Dragon.

Unfortunately, I did not manage to stick with the 500 words/day resolution I made, falling about 22K short (ouch). So . . .

Writing Resolution for 2006
– Attempt to achieve 500/day this year with a minimum total word count in 2006 of 115K.
– Also, I’m going to try to stick with the working during the day holed up in the library strategy as that seems to be an excellent productivity tool.
– And finally, I want to finish a @#!$ novel. Any of the several that I’ve started will do.

Post-Christmas 2005

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It’s my birthday. Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday, fosteronfilm wrestled open the computer in order to install the new DVD burner I got him for Christmas. Our old one (the one that was factory-installed) was having problems with x16 DVD-Rs, despite a firmware update, and Sony wasn’t supporting that particular type of burner anymore–even though it’s only two years old and their factory installed model. Plus, Matthew had been making impressed-eyes at the LightScribe technology, so I thought it was an obvious prezzie. After some swearing, much grunting, and a couple calls to the HP help line, it’s now installed and working.

Note to self: next time, give a lot of thought to whether a “some assembly required” prezzie is a good idea. Urk. But he does seem pleased with it now that it’s properly functioning.

Also packaged up my laptop and called FedEx. They’re going to pick it up to ship to HP this afternoon. I miss it already, and it’s still here–just boxed up. Normally I work in the evenings with the laptop downstairs on the couch with Hobkin curled at my side. Last night I couldn’t, even though I’ve got a temporary system in place. It’s a desktop and Hobkin would have none of the whole moving from the couch to the desk suggestion. So I sat on the couch, peering longingly at the computer, pinned down by an 8lb animal. Yup.

Hobkin is indeed madhappy to be home. He absolutely adores his godmother, but he’s always a fuzzy cling-beast when he gets back.


Curled up on fosteronfilm‘s lap.

And, as promised, a picture of the step we got him for Christmas:


No action picture yet, but that’s in the works

When he first saw it, there was some trepidation and much sniffing. I lured him up it with a treat, and then there was chin rubbing/marking. Now he’s bounding up it like it’s always been there. He’s got some problems with the going down part still. He insists upon going down it sideways which seems to result in him sort of half-falling, half clambering off it. Silly beastie.

   


Writing Stuff

Found a nice little blurb on a French site called Chronicles de L’imaginaire of “The Storyteller’s Wife” in Faeries:
“Eugie Foster raconte L’épouse du conteur, une belle histoire d’amour aux pays des contes.”
–Hanako

I believe that translates to (approximately): Eugie Foster tells “The Storyteller’s Wife,” a beautiful story of love set in the country of stories (fairies?). Any native French speakers that can correct my translation out there?

Received:
– 43-day personal “nope” from Aeon with extensive commentary and invite to submit again.
– 14-day and 57-day personal “nope”s from Fantasy Magazine along with some back-and-forth chatting with the editor.

Y’know what would be a nice birthday present? An end-of-year sale. Especially if it’s via my agent! *crickets chirping* Well, it would be.

Christmas 2005

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Got back safe and sound from the plains of Illinois yesterday. The drive was incredible. It seems we brought the balmy Georgian weather with us when we went up. For the whole time we were there, it stayed pretty much in the mid-30s to low-40s. However, this resulted in the pea-soup fog of doom driving back. And then for several hundred miles around the south edge of Illinois, we drove through an extensive, breathtaking lightning storm. I watched, wide-eyed and awed, as brilliant, HUGE zags of blinding white arced from cloud to cloud, illuminating the night sky. And the weird thing was, there was no thunder or rain to accompany it.

fosteronfilm and I take turns driving the long trip from Georgia to Illinois and back–he starts late in the evening, and I take over at around dawn (6:30ish). When it was time for my shift, it was still dark, and the storm had been going for hours. About fifteen minutes in, the lightning started hitting the ground–often several bolts simultaneously. At one time I counted five bolts striking in the distance, in synchrony. These brought thunder and rain, although the rain was fairly brief, which I was thankful for.

It was overwhelmingly beautiful. Left me feeling all solemn and reverent.

Christmas was lovely with the folks, as it always is.

Although there was some stress. Matthew’s father is quite ill, and he’s going in for a test and surgery next month. When we first heard about it, it sounded like they were going to do open heart, which freaked me out, as his dad is over 70 and has been struggling with health problems for years now. He’s not exactly a good candidate to crack open his ribs and put on a heart-lung machine. We had lots of questions, which we expected to have answered when we got there. However, upon trying to find out what was going on, we got confusion and conflicting information. There’s some denial going on there from his parents, which I understand as this is a terrifying experience for both of them, but I was feeling pretty frantic, not knowing, and them apparently unwilling to ask the questions they needed to from the surgeon. His mom thought he was going in for a “corroded” artery and we needed to explain to her that no, the doctor was undoubtedly referring to dad’s “carotid” artery.

They had a pre-surgery appointment yesterday, and they were unprepared for any sort of Q&A. Fortunately, his mom found in an envelope (written by hand, not one of the handouts people are supposed to get before surgery!) the name of what his dad’s going in for–an angiogram. Armed with that information and a couple key words (thickened valve and catheter), I hopped online and researched both angiograms and treatments for valvular stenosis. I surmised that they were actually planning to do a percutaneous transcatheter heart valve implantation which is a much less invasive and stressful procedure than standard open heart valve replacement, which they’ll do at the same time as they perform the angiogram (after using the angiogram to ascertain their diagnosis). I also printed out a several page article on angiograms, valvular stenosis, and questions one should ask one’s doctor before going in for treatments like these, and gave it to his folks to read. And Matthew told his mother in no uncertain terms that he expected her to call us after the pre-surgery appointment and be able to explain clearly what was going on next month. With that to spur them to ask questions, they went in and did indeed find out what was happening (and called us to report after).

As it turns out, my surmisal was correct, which I’m quite relieved about, as it’s a much less risky procedure overall than the alternative. Still, his dad is pretty sick, and I’m very worried about him. I absolutely adore his folks, and I cannot stand the thought of anything happening to them. Meep.

On the light and fluffy Christmas side, the loot was bountiful:

My hubby got me a Targus docking station and a cooling pad for my laptop (which I am sending to HP today or tomorrow to fix the spontaneous power-down problem). And for fun, because I am a silly, vain thing and spent time gazing wistfully at it when we saw it at the store, he also got me a hair streaking tool. Hee! I shall undoubtedly end up looking like Frankenstein’s Bride, but it washes out in a single shampoo, so any hair tragedies can be quickly remedied. And he also got me . . . socks! A ridiculously cute pair with a cat on it.


His folks got me Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees by Roger Fouts, Harry Potter: HBP, Hammered by matociquola, and socks–the cuteness continues with a dog face! His brother and his wife got me more socks (!) and got us a HUGE bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin. We also received a 4-piece luggage set, a pizza stone, and other useful and thoughtful prezzies.
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Midwestern festivaties commenceth

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After a looooong drive, we are now in the Midwest, hanging with the in-laws and preparing for much holiday merrymaking. However, they are on dial-up, which is slower than a turtle with a sprained ankle. Luddites!

Fun things accomplished: 1. Programmed the folks’ home phone speed dial. 2. programmed mother-in-law’s cellular phone and introduced her to the magic and wonder of musical ring tones and voice-recognition dialing. I’m not sure how to make a call on any of their phones, but I know how to program them. Hee!

Hobkin is with his godmother, but he was a very unhappy lil skunkie. We dropped him off at the vet’s office (where his godmother works), and he equates the vet with evil badness. There was much clinging and he exuded “don’t-leave-me-here!” which was absolutely heartrending. I miss him already. I wish skunks weren’t illegal in Illinois so we could take him with us to visit his grandparents.