Category Archives: Blog

Christmas Gremlins bad

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Had a wonderful evening Friday with yukinooruoni. There was much gabbing and geeking, food munching, and computer wizardry. We also watched Love Actually, a delightful holiday flick and a new favorite of ours since it came out. Alas, both fosteronfilm and my tech skills are woefully obsolete. There’s so much out there we’re just not up-to-date on. Amazingly, progress does not stand still while one is unemployed, imagine that.

Internet connection continues to be unreliable. (Feh Comcast, feh!) And now our FTP client is getting a “receiving call blocked” error when I try to upload changes to my homepage so I’m having to do my updates via Comcast’s website. This would be fine if A. it weren’t slower and B. would accept more than one file at a time. I appear to have offended the Lord High Emperor of Gremlins who has sent a plague of technical difficulties upon me. Debating whether I need to make a blood sacrifice or a technological one in order to appease him. It’s doubtful he’ll be content with cookies . . .

Written up the first wave of Christmas cards to send out tomorrow and entering into frantic mode on the shopping front.

Could barely manage to wake up yesterday whilst on my Adderall weekly “holiday” so I decided not to extend my break for the whole weekend. Popped my lovely 20mg this morning and feel much more chipper and productive. And a bit wired, as may be evidenced in the somewhat disjointed tone of this post.

   


Writing Stuff

Received:
197-day SALE of “Spring Arrives on a Hob’s Tail” to Story Station. Huzzah! This is a cute little tale inspired by Hobkin and his tail. Not sure when it’s due out, but I’m looking forward to it.

New Words: 1000 on “Vain and Vie.”
There’s so much writing I want to do, and so little time. *twitch*

Club 100 For Writers
      66

500/day
      111

Fume, snarl. Comcast @#$!!&^ (and a stair for Hobkin)

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So Comcast took out our Internet connection again yesterday. When we called it in, the person was certain it couldn’t be an outage as they weren’t able to ping our modem, so they were going to send someone out to look at it . . . on Monday. Fortunately, it came back this morning, otherwise I was all set to heat up the tar and start collecting feathers.

Lo, there was Christmas shopping. The highlight of our acquisitions (in my opinion, at least) was Hobkin’s Christmas gift. We bought a kiddie booster step for our fuzzwit. It’s a sturdy, wooden two-step stair intended for toddler-types to reach the bathroom sink and whatnot. It’s perfect for a stumpy-legged skunk to use to climb onto and off of the couch without having to wake mommy for a boost. Unfortunately, the wood has been veneered, which makes it very slick and not at all suitable for someone with paws and claws, so we went to Home Depot and bought some carpet tape. We’re going to take some of the remnant carpeting bits that we’ve got lying around from the sunroom project (yes, we’re utter pack rats) and tape them to the steps.

   


Writing Stuff

I did indeed manage to get the contract for “My Friend is a Lesbian Zombie” back to Stephen Eley of Escape Pod. But it required relocating the scanner from downstairs and putting it with me upstairs in the library–which makes the best sense because I’m the only one that uses the thing, and pretty much primarily for writing-related stuff–and replacing the defective USB cord with a shiny new one. Huzzah.

“Rue and Ruin” made it up to the Critters queue. Crits are trickling in. Can’t gauge yet how it’s going over. Also, I saw that there are a slew of stories this week from folks I know and want to crit.

Bought “Arachne’s Gift” to first draft and loaded it to Critters, and it’s already been bumped to go up next week. Coolness.

Received:
2, 74-day “unfortunately, I’m afraid it is not suitable for us at this time”s from Espresso Fiction.

New Words: 200 on “Vain and Vie,” part 2 of the novel stemming from “Rue and Ruin.” Also rewrote the ending of R&R to segue better into V&V.

Club 100 For Writers
      64

Amazon avarice

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16 Comments

LJ appears to be sending me all the comments from a couple weeks back that it hadn’t before, which is nice, I suppose, but completely unnecessary at this point.

Embarked upon our initial forays into Christmas shopping, and lo it was overwhelming. But also successfulish. Got some solid ideas and accomplished some happy consumerism. And in the process of shopping for others at Amazon.com, I got all covetous and added a bunch of things I came across to my wish list. Tis the season to be acquisitive. I am a contributing member of a materialistic society. Yup.

   


Writing Stuff

Argh! I forgot to send the contract back to Escape Pod for “My Friend is a Lesbian Zombie” yesterday. Dagnabit. Normally I make it a point of sending contracts back the day or the day after I receive them so I don’t ever forget. Well, I forgot. That goes to the top of my “things to do” list for today.

New Words: -167 on “Arachne’s Gift” (renamed from the rather generic “Arachne”). Took me all day yesterday to do a handful of passes, but there was much tightening and tweaking. Foisted it upon fosteronfilm and after I make a few minor edits, I’ll be at first draft. A little anxious about “Rue and Ruin” as I haven’t received a confirmation from the Critters herder informing me that my manuscript has been bumped up the queue. If I need to wait another week before it goes up, that’s fine, but it pushes “Arachne’s Gift” down another week. If that happens, I may think about soliciting a handful of non-Critters writerly feedback instead before sending it out. Ponder ponder.

Club 100 For Writers
      62

HP laptop progress

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40 Comments

The HP support folks called back and arranged to send us packaging materials and labels et al. to FedEx my laptop to them for repair, all gratis as part of the warranty. That’s all good and satisfactory. I did think MicroCenter’s $50 charge for sending it to HP for us was rather a rip-off. My repair order also appears to have been forwarded to a management type who is not in India, a level above tech support, so I have high hopes that this will result in a proper resolution.

Did another major backing-up clean off of my laptop. fosteronfilm is getting close to being able to wipe and re-load the older VAIO desktop for me to use while my laptop’s in the shop.

   


Writing Stuff

I’m a bit concerned about some of my Tangent reviewers. A couple new ones that contacted me appear to have vanished off the face of the Earth after I sent them their first assignments to review, and even a veteran or two isn’t responding to my gentle prods for a status update. Was it something I said? Did I eat too many virtual onions?

Received:
61-day SALE of “My Friend is a Lesbian Zombie” to Escape Pod. My second sale to these folks, I can’t wait to see what Stephen has in mind for this one. He said the podcast is slated for sometime in February 2006.

New Words: 1600 on “Arachne” and I’m at zero draft. That was a very satisfying couple days work. Going to do some editing passes, try and cull a couple hundred words, then hand it off to fosteronfilm to first reader. This week “Rue and Ruin” should be going up on Critters, so I’ll try to get “Arachne” up next week.

Zokutou word meter
2,162 / 2,000
(108.1%)

Club 100 For Writers
      61

500/day
      110

Adderall Addicts Anonymous

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Finished putting up the Christmas decorations. The house is all shiny and festive. Now to commence with the shopping . . .

My weekend Adderall “holidays” have become my weekend nap times. Also, I felt down yesterday–a free-floating and pervasive sense of doldrums. The Adderall has done more to improve my mental happy state than either the Prozac or the Effexor, plus it’s stabilized my sleep times. I no longer need to take daily naps. When I’m on it, I have normal circadian cycles. But I’m also pretty sure I’ve passed beyond “tolerance” and into “dependence” with the stuff. There are certainly worse things than being addicted to Adderall, but I dislike being dependent upon any drug–an inconsistent mindset, admittedly, since I’m totally dependent upon the Imuran to keep my Lupus flare-ups at bay. But it’s the psychological ramifications which concern me here. I felt a sense of relief going to sleep last night, knowing that I’d be back on my speed fix today. Something to discuss with my p-doc, I suppose.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words: 550 on “Arachne”

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
553 / 2,000
(27.7%)

Club 100 For Writers
      60

500/day
      109

Penguin carnage and Harry Potter

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Watched March of the Penguins, courtesy Netflix. I think I cooed or squeed nonstop at the screen for the duration of the movie. Although there was indeed spectacular penguin carnage. fosteronfilm is quite sensitive to the harsh brutality of nature, which often makes it difficult (and sweet) watching animal documentaries with him. He declared that the movie ratings people should have given March of the Penguins an “R” for all the penguin brutality instead of a “G.” This from the man who can watch people being flayed alive in the Hellraiser movies without batting an eye. It is pretty amazing those creatures (penguins, not pinhead refugees) can pull off survival. There’s a certain “evolution in progress” feel to them. Emperor penguins need to be marsupials. A pouch would make procreation so much easier. Platypi pouches are watertight, so it’s obviously possible. I did get the twitches seeing some of the suffering penguins–especially the smaller, non-emperor ones trapped in a crevasse, and the emperor babies being attacked by some large gull-like bird. I wanted to shout at the cameramen and researchers to “go help them, you fools!” Boost a few penguins from an icy grave, shoo the gull away, maybe put out an electric blanket and some fish pate for the hungry penguin dads . . . Yeah, I know, I’m a softhearted sap.

And we caught a matinée of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Wow, they really darkened the movie up! And I think the film was decidedly improved for it. There was a certain Spartan feel to some of the background settings–like the absence of the ghosts in the Hogwarts halls and the decreased number of portraits, etc.–but overall I thought it was very well done. I’m giving the new director my enthusiastic stamp of approval. And the young actors have really grown into their parts.

   


Writing Stuff

Got an email from sdowens asking for an interview for his new blogging project, bloggasm.com as part of a new theme interview series–this one to be “Writers of Short Speculative Fiction.” Very cool. Of course I agreed.

And that also prompted me to get back to work on the Aberrant Dreams interview questions that were backburnered while I worked on “Rue and Ruin.” It seems that people want to know about me all of a sudden. It’s way flattering and super nifty, but also sort of bewildering.

Received:
26-day so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish from Pedestal.

New words: 100, mostly notes and brainstorming, on “Arachne.”
Club 100 For Writers
      59

Domain renewal, Laptop dismay

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Oof. Y’know what’s more effective than any alarm clock at waking a person? A hungry skunk. You can’t hit snooze, can’t ignore him, and God save the person who thinks they can sleep through being walked over, pawed at, and snorted upon by an indignant fuzz loaf. Trying to explain, “I just need fifteen more minutes, Hobkin. Breakfast in 15, okay?” so totally doesn’t work. He’s asleep now with a full belly. I’m bleary and waiting for the Adderall to kick in. My life is odd.

I went to renew my eugiefoster.com domain from hostingdude.com and discovered they’d doubled the price. I guess that’s standard operating procedure. Lure you in with an initial low, low price and then jack it up. Ptooie on that, I sez. I transferred my registration to godaddy.com which was conveniently having a sale on transfers. Snagged the sale price for four years. I figure when that time runs out, I can always transfer it somewhere else if they ramp up the cost too. But there was an hour or so of anxiety between the initial transfer setup and the confirm proceedings where my website was down and my domain email forwarding wasn’t functioning. At least I was clever enough to do all that in the wee hours of the night. Everything’s back up now. Whew.

And, on the extremely annoying front, my laptop powered itself down three times in a row yesterday. Totally freaked me out the last time because I started wondering whether I’d be able to keep it stable long enough to backup my last couple day’s work. Fortunately, on the last reboot it stayed on. And then there was a massive backing up of everything.

So yeah, upgrading the BIOS and switching to a new power adapter didn’t solve the problem. Called the MicroCenter HP techs and they want $50 just to send it to HP for us. The thing’s under warranty! Doesn’t paying $50 to send it in for maintenance defeat the purpose of having a warranty?? Going to get back online with the HP tech support folks in India (sigh) and see if there’s another way to get it looked at that doesn’t involve paying a wad of cash. As an interim solution, fosteronfilm is wiping out our old Sony Vaio desktop and reloading it for me. We’ll set it up as a writing workstation in the library. The only real downer is that it doesn’t have a WiFi card, and it’s old enough to only have USB 1.0 ports, so if I want Internet connectivity, we need to buy and install an internal card. And, of course, I need my Internet, so that’s an expense and a hassle we’ll have to look into stat.

Hardware is being mean to me! And I’m also all twitchy wondering whether my system will power down spontaneously at any moment. I just want to write! Waaah! Stupid unstable technology that I’m completely dependent upon and addicted to.

   


Writing Stuff

Did a pair of editing passes on “Rue and Ruin” incorporating the suggestions from fosteronfilm‘s first reader experience. Declared “first draft” and sent it off to the Critters queue. It should go up next week.

Today, after I hash it out with the HP folks, I start on my re-telling of Arachne.

Club 100 For Writers
      58

Tea for Two

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Had an absolutely delightful time yesterday with yukinooruoni. I’m working with him on a writing workshop-related project, and he treated me to an afternoon out to discuss it. We went to this lovely little tea shop which is just down the road from where I live. Didn’t even know it was there before! They served us scones and little cakes and clotted cream and lemon custard and finger sandwiches (the sandwiches, alas, were not vegetarian-friendly, but made up for it by being very pretty) on an adorable three-tiered tea service. And of course, individual pots of steaming tea from their extensive tea menu (which included various black, green, white, oolong, and rooibus selections). I had a pot of peach-imbued white tea and a pot of apricot, current, and um, something else yummy-flavored green tea. The ambiance and decor were so charming: doilies and delicate Victorian tea pots and cups, with ornate chairs and tablecloths. There was a larger party that came in while we were there comprised of women playing dress-up in bright, old-fashioned hats and feather boas. So cute!

yukinooruoni and I chatted for hours! We actually closed the place down . . . and then some. Arriving at around 2ish, we didn’t leave until past 5:30, and the place was supposed to close at 4. Err, oops. But they were very gracious about us staying so late.

Hobkin was less understanding, being somewhat miffed at having his dinner delayed by my tardy return. And fosteronfilm was frazzled from having to explain to a hungry skunk why the food fairy hadn’t come yet. I believe they were reduced to doing skunk laps in the house from the look of things when I got back.

   


Writing Stuff

Still no contrib. copies from Faeries so I sent the editor a follow-up, “lost in mail, wah!” email as well as the info for him to transfer payment to my bank account. Wonder if it’ll be in euros or dollars . . .

Got an invite from dsnight to contribute a story to a new DAW anthology, Heroes in Training. I cannot express the amount of squeeage commencing upon reading his email. I’ve got shelves full of DAW books, and the prospect of being in one of their anthologies has me in a giddy twitter of excitement. Now to start heating up the irons and thumb screws to get the muse properly motivated . . .

And the Writers for Relief charity anthology with my story, “A Little Soul Music,” edited by jackzodiac is now available at Amazon.com. All proceeds go to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and the contents include contributions from such luminaries as Brian W. Aldiss, Gardner Dozois, Joe Haldeman, Nancy Kress, and Larry Niven. Only $16.95. Wouldn’t it make a great Christmas gift for all the SF readers on your list?

New Words: 1100 on an outline/synopsis of the novel I want to expand “Rue and Ruin” into.

Club 100 For Writers
      57

500/day
      108

Received new A/C adapter

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The new A/C adapter from HP came yesterday. Now I have two identical A/C cords. Yay? But since I updated my BIOS, I haven’t had a freak shutdown. Keeping my fingers crossed that the trend continues.

   


Writing Stuff

Y’know, I shouldn’t be surprised that the overwhelming response to my Do you know the Greek myth of Arachne? poll was “Yes, very well. I love Greek myths!” My flist is full of writers and readers who love folk lore and mythology. Y’all are simply not a proper control group. But your answers, and especially your comments, were enlightening. It’s silly of me to quail at doing a re-write because a story is well known. I’ve written and sold re-tellings of “Sleeping Beauty” and “Hansel and Gretel.” I’ll write what I write, and it’ll either sell or it won’t.

Besides, it’s a bad idea for me to try to comprehend the vagaries of marketing. Down that road lies madness. MADNESS!!

New words: Not so much new, as many, many, many rewrite passes on a story I wrote in 2002. I thought the thing was clean and just wanted to glance it over before sending it out, and instead found myself appalled at how clunky my prose was. Spent the day doing a massive overhaul. The story’s the same, but the mechanics of telling it are much changed. Makes me a little frightened about what some stories I’ve got making the rounds from a couple years ago may look like.

Anyway, the story is spruced up and I’m much happier with it. Sent it out to meet the world with its new face-lift.

Club 100 For Writers
      56

500/day
      107

Pie, cookies, and a chocolate chip for our chocolate chip

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Baked veggie pot pie and chocolate chip cookies the other day in an effort to make our Halloween-decorations-go-down-Christmas-decorations-go-up efforts merry and festive rather than tedious and chore-like. Managed to drop a semi-sweet chocolate chip on the floor, and before I could retrieve it, our chocolate chip Mephitis mephitis lunged and nabbed it. I grabbed him and tried to get it out of his mouth, but the very best way to encourage Hobkin to gulp something is to pry at his jaws and stick your fingers in his mouth while shouting “Drop it!”

Sigh. Silly beastie. Can’t really blame him. I mean, it’s chocolate.

I stressed. He’s fine. Not even an upset tummy. Apparently chocolate frosting on a birthday candle or a single semi-sweet chocolate chip isn’t enough to even faze a skunk’s digestive tract. But I really need to be more careful. Hobkin appears to have acquired both a taste and a nose for the stuff, and can pounce and swallow faster than I can bend and snatch.

Also, on the laptop front, I updated the BIOS (thanks for the suggestion, cyber_pagan) and am now waiting to see if that did any good. And, I’ve been working off battery more often–although the amount of time a fully charged battery provides is downright pathetic–to see if the shut down happens while solely on battery. So far, one day and no mysterious power outage . . . and counting.

   


Writing Stuff

Did some research on an Egyptian myth that I think I’d like to turn into a retelling to try on Cricket, but it’s really hard finding source material. It’s the Unut/Wenet and Wepuat/Un-nefer/Osiris moon-hare tale. I’m good with Osiris, but I’d really like more info on Unut/Wenet.

If I continue to come up dry on the source material front, I’m leaning toward retelling the Greek Arachne Myth instead. But I worry that that myth is simply too well known, and therefore done. I’d ask fosteronfilm if he’s heard of Arachne, but he’s not much of a myth/folklore/fairy tale sort and nine times out of ten he’ll give me “huh” face for even the most well known myths. So I can’t count on him being unfamiliar with a myth necessarily indicating that it’s obscure. But just because I know a myth backward and forward, it doesn’t mean it’s common knowledge either. Grumph. I need a control group. Or . . . a poll!

New Words: -500 on “Rue and Ruin.” Culled about 500 words and foisted it on the hubby. He thinks I should turn it into a novel. Yup. Also, I went back and looked over the anthology guidelines. Doh! When I thought they’d said a max word count of 12K, it was actually 20K, so I’m going to put back in some of the bits I pulled out.

Zokutou word meter
12,776 / 12,000
(106.5%)

Club 100 For Writers
      55

500/day
      106