Category Archives: Blog

Kinsey and Horror of Dracula

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Watched Kinsey last night. I studied the Kinsey Report in college and have always been impressed by the vision of Kinsey, the man. He revolutionized sex education, veritably invented sex research, and made great strides in understanding human sexuality. Having said that, I thought the movie was enjoyable, but on the sensationalistic side. I guess I would have been more interested in watching an actual documentary. Still, a palatable take on the man’s life. And Liam Nesson is yummy.

Also watched Horror of Dracula, the Hammer studios “classic.” fosteronfilm wanted to review it for his website. I giggled. ‘Nuff said.

In hindsight, it was an unusual double feature. Blame it on the vagaries of Netflix.

Haven’t heard back from either the head hunter or the interview folks from last week. Sigh. Sent my resume out to another flurry of job ops on Monster. I feel unloved.


Writing Stuff

Motivation and initiative levels bottomed out. I fell off the Club 100 bandwagon (and I haven’t exercised in ages either).

I started going through the Critters crits of my current folktale, but got daunted by the magnitude of the task. It’s on my “to do” list.

I could use a nice, juicy sale right about now. I need a writerly pick me up.

Skunk nose glasses

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Y’know what happens when you fall asleep so hard you forget to take your glasses off, while cuddling with a skunk? When you wake up, you get skunkie nose prints in your field of vision. Yep.

Still no word from the interview. Fretting now.


Writing Stuff

Received:
13-day personal rejections from Asimov’s with invite to submit again.
10-day personal reject from Aeon with a mini-critique and again, invite to submit again.

I haven’t made a single sale this month. Wah!

Wrestling technology into submission

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Since I got my laptop, I’ve been putting this off, wholly intimidated by the prospect of dealing with the complexities of hookup. But I did it! (With only a little help from fosteronfilm.) I got my laptop to talk to our wireless home network, and installed a printer driver and configured my laptop for wireless printing. Until now I’ve been manually transferring files using my USB flash drive and printing from our desktop as a workaround. But now, now I’ve got full functionality! Mwa ha haahaaaa!

Yes, I know. I’m such a geek. But I remain inordinately proud of myself. And while I was at it, I made complete backups of all the data on my laptop via the network.

Also got a call from a previous head hunter wanting to set me up with an interview for a mainframe BA position this week. I said yes, of course. Still haven’t heard anything from the interview folks from last week. The rejectomany guru vibes have me suspecting the worst. Foo.


Writing Stuff

Somewhat overwhelmed at all the crits I’ve gotten on the current folktale at Critters. I lost count after twenty-five. Going to start trying to run stats today. Comments were all across the board, although generally positive. From my read-through of the feedback there was a definite pinpointing of some trouble areas that I’m going to focus on in my rewrite.

I also think my brains are leaking from my ears. I sent a query to an editor of an anthology, because I hadn’t received payment yet for a “pay on acceptance” story, to make sure they’d received my signed contract. They sent a note back going “wha?” because according to their records, they hadn’t sent out contracts yet, so obviously couldn’t have received my signed one back. Most confused, I went to check my spreadsheet logs. The contract column was unchecked. Ooops, that couldn’t be right, could it? So I went to my paper files. No contract on file there. Doy! Yep, I’m officially losing it. Emailed the editor my abject apologies and now I shall go stick my head under a pillow and stay there until 2007.

Librarians RAWK!

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Ganked via wicked_wish and too fantastic not to pass on:

Librarian’s brush with FBI shapes her view of the USA Patriot Act
By Joan Airoldi

It was a moment that librarians had been dreading.

On June 8, 2004, an FBI agent stopped at the Deming branch of the Whatcom County Library System in northwest Washington and requested a list of the people who had borrowed a biography of Osama bin Laden. We said no.

MORE . . .

Tramadol and Paradox

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The Tramadol thrashed my ass. Had a bit of a headache after the D*C staff meeting and was feeling somewhat logy, so took a Tramadol, thinking “hey, a little pick-me-up along with surcease of pain, all good.” Knocked me totally out for the night. I was chatting with Matthew after dinner, watching the finale of Charmed, hanging out with Hobkin, and then I was slumped down on the couch, dead to the world. And I stayed that way, even through a relocate to the bedroom, until the morning.

But, on an up note, no headache.

The staff meeting was good fun. More socializing this time around than working, although I suspect fosteronfilm would say the opposite as he was running around trying to get stuff done while I was chatting with arkhamrefugee about Sin City and dropping off a box of DVDs for the Film Festival while I was waving hello to bevlovesbooks. Did get some work done, hooked up with roget and dire_epiphany and astralfire to verify some details, touched base with Sara-of-no-LJ to coordinate our shared inventory needs, and snagged a couple new reporters–pending the a-ok on their writing samples. A productive and enjoyable meeting.

And, on an abrupt change of subject: For your psychedelic viewing pleasure (discovered via fahkingnut) the Zoom Quilt. Very cool.


Writing Stuff

Got the galleys to approve from Paradox for “The Tiger Fortune Princess.” The editor reports the issue will come out mid-June. Very looking forward to it.

D*C staff meeting

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Today’s the second Dragon*Con all-staff meeting. My staff roster is fubarred to hell. I’ve had several staff drop out, several new volunteers sign on, and I have no idea what my numbers look like anymore. Something I need to figure out before the meeting, obviously.

It’ll all work out. How? It’s a mystery.


Writing Stuff

Got an email from the editor of the Modern Magic anthology. He informed me that they now have the cover art by David Seidman for display:

Isn’t it gorgeous? And what’s even better, the editor and the artist want to put together an art book featuring the art from the anthology with a description of the artistic progress involved with each illustration. They also want to include an excerpt from each story to accompany the illustrations, and are paying $.03/word for it. Sweet!! More money for “Souls of Living Wood.” Happy.

Many shiny movies!

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I decided to have a handful of cookies for breakfast and am now buzzing on sugar. As such, this post may end up being a bit spastic and disjointed. Apologies in advance.

Felt the need for some passive, escapist fantasy these last couple days, so fosteronfilm and I went to see Episode III – Revenge of the Sith yesterday. And the night before we watched Sin City and Team America: World Police. I’m big with the immersive when I crave Hollywood shiny.

In a non-spoilerific nutshell:
Team America: Fun but not nearly as good as the South Park movie. Carried primarily by seeing puppets explode and other outrageous puppet activity. Most of the comic scenes went on for too long. Fun, even if not really something I anticipate a desire to re-see.

Sin City: Everyone kept warning me about how violent this movie is. Yes, there’s violence (and gore) aplenty, but it’s pretty stylized, which took a lot of the visceral squick out. I’m curious about the comic now. The revenge theme was delivered a bit heavy handedly, but better executed by far than The Crow. Quite good and very pretty. I’m likely to want to see this again.

Episode III: Wow. That was hella better than I expected it to be. Still suffered from some major Lucas-esque flaws, like embarrassing dialog and a lackluster overall level of writing and character development, but there were many, many lightsabre battles. And wookies! Bzzt, rawwwrrrr! I think Lucas capitalized on his strengths and focused on the special effects and sheer shiny beauty of his Star Wars franchise for this final installment. A wise decision. Much fun, and I suspect it will be excellent on the repeat viewings front.

An unexpected post-movie amusement, I discovered that cuddling Hobkin on his back, and then bouncing him in time with the word “Dooku” is ridiculously cute. He only puts up with it for a very short while, but it got both Matthew and me giggling uproariously. We’re evil, evil people.

Zombie-husband and cannonball skunk

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fosteronfilm is currently downtown in Buckhead, having brunch with a movie contact, doing the networking thing. This has whacked his normal sleep-wake cycle totally for the day, so I expect he’ll be zombie-like this evening.

I’m pretty sure Hobkin is in full spring fever mode. He’s frisky and full of mischief. Last night he went tearing around the house, stomping at furniture and attacking our feet. Skunks are the only animal I’ve seen that compact when they hit their “speed” stride (which isn’t exactly speedy). All the other animals I’ve watched elongate, stretching out to maximize their gait. But Hobkin, when he runs, scrunches into a fuzzy ball with a huge banner of a tail, sort of a half prance/half scamper, rather than a gallop. He’s like a cannonball with paws . . . and a tail. It’s adorable.


Writing Stuff

Got emailed the final draft of the interview Apex is going to run to look over. The intro made me grin. The editor called me “vibrant” and a “dynamo.”

Glimmer Train, however, were less flattering. Got the “we won’t be publishing this particular piece” form reject from them. Alas.

White blood count down

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Got a phone call from my Rheumatologist’s office yesterday. I was at the interview, so wasn’t there to pick up. Didn’t notice the message light was flashing until after lunch. I don’t like phones, so I had fosteronfilm call them back. My doc folks typically give Matthew a hard time, saying that they’re not allowed to talk to him about me–even though I swear I filled out a form thingy giving them permission to do so–but my Rheumatologist’s staff are cool. After a brief check pause, they told Matthew why they called.

It seems that the lab work I had done revealed that my white blood count is down. This could be due to the Imuran, in which case it’s bad. Quite bad. I’m going back in for more lab work in a couple weeks–having them leech out more blood–to determine if it was a fluke or a real concern. If my count remains down, they’re going to have to pull me from the Imuran. I’m very unhappy at that possibility, not that I’m joyous about taking Imuran or anything, actually the stuff terrifies me when I think about it, but we just got all my medications leveled out. The prospect of starting another med, risking allergic reactions and other side-effects, perhaps even a flare-up, is a depressing one. Thought I’d managed to get on an even keel. Although I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Been under a lot of stress. Of course my stupid human suit would freak out.


Writing Stuff

Received payment for “When the Lights Go Out” today. In pounds sterling, even, and currently the exchange rate between pounds and dollars is pretty sweet. A nice little pick-me-up.

My folktale is now up at Critters. Three crits this morning (including one from wistling, thanks!). It’s being well-received thus far.

Interview interview interview. Eee!

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I’m cautiously optimistic at how the job interview went. The initial design analysis test was actually somewhat fun, although I had expected to have a computer to type my answers out on, and instead I had to write them out longhand. I felt sorry for the panel of system analysts that had to review my work. Ever since elementary school, my handwriting has been the bane of my English teachers and penmanship instructors. The panel part was light and chatty, with some laughter–laughter is always a good thing–and one of the analysts in the panel had been to Dragon*Con a couple times, which made me happy. I like the idea of working with fellow fan-types.

The senior analyst I was supposed to meet with was out sick, so I may need to go back in to interview with her, but it could be a phone interview (ugh) instead. I’d much rather go in again. I like face-to-face so much better than voice-to-voice.

Overall, I found it to be a solid, stable company, very pleasant environment, with an excellent future. It’s a good size, not so small that it could fold at the whimsy of the markets, but not so big (unlike my previous company) that it’s mired in red tape and flaming hoops. And they’re quite close. The travel time is about the same as the one I had previously, dependent, of course, on traffic.

The recruiter person said I’d probably hear back one way or another in a couple weeks.

It’d be nice to have the security of being a cubicle-monkey again.


Writing Stuff

Received my contrib. copy of Here & Now #5/6 with “When the Lights Go Out” in it. It’s a monster double-issue, full sized with a glossy cover. And mine is the very last story. It’s been a long time coming. And I’ve still got accepted stories awaiting publication in issues #7 and #8. Haven’t been paid yet, though.

Also got an email from my agent. HarperCollins passed on my novel, but the editor had some incredibly nice things to say:

“I surprised myself by liking very much Eugie Foster’s Shao Huan: The Soul of a Badger. She writes well, which of course drew me in, but more than that, the development of the relationship between Yeye and Shao Huan was handled with real skill and never became unbelievable . . . Alas, this isn’t quite what I’m looking for here at HarperCollins. It’s excellent, but a tad too quiet for my tastes . . . But I did like this very much, and I am grateful you let me have a look at it.”

As rejections go, it’s an extremely encouraging one. My agent is sending my manuscript off to Viking next. Onward.