Category Archives: Blog

cantstopthedawn pointed me to a new LJ community: iloveskunksmore. It’s dedicated to pet skunks! Hurray! ‘Bout time, I sez.

I’m rather loopy right now. Took a full strength Clonazepam and am now all giggly and inebriated. Like being drunk but without the alcohol. I think Matthew’s exasperated with me.

I feel like doing something silly. Maybe cartoons are in order.

Doubled my dose of Clonazepam last night, as well as took it a little later than I usually do, resulting in a light-headed, woozy feeling for most of the day today. Man, it’s hard to shake the lingering side effects of that, even after slamming a whole pot of green tea. Had weird dreams too, but I can’t remember any of them aside from fleeting flashes of surreal imagery.

I do remember that Hobkin fell asleep on my chest with his head burrowed under my chin, and I woke briefly in the night when he stuck his nose in my ear. Repositioning occurred, as a whiskered skunk nose in one’s ear is ticklish and not conducive to sleep.

Also, my wing stubs hurt less. Although I’m not sure if that’s because of the bigger dose, more sleep, or the disassociated feeling I have at my extremities.

Received two more boxes of movie promo for Matthew’s Inde Film track. These ones seem to contain posters of the forthcoming Blade III movie–Wesley Snipes looking all sexy and vampy. I hope that’s the end of the deluge of promos. We’re running out of space in our dining room.

Writing Stuff:
– Mailed off the letter to my Spider editor approving her edits of “The Tax Collector’s Cow.” Also asked whether she knew if the story would be slated for Spider or Cricket. Really, I think that story is better aimed at a younger, Spider, audience, but hey, I’m just the writer .
– My review of this week’s Sci-Fiction story, “Beautiful Stuff” by Susan Palwick is up at Tangent. Seems that ye olde editor is back in the swing of things. Rah.
– 1000 words on the SF story. It progresses. I realized I was lacking some essential data, so I did several hours of research on autism and autistic savants. Fascinating. Utterly fascinating. I miss my Psychology days. *sniff*
– Also saw on the Speculations Rumor Mill a post from the editor of Futurismic:
“As of yesterday, all replies have been sent out–with the exception of a number of stories I’m holding for further consideration. So, provided cyberspace did not eat your submission, if you haven’t heard from us yet that means we’re still considering your story. We expect to make our final selections before the end of the month.”

Assuming no Internet gremlins, I made the second round! Hurray! Fretting and nail biting galore.

Still in considerable amounts of pain. But I felt guilty about staying home. I’m not feverish or nauseated, just very pained. For some reason, I don’t think that qualifies as enough misery to be on sick leave. So I went into the office with the clever plan of “taking it easy” today.

Y’know, it’s really hard to “take it easy” when what exacerbates one’s condition is typing and mousing (especially mousing for some reason), and what one does at one’s job involves an intense level of typing and mousing. Ouch.

Writing Stuff:
– Got the edits from Spider/Cricket for “The Tax Collector’s Cow.” Fun!
– Also received a solicitation from an editor from a pro-zine for fiction . This has only happened to me once before, and it remains quite a thrill. Everything I have is making the rounds, so I scrutinized my logs to 1. find a story that might be suitable for their publication and 2. determine whether the market that story was at currently was okay with simultaneous submissions. Amazingly enough, there was such a creature, and off it went. The editor liked it, but it didn’t quite work for him. Still, it was nice being asked. And can’t beat under twenty-four hours for a response time. But that leaves me still jonesing for a sale.
– My review of the “The Key” by Ilsa J. Bick is up at Tangent.
– Wrote a review of this week’s Sci-Fiction story, “Beautiful Stuff” by Susan Palwick, for Tangent and sent it off to ye olde editor.
– In the process of writing a critique for Critters (for your story, britzkrieg).
– Heard from the director of the writer’s track at Dragon*Con. She’s scheduled me for a panel. Not sure which one yet, or when it is, but she’s already got me down. With that panel, the two for the YA Lit track, and my talk for Ann, that fills up my “Guest” dance card. Wonder if I’ll have time to sleep at all during the convention . . .
– Sent an order to Nathan of Scrybe Press for copies of Ascendancy of Blood to hawk at Dragon*Con. So if anyone wants a signed copy, I’ll have them there!
– And managed 500 new words on the SF piece. Chug-a-chug.

Pains in my arms nearing the unbearable point. Took today off from work. Going to drug myself silly and see if that helps.

Stupid wing stubs.

Received via Federal Express priority mail this morning: Fifty-four (54!) boxes of movie promo material for the Dragon*Con Independent Film Festival Track. Both Matthew and the Fed Ex delivery guy were somewhat flabbergasted. I’m amused. Except all those boxes are stacked up in our dining room currently, and I don’t want them just sitting there for the two and half weeks until the convention. We’re going to need some assistance to get them to the convention as well, since we can’t possibly fit all of them into either of our cars.

We opened some of them and they appear to be baseball caps and posters. Baseball caps. Huh.

There will be many freebies. Hobkin is in denial. He refuses to go into the dining room and scampers past the area without looking at it when he crosses the room. Poor little guy!

Also got an email from someone via my Mustalayday Grove website asking about skunk care and keeping, specifically diet and veterinary requirements. I sent them a brief rundown of Hobkin’s diet plan. They asked for more details, so I sent them an example day’s meal for Hobkin as well as letting them know about shots and other basics of veterinary care. They responded that, though they think skunks are cool, they’re just too high maintenance for them.

I feel exceedingly pleased with myself. Not that I’m trying to dissuade people from having skunks as pets, just that I want to do my part to make sure that people don’t adopt a skunk on an impulse without knowing what they’re getting into. If I can bring someone to understand that a skunk is totally unsuitable for their personality or lifestyle before they get one, I count that as a good deed accomplished. There are already too many abandoned animals in shelters who have been neglected or abused, and who have been fed and/or housed poorly, because people didn’t understand what it takes to properly care for them.

Prevention much better than cure. Going to go hug my fuzzwit now.

Writing Stuff:
– Received a polite reject from the Blood Lust anthology on a reprint, with invitation to submit to future projects of the editor.
– Sent out four queries to publishers for a transitional chapter book.

Selling fiction has become an addiction for me, and I mean that in a literal sense. The first sale I made, the adrenalin spiked through me, I went screaming through the house, flapping my arms and hooting like a madwoman (Matthew can attest to my lunatic behavior). I was zingy and gleeful, able to summon up that warm glow of elation for weeks afterward. In fact, it was enough of a high to last me until my second sale, which occurred one year later. Upon making that one, I experienced a similar response, but not as intense. I didn’t have to wait as long until the next sale (about four months this time), and the reaction I experienced from that was comparatively minor. I was excited and happy, but it faded quickly.

Subsequent sales have elicited less reaction, especially to smaller markets, but even repeat sales to big markets don’t give me the same kick as the very first one did. So now I need more frequent and bigger sales in order to get a fix, and I start longing for them sooner. I’m also preoccupied with rejectomancy and response-time predictions. I peer at my logs on a daily basis, even though I know only twenty-four more hours have passed since I last perused them, run stats and figures on my response times, and generally obsess. I also get jittery if I’m kept away from email for any length of time, or if I have to stop USPS mail service (e.g. when on vacation). Hi, my name’s Eugie and I’m a sales-a-holic . . .

In summary: I’m jonesing bad for a sale and it’s been less than a month since my last one .

Had a lovely evening with britzkrieg and rigel_kent. They grilled up portabello mushroom burgers and home-grown veggies for dinner. There was much feasting. Wonderful conversation and delicious food! Hobkin was somewhat miffed at being abandoned for so long, but we bribed him with leftover fruit salad and all was well.

I have many Daily Dragon website updates to make. I can’t believe how soon Dragon*Con is.

Went to the Shakespeare Tavern last night to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was excellent, again. I think it was better this time than last. There were more off-the-cuff jokes, including what I assume was an honest oopsie by one of the actors who said “bugger” instead of “begger.” Much hilarity ensued. I laughed right out loud frequently and helplessly throughout. They got a standing “O” and well deserved it.

Learned that one of my Dragon*Con Daily Dragon staff is unable to make the convention this year, so had to do a mad scramble to fill his vacancy. It appears to be copacetic now. Got me a network person!

Watched Hobkin hunt, kill, and eat a big, black spider-person this morning. I was impressed. He actually ran after and caught the thing by himself. Poor spider-person, though.

Writing Stuff:
Researched publishers to send queries to for the transitional chapter book that Henry Holt turned down. Aiming to send a batch of those out on Monday.

Otherwise, an exceedingly unproductive writing day.

My Dragon*Con gears are beginning to turn. Sent out the first email to my staff, sent a note to the signage director to confirm the big schedule grid signs I need will be printed, and fired off a note to the director of the YA Lit. track asking her when the panels she wants me to talk at will be. Hoping they don’t conflict with my “marketing short stories” talk for Ann at her workshop.

Wingstubs are pissing me off. Took Clonazepam last night. Slept well, but still in pain.

Ducked out of work a couple hours early yesterday to catch a matinée of The Village with Matthew. M. Night Shyamalan hasn’t been able to repeat the oooo-factor of Sixth Sense. He’s trying. You can see the formula grinding away in the movies he’s made since: good actors and acting, paranormal happenings, twisty twisty twisty. But this time the twists were rather on the lame side. I predicted the “big” revelation way, way in advance, and there were some rather gaping plot holes. The acting, however, was excellent, as was the cinematography. The young Howard lass did a damn fine job. I also like how Shyamalan consistently tries to make all of his characters sympathetic. But in the end, The Village was disappointing.

Writing Stuff:
– Received an almost 6.5 month reject from Aurealis. It’s a checklist with a few personal lines at the end with an invitation to submit more. I don’t think I’ll be submitting to them again in the future. Don’t have anything against them, but their response times are rather long, and they don’t accept esubs. The postage to airmail manuscripts to Australia is ridiculously expensive.
– Also a nearly 3-month “Dear Writer” form reject from Henry Holt BFYR for a SF transitional chapter book project. Ouch.
– And, two more critiques of “Masques of Love” from Critters.org came in this morning. WTF? Why is my story still up? Why hasn’t the next batch replaced it? Wha–?