Category Archives: Blog

Okay, meditation helps while I’m meditating. But as soon as I stop, the pain and breathing distress returns. And I can’t go around with my eyes shut, crossed-legged, focusing on my breathing all day! Stupid wing stubs.

In continued irritation news, the lock on Hobkin’s enclosure broke yesterday. It’s the fourth one that’s done so. While I think Rover Gate makes a great product in general, their clasps suck. With repeated use, the plastic gets fatigued and snaps in half. Right now, we’re “locking” his little door shut by a twist tie. It won’t hold for long if he works at it, but we’re hoping that he doesn’t realize the lock is broken and equates “closed door” with “locked door.” At least until our order of a new set of Rover Gate clasps arrives. I keep telling myself that I need to brainstorm a better locking mechanism and pick up something the next time we’re at Home Depot, but instead, we end up buying more RG clasps. It’s planned obsolescence, I sez! Pffft.

Also received an email from my mother. Her and my step-dad (that’s feeling more natural as time passes . . . huh), are going to be in the states in a couple months and will be swinging by Atlanta for a weekend. I actually think it’ll be fun seeing them again.

Writing Stuff:
– Had five more crits of “Masques of Love” come in this morning, bringing my total to twenty, the perfect number to run stats on. Read and mulled over these last ones, made my final tweaks and sentence-level adjustments, and it’s out.
– Received a reply to my query from Borderlands 6: “We got it. Thanks!” Huh. Well, it’s exactly the information I asked for. Guess I can’t complain. Does that mean I made the short list? Hope hope hope.

Wingstubs have become a great, aching throb from my shoulders to my fingertips. Also experiencing some really distressing breathing issues. I think I’m stressed, although I can’t for the life of me figure out why I should be more stressed now than at any other time. Things are on a fairly even keel . . . I think.

Took .25 mg of Clonazepam last night. I noticed that my breathing eased up quickly after taking it, another good indicator that my physical ailments have a root cause in stress. I slept well and woke up without the usual post-drug fog hazing my brain, so I’ve determined once and for all this new dosage works much better for me. But my arms still ache.

Going to try to do some meditating to relax. I’m out of practice–both in meditation and, apparently, relaxation.

Writing Stuff:
– I did end up querying the Borderlands 6 people. Now, more waiting.
– Started jotting down some notes for the talk Ann Crispin asked me to give. Oh, wait, stressor! Ah hah.
– Wrote my review of this week’s Sci-Fiction story, “The Key” by Ilsa J. Bick, for Tangent and sent it off to my editor.
– Worked on the rewrite of “Caught Between” and in the process renamed it “Masques of Love.” It’s a bit of a saccharine title, and I’m not 100% pleased with it, but my clever, un-saccharine title was resoundingly panned. The final crits should come trickling in today or tomorrow. I’m thinking I’m in good shape to have it out the door by Thursday or Friday at the latest.

Got a phone call from dire_epiphany yesterday, a frantic plea for assistance. Apparently the printers of the Dragon*Con program book et al. bumped up their deadline, and they wanted all of the documents (guest bios, performer write-ups, etc.) today. She was expected to have 100+ pages of text edited and ready to go in like, negative time.

So, Matthew and I were enlisted in the great editorial marathon to help get everything spell- and grammar-checked, and consistently formatted. Actually, I like editing. I thought it was fun. dire_epiphany still did the lion’s share (and we’re talking gigantic, mammoth-eating cave lion here, not the little bitty modern-day lions). I hope she was able to get some sleep last night . . .

But it really sunk home that Dragon*Con is right around the corner. Eep.

Writing Stuff:
Received yesterday:
-An email from Ann Crispin asking if I’d do a little talk on the business of submitting short stories during her Dragon*Con beginner’s workshop. 1. I’m totally stoked she asked me. 2. I’m also totally terrified. Did I mention I’ve got an acute phobia of public speaking? I’m going to do it, but I’m waiting until I don’t get the shakes when I think about it to reply to her email .
– A request to synopsize another novelette for Scrybe Press. Going to work on that today.
– Checklist form reject from Highlights with “It is not suited to our present needs” checked. Probably just as well. Highlights buys all rights, and while they pay well for them, they don’t pay as well as Cricket, who just buys first print and non-exclusive reprint rights. ‘Course Cricket passed on this one. But after further consideration, I don’t think I’m happy with the idea of parting with “all rights” to anything of mine. It also might be time to trunk this folk tale. But, on an amusing note, there were some checklist items that one normally doesn’t see on genre forms. My favorite was “We do not publish material that requires or encourages a reader to mark on the pages” .
– Two more critiques of “Caught Between” (including yours, canadiansuzanne, thanks!) Still seems to be going over reasonably well. Coolness.

Writing Stuff:
– The cyberpunk article is nearly done. Fork poised and looming. Going to double-check my formatting, read over it once more, and then send it off.
– Started a review for Tangent of this week’s Sci-Fiction story, “The Tang Dynasty Underwater Pyramid” by Walter Jon Williams.
– Did another Critters critique for a regular.
– And while driving home, a story inspired by a recent 60 Minutes feature coalesced. I hammered out a synopsis/outline, complete with character sketches and finale. This one’s science fiction.
-Also received a 93-day personal scribble on a form “no” from Amazing Stories with invite to send more.

Only took a little Clonazepam this weekend. Broke a .5 mg pill in half, and took .25 mg. It seems to have worked in that I wasn’t zoned the morning after. Although my wing stubs are still protesting. But they’re protesting in less strident voices.

Writing Stuff:
72-day personal reject from Abyss & Apex with request to see more. Damn.

All stories that have returned with their tails tucked have received pep talks and been booted back out.

One of the submissions I have at Cricket has just crested the 100-day mark, which is always a promising sign with these folks. My story at RoF that Carina pulled from the slush has made its way to Shawna. And more twitching and nail gnawing shall commenceth. That’s two of my stories under round two consideration there. I know the publishing biz isn’t a numbers game, but I can’t help being hopeful that this increases my chances that at least one of them will appeal.

Work progresses on the cyberpunk article. Non-fiction is so much easier to write than fiction. Although I am experiencing a decidedly collegiate déjà vu sensation. And I’m getting very annoyed with how pretentious all the essays I’m finding on Postmodernism are. There’s this tendency to dance around anything that remotely might be a definition or theme, making for huge expanses of gibberish I have to wade through.

The Tangent snafu appears to have been cleared up, and my editor has returned from his sojourn to the mystic pit of vanishing. My reviews of Sci-Fiction stories “The Anatomist’s Apprentice” and “Volunteers” has joined “Jumpers” in the recently published list.

Wrote a critique for Critters (for your story canadiansuzanne).

Did a vanity Google search and discovered a new review of Ascendancy of Blood at a site called, whimsically enough, Yet Another Book Review Site:

“Just when readers think nothing new can be done to an old fable, along comes Foster. She reinvents sleeping beauty. Her take entertains and her twist, surprises . . . A fast, horror read that will surprise fable lovers.”
–Christina Francine Withcher

A glowing review makes Eugie happy.