Category Archives: Blog

And again my sleep was off. It was Hobkin’s turn to be restless last night. Every time I’d get settled, he’d decide he wanted down, and climb over me (waking me up in the process) before hopping to the floor. Then when I’d fallen back asleep, he’d decide he’d want snuggles and clamber up beside me, and wouldn’t settle until I pet him–forcing me to wake up again. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

My eyes feel scoured by sand. Oof. Was he getting back at me for Monday night? Now there’s a scary thought.

Ran out of herbal tea at work so grabbed some “Japanese Wild Cherry” tea from Teavana that we had lying around before heading in. Didn’t realize that it was green tea and not herbal. So I had caffeinated tea with my caffeinated coffee. *twitch* There’s a fine line between caffeine happiness and caffeine misery. I long jumped over it.

Writing Stuff:
I got a note from Carina! She’s definitely passing my story from this batch of Realms of Fantasy slush to Shawna! Woohoo!

I also got Ann Crispin’s and Victoria’s Strauss’ permission to post blurbs from their critiques of “Running on Two Legs” on my website. *preen*

On the writing progress front, my imagination has been captured by Persian Mythology. Currently reading a translation of The Book of Kings. I love ancient mythos.

Slept like crap last night. Don’t know what it was, but I couldn’t sink into a deep sleep state. First I was too hot (kicked the comforter off), then too cold (frantic groping for comforter on the floor), then my neck couldn’t get comfy no matter how I punched up my pillow, and then despite all the white noise going on in my head, every time I shut my eyes, they popped back open again. Dammit.

Hobkin ran off early to sleep under his hutch, in some disgust with all my tossing and turning.

Managed to get a bit of light napping in, but eventually got up an hour before my alarm from a fitful sleep. Sleep is stupid. *grumble*

I spent the day cranky and red-eyed. Fortunately I don’t have to deal with people very much in my day-to-day work environment. I suspect I would have been quite snappish to anyone who came close enough for me to take a bite out of.

Writing Stuff:
Heard from the editor of The Third Alternative that “Running on Two Legs” will likely be in issue #40, which I believe will be their Winter 2004 issue. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a PayPal account, so he’s going to pay me via check in pounds. I wonder how large a lump of flesh my bank will excise from me to convert it to dollars.

Still haven’t received a BFoD from Carina of Realms of Fantasy from this batch of slush. Could that mean my story is being sent on to Shawna? According to the website, it was read on the 7th and it’s almost two weeks later. Usually Carina sends out rejections the same day she reads a manuscript. Oh, I can’t stand it! I’m going to query her. I’m very glad Carina is so cool about queries. She’s the best first reader RoF has ever had, IMO.

Still waiting to hear from Shawna on my previous story sent on to her from the last batch too. *twitch*

Matthew finally first-readered “Blind Love.” Ugh. Okay, I knew this probably wasn’t his sort of story, but I didn’t take into account that he’d have nearly zero frame of reference for it. It’s a modern day Greek myth retelling. (Which myth I’ll not say as there are several Critters on my LJ Friends List who might read it when it bubbles up the queue.) Now my hubby is well read and quite literate, more literate than I would normally expect the average reader to be. Furthermore, our brains are typically in amazingly close sync.

And this story totally didn’t work for him. He didn’t have enough familiarity with the original myth to have any resonance with it, and so it was nearly meaningless on that front. And without the myth subtext, it’s rather deflated.

Now I don’t know what to do. I’m going to take some of his suggestions and do a rewrite, but now I’m wracked with doubt and wondering if the thing is salvageable. Guess I’ll wait to see what the folks at Critters think of it.

Trying not to dwell on death and dying, and what comes in the mail? Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary a la Netflix.

However, it was damn fine escapism. I love ballet. I started dancing when I was three. Some of my earliest memories are of being on stage, dancing in The Nutcracker ballet at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. I’ve always loved dance as the truest, most visceral expression of beauty, power, and grace.

Before Matthew and I moved here, we went to see the Atlanta Ballet perform Dracula. It was incredible. I didn’t think a movie version of the ballet could compare to the live experience. I was wrong. Pages from a Virgin’s Diary is seductive and mesmerizing. I loved it.

Writing Stuff:
Received a story to synopsize from Nathan Barker of Scrybe Press. In his email, he mentioned being interested in doing a limited edition “Best of Eugie” collection late next year, or maybe early 2006, and was I interested.

Was I interested? Squeee!

So then I suggested something I’ve been dwelling on for a while now, which is compiling my fairy tales for adults into a single volume. I’ve got enough of them for a novel-length compilation. Currently, about half of them are sold and in various stages of publication, and the other half are making the rounds. So early 2006 sounds just about right to take into account the looong lead times.

Nathan’s vision was to do 50-100 limited edition, hand bound hardcovers, released simultaneously with an open edition trade paperback. This project is still in the “wouldn’t it be cool” stages. We haven’t discussed money matters (like my advance) or anything like that, but I’m totally jazzed.

So instead of generating word count, I created a spreadsheet of my fairy tales for adults, started dwelling upon chapter order, and brain stormed title ideas.

I just heard that the person in my writers group with the brain tumor died yesterday. She passed away peacefully, losing her heroic battle with cancer.

I didn’t know her very well. We’d exchanged critiques as well as supportive emails cheering each other’s successes, but never spoken in real life. She was a talented writer with wit, humor, and a distinctive worldview. I’m saddened that I’ll never get a chance to meet her in person.

Neck is still all wonky. Stupid neck.

Watched one of the new Netflix offerings last night: Terminator 3. Surprising myself, I enjoyed it. The full circle thing was actually quite satisfying, and the ending was nicely grim. Although I suspect I would have liked it even more if we’d watched it in the theater as there were many spectacular explosions and a plethora of shiny EFX. Arnold does maintain a buff physique, I’ll say that about the gov. ‘Cept they never do explain (or even try to explain) any potential paradoxes or touch upon the ramifications of time travel on the future timeline. Probably just as well. The Terminator trilogy isn’t exactly what I’d call cerebral . . .

Received a UPS package in the mail addressed to both Matthew and I. Matthew didn’t think he was expecting anything, and I didn’t think I was either. Plus it was box-shaped, and anything I expect in the mail is more magazine or book-shaped these days. So, with some perplexity, we opened it. As it turns out it wasn’t for either of us, it was for Hobkin! We’d forgotten we’d ordered his Nu-Cat vitamins a week or so ago. So I called the wee fuzzwit over, as, of course, he was totally uninterested in the package, and gave him a vitamin, at which point, he suddenly became very interested. He thinks vitamins are skunk candy.

Writing Stuff:
About 700 new words. A plot begins to coalesce.

Also wrote a review of the new Sci-Fiction story for Tangent. Still no signs of life from ye olde editor, but I emailed it to him anyway.

I checked the Story Station site and “Second Daughter” isn’t up. I guess when the editor said he would publish it “the beginning of the week if not earlier” he didn’t mean this week. No biggie, I guess. I’m accustomed to late publication schedules, but I was looking forward to it, not to mention looking forward to the paycheck!

Glad it’s the weekend. Sunny and hot. Looks to be a good one for staying in with an iced coffee, a fluffy skunk, my laptop, and my muse.

I think my headache is getting better. I hope it’s a trend. Fell asleep pretty early, almost right after dinner, and woke up for an hour or so at around ten–my recent standard operating procedure. But, on the whole, I got a lot of sleep. I think that might be contributing to my overall state of “my head doesn’t hurt as much.”

During my brief waking period, I watched the second half of Michael Moore’s 1997 The Big One. There was much giggling. Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike, actually granted Michael Moore an interview. I’d almost feel sorry for Knight if he wasn’t such a schmuck.

Writing Stuff:
The editor for issue #14 of ASIM sent a progress report to the contributors. It’s going to the printers in the next week or so, and contrib. copies and payment should be out mid-August. Sweet. She also included a larger .jpg of the cover:
Continue reading →

Headache still in evidence. But, showing that one can become accustomed to some very unpleasant things, I’m dealing with it by ignoring it. Seems to be working so far. Or else the headache is better than it was and I’m deluding myself. Probably the latter.

August will be my ten-year anniversary with the company I work for. As such, I got to pick out a 10-year gift from their catalog of stuff. I opted not to choose the various timepieces, the semi-precious jewelry, the kitchenware, or even the Panasonic DVD player. Instead, I got a set of solar-powered landscaping lights. They arrived last week and are very swank. So yesterday evening Matthew and I went out to set them up in our front yard. In order to ensure the greatest amount of sunlight exposure and therefore proper battery charging, we needed to do some pruning, or as I think of it, mangling. The ornamental flora around our house had grown a bit, err, uninhibited. It now looks like it’s been savaged by a manic remedial barber student.

I absolutely hate outdoor work. Today I ache in unlikely places from wielding the trimmers and hammering in the light posts. Matthew assumed the role of downed branch removal because I’m pretty much allergic to the outdoors, and the less I’m in direct contact with it the better. Poor Matthew. We’ve got holly and blackberry shrubs out there, which are extremely pointy. He bled. I cursed. I hope not to have to do anything with that area again for a looong time.

Writing Stuff:
Wrote my review of Sci-Fiction‘s “Leviathan Wept” by Daniel Abraham for Tangent and emailed it to my editor. I have a sinking feeling that I’ve launched it into an abyss. Still nary a peep from him.

Did another pass through “Blind Love” which resulted in some judicious chopping. Culled less than 100 words, but they were good cuts, unlike the horticultural butchery engaged in earlier. Going to foist the thing on Matthew now.

Also wrote up a Critters critique for this week and did the final polish and shine of the second offering from the four-week Critters batch. This was a smaller rewrite than the previous one. Not sure if it’s because it was a simpler story, it was more polished, or it was the second of the two and received less attention. Also compiled references and composed a cover letter for it. It’s now waiting to go to Cricket.

Peeked at the RoF slush board. Carina’s read one of the submissions of mine in this batch (of which there are two). Now I anti-wait for the BFoD with bated breath. Also, it’s rounding the bend to 200 days on the story she passed to Shawna. My fingers are going to fuse crossed at this rate.