Woohoo! After a two year wait, I’ve finally received word from Dreams of Decadence. Actually, I had to query the sff.publishing.dnapublications newsgroup to find out. Nothing like making a public query to strike up the ole anxiety meter. But I sold “The Few, the Proud, the Leech Corps” to them! WOOT!
I’ve been wanting to break into D of D for ages!
Hurray! The results are in of the 2003 Preditors and Editors Readers’ Poll! Both my stories “All in My Mind” and “The Reign of the Wintergod” finished in the Top Ten of their categories (Best SF Short Story and Best Horror Story, respectively).
I’m quite pleased. Thanks to everyone who voted!
Matthew and I went to see The Lion in Winter at the Shakespeare Tavern last night. It was amazingly good. I know I gush a lot about the productions there, but this one just totally blew me away. They had an astoundingly good Eleanor, an actress who I haven’t seen before, and Maurice Ralston, a regular there, totally owned his Henry II part. They got a standing O from us. And now I want to see the Peter O’Toole/Katharine Hepburn movie version again.
britzkrieg, if you and Jaime were interested in seeing another play at the Tavern, I highly recommend catching The Lion in Winter. It was incredible.
The performance was sold out so we ended up sitting in the balcony–the first time we’ve done that. And while the table situation is a little awkward (I kept banging my knees against the food ledge), the view is actually better for catching the play. And the very pretty actor who I admired ogled in his scanty guard costume in Salome gave me his arm to escort us up the balcony. Rrrr! 
Matthew was amused at my lascivious panting. I can’t help it, that man is lovely. Especially with his shirt off in barbaric guard attire. During Salome my eyes kept straying to him even while the main actors on stage were doing their thing. Hubba.
The play (The Lion in Winter not Salome) also inspired me to start pondering a new novel concept. It’s a political ascension fantasy concept currently. Not too surprising considering the inspiration. I’ve throwing together a synopsis and going to try to do an outline from that. A novel is too long to do fly-by-seat-of-pants, so I think an outline is essential. But this time I’m going to try to do just a bare bones outline before attacking it. Apparently the “outline every chapter in exquisite detail” approach isn’t working for me. Wonder how far I’ll get . . .
Took a Clonazepam. Pain better, and the world’s all soft and fuzzy. Maybe I should go lie down now . . .
Wheeeee!
Early AM insomnia. Arms hurt. Four rejections this week:
– F&SF: “nice writing but . . . ” from JJA. I miss the “alas”es from GVG.
– Arabella: “elements that appealed but . . . ”
– NFG: “grabbed the attention of the editors but . . .” they’re also willing to see a rewrite, which is something.
– Fantastic: “closed to subs until 2005”
Pook.
In other writing news, the editor of Scrybe Press said he’s going to try to get Carrie Hall to do the cover art for “Ascendancy of Blood” and wants to publish it as a chapbook. I’m excited to see how that’ll turn out.
But, no new words. No rewrites. I hurt too much. I shouldn’t even be typing this journal entry. Stupid extra rib.
Okay, my TOS has returned something fierce. I actually took off all of yesterday and Tuesday afternoon from work because of the pains zinging up my arms. Been downing Clonazepam like candy. The upshot is I’ve been sleeping pretty heavily. But the downward side of things is my brain feels pretty muggy. And I still hurt.
Of all the ironies, my muse came a-calling too. 1000 more words on the little fantasy I started and it’s done. Zero draft completed. It’s a short piece, a sort of mystic/spiritual examination of war as a theme. It was inspired by one of the songs on the CD britzkrieg gave me for my birthday: “The Queen and the Soldier” by Suzanne Vega. The lyrics stuck me with me, haunting me with images until I sat down and hammered out a story to frame them. So, hurray, my first completed story of 2004. Having Matthew first reader it, and then up to Critters it goes. But also, ouch.
Wish I could learn how to type with my toes.
Got a note from the editor of Song of the Siren. The January 2004 issue is live. “Second Daughter,” my fairy tale that originally appeared in issue #44 of Brigham-Young’s Leading Edge magazine, is now up. Rah!
britzkrieg and her fiancé came over last night for dinner and a movie. (A double date 
). Matthew made a veggie stir-fry and after some excellent gabbing–we always have great conversations with them–we split off into chromosomal groupings for the passive entertainment portion of the night.
The boys went upstairs to watch Zulu on the 60-inch home theater system, and britzkrieg and I stayed downstairs and watched Thelma and Louise on the smaller set. I’ve been wanting to see T&L for ages now, but Matthew has been less than enthusiastic about it. I’m so glad I finally saw it. Some truly beautiful cinematography in that movie.
Hobkin was a sweetie too. I think he’s getting more laid back about the whole “people in his territory” thing. Thank goodness.
Woke up ridiculously early this morning, though. Stupid, whacked-out circadian rhythms.
I came across a review of In the Outposts of Beyond at epinions.com:
“Read enough anthologies in a row and pretty soon the stories all seem the same in your memory. The ones that stand out are the ones you mention when suggesting to a friend they read it. If I were to tell one of my friends to read In the Outposts of Beyond, I’d mention Ralan Conley’s “The Walking Man” or Eugie Foster’s “A Little Soul Music.”
–C. Dennis Moore
I’m grinning like a loon.
Thanks to the folks who responded ’bout my domain registration question! I decided to go with hostingdude.com as my registrar, although godaddy.com was a close second. There was a ten cent difference between their prices, but identical services otherwise.
*drum roll* I now own http://www.eugiefoster.com. Hurray!
I’ll be pointing it to my comcast URL. Didn’t need to mess with hosting or anything that way (since Comcast is already taking their pound o’flesh every month). My new domain name should be live as soon as all the registration stuff propagates through the proper channels–they said in 24-48 hours.
Neat. I won’t have to worry about my stupid ISP changing again.
That was a lot easier and cheaper than I thought it was going to be. I feel like I ought to have done it a long time ago. Oh well, better late than not at all, I guess.
Now I get to change all the contact info. on my cards and everything . . .
Okay, I’m beginning to mull over finally biting the bullet and registering my own domain name. Any hints, tips, suggestions on folks to use or pitfalls to avoid?
Thanks!
