Category Archives: Blog

News I Can’t Tell and News I Can

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Thankfully, yesterday was neither as long nor as grueling as I expected. Got home before 9:30. And, as an end of day pick-me-up, I received some amazing news.

Got it at work and just barely managed not to whoop out loud, but it was a close thing. Did babble it to my co-editors—after calling Matthew, of course; otherwise I would’ve gone ‘splody-boom at my desk. Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to squee publicly about until next month.

So as not to be accused of being (too much of) a tease, here’s news I can tell: PodCastle asked me to narrate “Honored Guest” by Ellen Kushner for a forthcoming podcast. I read and adored this story when it was originally published in the Coyote Road anthology, so of course I said I’d be delighted to.

Sleepless Night

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Had a really bad night. Insomnia kicked in hard, worse than usual. My best and favorite remedy for sleeplessness has been snuggling Hobkin. He was the softest, warmest plush beastie to cuddle at night. Guess it should go without saying that I felt his absence particularly keenly as I tossed and turned. Ended up getting almost no sleep whatsoever, so now I’m exhausted and emotionally frail. Add to that the likelihood that we’re going to have a very late night under the gold dome, and we have a definite not-my-favorite-day day.

Crossover Day 2010 and Featured Special Guest of C. Dennis Moore

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The current legislative session calendar has Crossover Day (Day 30) as this Friday. Blargh. Crossover Day is the deadline for when bills have to pass at least one chamber or be dropped, and usually goes to midnight or later for the legislature and therefore us Office of Legislative Counsel folks. Gonna be a loooong Friday night.

Next week, they’ll be in session for a few days, and then they’re recessing again for another week. At this rate, we’re going to be in session ’till May. So not happy.

In other (better) news, cdennismoore featured me as a Special Guest on his website and had some very nice things to say .

Droid Gmail Error: Engaging My Google-fu

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This morning kept getting a force close “process com.google.process.gapps has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again” error on my Droid every time I tried to a launch the gmail app. Annoying and alarming.

Initial perusal of various Android forums suggested I do a hard wipe and reset to factory settings, the prospect of which triggered a prolonged (silent) wail of anguish. Decided not to do that and filed it into the “last ditch solution, to be exercised only in an excess of desperation and after every other solution has been attempted and failed” drawer. Kept digging and found folks suggesting I uninstall third-party apps one-by-one as one of them might be the culprit. Better than doing a factory reset, but striking me as a random, laborious, catch-all troubleshooting effort which, furthermore, made no sense since I haven’t loaded any new apps or upgraded any old apps lately. Filed that into the “to be tried if no better/more sensible alternative presents itself” and kept digging. Finally found someone suggesting that clearing the Droid’s gmail cache and gmail data might fix the problem. Now that tingged the “reasonable solution”-o-meter of my programmer sensibilities. Fingers crossed, I cleared both, rebooted, re-synced, and voila, no more scary force close error.

Whew.

Long story short, if folks either sent or are expecting an email from me this morning, it might’ve gotten lost in the gmail force close debacle. It might be wise to re-send any urgent emails or give me a nudge for reply.

Insomnia and Frolicon Panel Schedule

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Sleep was not forthcoming last night. Been taking hydroxyzine on and off to aid in sleeping this last week. Decided that I was treading the path to unhealthy and resolved to go off it before taking uppers in the morning and downers at night became a habit. Voila, insomnia. Sigh.

In other news, the Frolicon 2010 panels and workshop schedule is now online. It’s still preliminary and subject to change, but I’m currently slated to be on:

Friday 4/2, 11AM-12:30PM: “Ask a Writer: Craft” – Whether you’re struggling with characters who won’t do what you want, a plot that doesn’t seem to want to come together, difficulties making your words flow the way you want, etc., come ask our panel of writers how they do what they do. (Cancun)

Saturday 4/3, 4:15-5:45PM: “Writing Sex Scenes” – No matter what genre you write, sometimes your plot is going to take your characters into a sex scene. How do you decide what level of explicitness works? How do you keep the language from either devolving into crudeness or coming out sounding medical? There’s a lot more work involved in making them arouse the reader than simply insert-tab-A-into-slot-B. (Frankfurt)

Hope to see folks there.

Another Review of “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest” and Hugo Pimping

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Scott D. Danielson reviewed the Escape Pod podcast of “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest” at SFFAudio.com, giving snaps to both myself and the fabulous Larry Santoro, who narrated it:

“…each section of the story is a heightened emotional experience. The intensity of this story was spectacularly captured by Lawrence Santoro, who narrated in a dramatic manner that reminds me of Harlan Ellison. Bravo to author and narrator – a perfect match. A great story, truly worthy of a Nebula.”

And in a clumsy segue, this month has passed in something of a blur, and I just realized that the deadline for Hugo nominations is this Saturday, the 13th. For folks attending Aussiecon 4 or have supporting memberships who haven’t completed their nominations, I invite you to consider my novelette “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.”

Originally published in issue #220 of Interzone and podcast by Escape Pod, it can also be read online for free at Apex Magazine.

Fairy Doors

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threeoutside commented in my previous post that she didn’t know what a fairy door was, so I thought I’d post a few pictures of them. Matthew gave me a pair of them for Christmas, and we’re so poky about doing anything around the house (plus I kept waffling ’bout where I wanted them), we simply hadn’t put them up. But it seemed both important and fitting to rectify that last weekend.


This one is at the bottom of the stairs.

Continue reading →

Quiet Weekend & Reviews and recommendations for Returning My Sister’s Face and “Sinner, Baker…”

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This weekend was a hard one for Matthew and me, punctuated by attempts to distract ourselves from the sense of too-quiet at home and a celebration of the memory of Hobkin’s life. We were hit-and-miss with the former but I think we did okay with the latter. We made stew (the kind we always threatened to put Hobkin in when he’d been particularly naughty) and beer bread (which Hobkin was quite fond of), shared memories of Hobkin that made us laugh and smile, took down the rover gates in his area, and put up a couple fairy doors.

Big thank yous and hugs to kittymel for the thoughtful sympathy card and to Ico and her dad, Barnaby, for the beautiful flowers:

   


Writing Stuff

Some new reviews of and recommendations for “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” and Returning My Sister’s Face:

• “Snow-women and Samurais” by Nin Harris (merlusyne):
“The writing is filled with both the graceful simplicity I have come to associate with Far Eastern literature and poetry as well as the modern edginess which comes with the meeting between two cultures…Returning My Sister’s Face remains one of the brighter sparks in the output of published writing for the year.”

• Returning My Sister’s Face reviewed by Ken Schneyer (ken-schneyer):
“[Eugie] tells her tales with such energy, grace and heart that one feels instantly transported and moved.”

• “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” made Tangent’s 2009 3-Star Recommended Reading List.

• “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” was recommended by Aaron Hughes as his Story of the Week pick for Feb. 25, 2010, at Fantastic Reviews Blog:
“Foster manages to keep the tale moving forward, using elegant but not flashy prose…a fascinating, absorbing story”

A Few Memories of Hobkin

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Thank you, everyone, for the outpouring of sympathy and condolences. And a special thank you to yukinooruoni who stopped by on Monday with a care package of heat-and-eat meals, correctly surmising that neither Matthew nor I would be capable of or inclined to do much cooking at this time.

I am truly touched, knowing that so many people will also miss Hobkin’s silly antics and irrepressible personality. I’ve also taken some comfort in reading over the posts I made about Hobkin over the years and looking at our pictures and videos of him, and I wanted to share a few of the last images we took of him.


Taken on Feb. 20 when Hobkin was breathing easily and seemed almost like his old self, the weekend before he started having seizures.

And here are two videos I took on March 1 of Hobkin doing one of his favorite things: eating.

And finally, I’m reprinting on my website the first story that Hobkin inspired, “Running on Two Legs.” It remains one of my favorites, and re-reading it reminded me of Hobkin as a baby, and the memory made me smile.