Eugie Foster's Self-Indulgent Musings

Stupid Novel Progress: 2.5K words

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:00:52 GMT

2.5K words on The Stupid Novel, to the detriment of my holiday to-do list. How is it mid-December already??

Guest blogging: Grasping for the Wind

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:51:07 GMT

John Ottinger invited me to join his panel of guest bloggers this week at Grasping for the Wind.

My post, "Creative Procrastination: Kanji, Word Families, and TXT SP3EAK," is now up.

And herein the schedule for the whole week:

Saturday
• The Book Smugglers Best Reads of 2009 by The Book Smugglers

Sunday
• Are We Post Genre? by Harry Markov

Monday
• Ramp Up Your Reading: More and Faster by Bill Ward
• Creative Procrastination: Kanji, Word Families, and TXT SP3EAK by Eugie Foster

Tuesday
• Ramp Up Your Reading: Do It Better by Bill Ward
• Book Buying: Telling Readers Where to Go by Jim C. Hines

Wednesday
• Ramp Up Your Reading: Expand Your Horizons by Bill Ward
• A Love Affair With Stories by Karen Miller

Thursday
• Working With Young Writers by Shaun Duke
• The Write Stuff by Stephen Hunt

Friday
• Science Fiction and the Death of the Human by Shaun Duke
• Shared World Fiction: Spinning Stories Out of Unmapped Bits by Rosemary Jones

Saturday
• Science Fiction Ain't Dead (So Shut Up) by Shaun Duke
• The Things An Author Does by Pamela Freeman

Sunday
• A Golden Age for Short Fiction by Joe Sherry

Morning of Stories

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:35:36 GMT

I had a funny dream this morning. Can't remember much about it, but I woke up laughing. Wish I could wake up laughing every morning.

During my commute to work on the eastbound train, a woman was sobbing her heart out while a man sat red-eyed and mournful beside her.

As I was ascending the steps of the capitol, I passed a shirtless man descending them. He grinned at me, revealing many missing teeth, and wished me "good morning."

The world is full of stories.

Stupid Novel Progress: Part 4 Zero Draft, Onto Part 5

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:30:33 GMT

Ruthless cutting of -1.5K words on The Stupid Novel and Part 4 is now at zero draft. Rah! Onward to Part 5; entering the final stretch. And with only three more weeks left in December, it really does feel like a race.

Stupid Novel Progress: Almost at Zero Draft of Part 4

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:28:32 GMT

550 words on the The Stupid Novel. So close to zero draft on Part 4 I can almost taste it. Then onto Part 5, the exciting climax...

Sleep is for the Dead...Apparently

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:26:20 GMT

And my love/hate ping-pong match with insomnia continues. Got almost no sleep last night, but wrote 1.7K words on The Stupid Novel. I can has coffee now, plez? *twitch*

Curiosity Killed Who?

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:45:59 GMT

Ad hoc research overload. Brain overflowing with trivia on the kanji used in Japanese newspapers and the symbolism of carnations in the language of flowers. Gah!

Stupid Novel Progress and Guest Bloggery at Ecstatic Days

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:38:16 GMT

Progress and stuff: 1K more words down on The Stupid Novel and made another guest blog post at Jeff VanderMeer's Ecstatic Days pimping a couple excellent projects, "Mansfield Park and Mummies & Lord Dickens’s Declaration."

Writing writing writing.

Name the best science fiction titles

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:43:14 GMT

Ooo! Damien G Walter gave "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Beast; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" a shout-out (alongside Clarke, Bester, Le Guin, etc.) in his "Name the best science fiction titles" post in the Guardian!

NaNoWriMo Stupid Novel Fail

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:57:18 GMT

Well, it's December, and I'm still plugging away at The Stupid Novel. Sigh. At least I managed to plug 2.3K words into it yesterday.

Mouseferatu.com

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:22:45 GMT

The website I've been working on for Ari Marmell (mouseferatu), good friend and amazing writer, went live today. Check out the shiny at Mouseferatu.com.

Thankfulness Fail

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:50:31 GMT

It was a less quiet and productive holiday than I'd hoped. Drama, Stress, Sickness, and Automotive Distress: the four riders of my t-day apocalypse.

Glad to be back at my desk and at work.

Grand Jury Duty. Nooooo!

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:15:17 GMT

Gah! Got a summons in the mail for grand jury duty. Grand jurors, unlike trial jurors, meet twice a week for a two-month term. I actually think this might be an interesting experience, as I've never served as a grand juror before. Except for one, itty bitty problem: I've been summoned to do my civic duty during the upcoming legislative session.

The cosmos is pointing and laughing at me.

And now I wish I was at work today so I could pluck Title 15 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated off the shelf opposite my desk and figure out if I can get this deferred. Guess I have no choice but to peruse LexisNexis online, which is a pain to navigate through.

Lessee...Code Section 15-12-2: "Any person summoned to serve as a juror in any court of this state shall be excused from such service during his attendance as a legislator in the General Assembly."

@#%$! Close, but no.

Ah, here we go. Code Section 15-12-1(a)(1): "Any person who shows that he or she will be engaged during his or her term of jury duty in work necessary to the public health, safety, or good order or who shows other good cause why he or she should be exempt from jury duty may be excused by the judge of the court to which he or she has been summoned or by some other person who has been duly appointed by order of the chief judge to excuse jurors. Such a person may exercise such authority only after the establishment by court order of guidelines governing excuses."

Editing bills for the General Assembly during session counts as "work necessary to public good order" doesn't it? Urg. Hope so.

Laptop, Electric Blanket, and Thou...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:34:36 GMT

Should be writing upstairs at my desk in my library-office, but it's cold in the house, and the electric blanket is all toasty warm, so I'm curled under it with my laptop. Ergonomics fooie, I sez.

What's With All the Work at Work?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:43:36 GMT

Day before the Thanksgiving holiday, I'm the only editor in the office, and the work just keeps coming. I can't write with all of these distractions! Wah!

Novel Math: Adding and Subtracting

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:42:21 GMT

1.2K on The Stupid Novel, and I think there must be ruthless scene chopping today. The price for not writing this chronologically, I suppose.

Still Writing While Beseiged by Hamsters

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:41:29 GMT

1K words on The Stupid Novel, and they were good words for a change. Think I'm back on track. 'Cept my hamsters are massing at the gates.

Stupid Novel Progress

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:01:45 GMT

Less Stupid Novel progress than I'd hoped, but after 2K words, part 3 is now at zero draft. Next up: adding the bridge scenes to part 4.

No More Skunk Camp for Hobkin

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:11:44 GMT

So the results from the vet came back, and Hobkin has a staph infection, apparently a methicillin-resistant one. He gets another course of antibiotics. Poor lil guy! But it's a relief having a definite diagnosis and simple treatment.

However, as one skunk-related worry resolves, another rears up. The housing crisis and economic recession caused Hobkin's godmother to lose her house. She'd been unemployed for a while, and with the job market being what it is, she ended up exhausting her savings and then having to default on her mortgage. She declared bankruptcy, and she and her houseful of skunks relocated out-of-state.

We're devastated. I hope she manages to get back on her feet soon. Really, really hope she does. And now Hobkin doesn't have a place to go when we're out of town. His godmother was wonderful. We completely trusted her to look after him, had total peace of mind boarding Hobkin with her, secure that she was both capable of and would look after him with the same care and attentiveness that we would.

I don't know what we're going to do next month for Christmas when we go to visit fosteronfilm's folks. We can't take Hobkin with us because skunks are illegal to own as pets in Illinois, and we simply can't board him at our vet's. It would be far too stressful. We're considering getting a professional pet sitter, but even if we can find one who'll sit a skunk, I very much doubt they'd have any experience caring for one. And even if they came by four times a day (which is how often Hobkin's meals are), Hobkin would be alone for huge chunks of time. He's used to having someone with him essentially 24/7, not to mention sleeping with me at night. I think he'll be sad and lonely being alone for so long. I would be.

Don't know what to do. Wah!

Brains...drool thud

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:04:37 GMT

Lethal insomnia. Dead now. Waiting to be resurrected by the aqua vitae (aka coffee) I slammed. Otherwise, consider me added to the ranks of the walking dead.

2009 Nebula Nomination Period Open

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:48:00 GMT

The 2009 Nebula nomination period opened yesterday and runs through Feb. 15, 2010. This is the first year of the revamped Nebula nomination rules, a process that really, really needed an overhaul. It promises to be much more transparent and commonsensical than the previous system.

I invite folks to peruse the Carl Brandon society list of 2009 short stories by writers of color and the Nebula suggested reading offerings at the SFWA.org site for some fabulous fiction to consider nominating.

And, of course, my own shameless plug:

My novelette "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman Beast" was published by Interzone and reprinted in Apex Magazine in 2009, making it eligible for Nebula consideration.

Folks can read it for free from Apex's site or listen to a free podcast of it, read fabulously by Lawrence Santoro, at Escape Pod.

Vet Visit

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:05:27 GMT

Just got back from another vet appointment. The follow-up urinalysis from last week's visit showed there was still blood so we brought Hobkin back for more tests. Today's results: x-ray was clean (no kidney stones, whew), waiting on the urine culture results. And we're $340 poorer. Sigh.

But I'm glad we could confirm that Hobkin doesn't have stones. And he was really well behaved. Although obviously anxious. Poor lil guy.

Niches, Typecasting, and Stereotypes

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:46:12 GMT

Just committed guest bloggery at Jeff VanderMeer's Ecstatic Days: "Niches, Typecasting, and Stereotypes". Go read, yo.

Bards and Sages Author of the Year 2009

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:54:23 GMT

Been sitting on this news until it was announced: Bards & Sages named me their Author of the Year for 2009! Squee!

Backups are Fun

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:54:43 GMT

Hrm. Just learned that they're re-imaging our computers at work tomorrow. Making backups now...