Today is St. Patrick's day. I've always thought that should make it a special day for me, but it isn't. It used to be. Back when I was a kid and we lived in Zambia, the local Irish Catholic nuns baked me a cake on St. Patrick's day. I was eight when we came back to England, and I thought the tradition was going to continue. It didn't. Nobody here thought I deserved anything special just because I happened to be called Patrick. My sense of injustice about this has continued to this day.

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I've realised that if I don't send my Nebula ballot in soon, I'll have missed the chance. I've made up my mind on movie scripts, novels and short stories. I still have most of the novellas and novelets to read. I'm not sure whether I'll manage it. Anyway, where I've decided my votes so far:

Novels
1. Perfect Circle, by Sean Stewart
2. Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold

I haven't read the other novels and won't have time to. I wondered whether that meant I shouldn't vote on that category at all, but I figure that a) many people who vote won't have read them all; and b) I'm far less likely to like the others. Still, feeling a bit guilty in this category.

Short Stories
1. "In the Late December," by Greg van Eekhout
2. "Embracing-The-New," by Benjamin Rosenbaum
3. "Travels With my Cats," by Mike Resnick
4. "Coming to Terms," by Eileen Gunn
5. "Aloha," by Ken Wharton
6. "The Strange Redemption of Sister Mary Anne," by Mike Moscoe

I thought there was a big difference in quality between the top two and the rest. The top two would both definitely be good winners, and to be honest, I couldn't slide a piece of paper between them. The other four were decent stories, but nothing particularly special. I thought of not voting for them at all, but I think that the order I've put them in represents their actual quality rank. I just don't happen to think that any of them should have been in the top 6 stories of the year, not by a long way.

Scripts
1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson
2. The Incredibles, by Brad Bird
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, by Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry

This was by far the hardest category to decide. All three of those movies were excellent, and all three had great scripts. In the end, I thought Return of the King deserved it because of its scope and ambition, but any of those three would be a good winner. For some reason, the Nebula committee decided to add The Butterfly Effect to the list. This was a farcical addition because in no way does it come close to the first three.

Tomorrow I'll post how I ranked the novellas and novelets, and then I'll be able to send off my ballot. Hopefully, it'll make it in time.

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I seem to have been in meetings all week, and have them all tomorrow. One things meetings are good for is generating work. What they're not good for is letting you have any time to do it.

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Easter soon! That means Steph and I are off to Eastercon. This is our first con since Worldcon in 2001. It should be a very different experience. We know a few people who are going, but not many. Unlike Worldcon 2001, however, I'm hoping not to have a trapped nerve in my neck so I will be able to maybe move about and turn my head.

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Writing goes on. I've sketched out everything that happens until the end of The Sleepers now. God knows how I'm going to fit it all in without the book getting above 50k (which, to me, seems way too long for a middle reader anyway). Last novel I did, I struggled to get to 30k. Somewhere along the line, I have become verbose.

Which nicely prompts me to end this entry before it becomes too long.