What I got for Christmas: a weird ass flu where I feel the worse in the afternoon (bad headache with some nausea) and by evening I feel normal again and my appetite returns. I have a sore throat but Zicam takes care of that just fine. The worse of it took place on Christmas Eve and the next day. So far today I feel good, but it's morning yet, the afternoon stalking like a cat after a mouse.

I felt good enough to go to the Oltions on Xmas Eve to exchange dollar gifts and hear stories. But come morning I didn't feel up to going to Dianna's for brunch, but there was no need for X to stay home so she went to join the festivities. By the afternoon the headache was back full strength. When X returned later with goodies and stories of the day, I was practically back to normal.

It's been a busy couple of weeks around here. We had a three day breather between coming back from Cleveland and the arrival of X's brother and his girlfriend. They stayed until the twenty-fourth. It was fun having some company even though I didn't get any writing done and that's more because of my lack of discipline than anything. We went to the Newport Aquarium on Sunday and that was a lot of fun.

I've read a couple of holiday stories online. Greg has a great story at Strange Horizons. And sort of a hardboiled romance plus the magic of Old Saint Nick at Scifi.com by Kris Rusch.

There's been much talking about revising my novel. I had Jerry Oltion read the three chapters of my novel and we talked about it. Our discussion centered around the novel starting with the antagonist and the reasons why that may or may not work. Jerry knows his stuff (on novel structure and thematic elements) and thanks to him I can see the shape of my novel more clearly.

It's going to be a busy next couple of months!

And so far I feel fine.