It was a lovely holiday. Bristol was warm and breezy, and on Christmas Day we hiked up tall hills and took off our jackets because it was too warm for them. I got lots of great presents (woohoo!) including Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which I loved and devoured. I wrote almost two new short stories... i.e., I finished one story ("By the Light of the Dark") in time to give it to Patrick for Christmas, and I'm about four pages from the end of another short story ("Taking the Pledge"). Reviewer Rich Horton made a nice comment about my short-short story "Giant" in his sff.net newsgroup. This morning Patrick, our friend Justina, and I all braved the Bank Holiday crowds at the local mall and found a fantastic top and impressive half-boots for me to wear at the Oxford 18th-Century Studies conference (this Thursday through Saturday).

But the best bit of all came when we got back home from the mall to find a message waiting for Patrick on the answering machine: an agent (Carolyn Whitaker, who represents Richard Morgan, Chris Wooding, and a bunch of other British SF/fantasy authors) offering to take on Patrick's first YA novel, Touching Ice! Woohoo! We all did a Happy Dance, even Nika. We're now plotting inexpensive methods of glorious celebration.

I'm now feeling much more cheerful about going back to work, to the conference, etc., etc.

Happy New Year, everybody. :)