We have got to learn to start cutting baking recipes in half. We cooked a big batch of mouthwateringly-lovely chocolate chip cookies last night and remembered that they're always the best on the first night, hot out of the oven with the dark chocolate chunks still melting...mmmmmmm. My stomach hurt for the rest of the night! Today I'm holding myself to a strict limit, and giving some away to friends.

But, oh, they are yummy...

Lots of readers' polls out there for those of you who like voting! (And yes, I admit it, this is a painfully obvious hint, but you don't have to vote for my story/ies, obviously. Vote for anybody you like! Really.) The Locus Poll is free and open to vote in for any stories/novels/magazines/etc. published in 1004, and the Strange Horizons Readers' Poll is now open for voting on anything published there in 2004. So go vote already!

I wrote the first few pages of Chapter Twenty of The Music of the Stars last night. Lots of fun in secret chambers, by candlelight... I also finally, finally revised two short stories that have been waiting for final polishes for about a month now. I'm back to having ten new stories in submission! Woohoo! (And okay, I realize there are people out there with 30-100 stories out, but...well...that's never going to be me, let's face it.) Now, sadly, I'm feeling waaaaay woozy from too much energy spent. Still, it's all good stuff. And I've been reading some great stories recently--Sarah Prineas's Winged Victory, in the new issue of Lone Star Stories, was just wonderful, and now I'm reading Liz Williams's latest novel, Banner of Souls, which is hugely fun. She's become one of my favorite authors, with a fantastic mix of fantasy, science fiction, beautifully weird images, spunky heroines, and adventure in each novel.

And now it's back to the couch. Sigh. But hey, there are still some more cookies...