Lovely weekend! Been reading loads of Iron Council, and will finish it today or tomorrow. It's an absorbing read, though I'll have to finish it and then think on it a while before I'm ready to draw conclusions, compare it to the other Bas-Lag novels, etc.

I'm also writing like mad. Yesterday morning I wrote 3,200 words on my new story, and figured out the last missing piece of the plot. I expect to have a fairly solid first draft sometime in the next few days, and then I can write the other story that takes place in the same setting. I'm excited.

Yesterday evening was nicely social. Heather and I went to Berkeley and met up with David. We wandered a bit, talking about story and book design and so on. A street vendor on telegraph was selling wonderful metal sculptures, largely made of bicycle chains and spark plugs. Lots of wonderful stuff -- aliens, Cthuloid monsters, articulated robots with axes and maces, dinosaurs, frogs, scorpions. I of course bought a scorpion, pictured below:

Heather got a dragon, and David a frog. Then Jed arrived, and we set off for a Japanese restaurant around the corner. We sat outside and talk talk talked, ate good food, talked more. Quite wonderful, really. David and Jed are great company. After dinner, when it got cold, we headed for a café and talked for a while longer. Finally broke up around 10 p.m. Somehow, five hours had gone by. Sometimes being social is a good thing.

Today we have various errands and housecleaning things to do, and tonight we're having dinner with my boss, which should be fun.