Woot! I just saw the list of finalists for this year's Philip K Dick award, and two out of the six books (Natural History and Silver Screen) are BOTH by Justina Robson, one of my absolute favorite SF writers as well as being an amazing friend. (And I mean really amazing. For Christmas this year she got me a build-your-own-fairy princess kit. Does this woman know me well, or what???)

In other news, I finally, finally passed the halfway point on Congress of Shadows--woot!--and thank God, because I'm right about to launch into another revision of Masks & Shadows...I don't think I could have coped if I hadn't already hit a good structural point in CoS, but as it is, it feels like it could actually be a fun interlude. (And plus, what perfect timing, since I just went to the Museum of Costume and found out all these extra cool details to toss into the background mix.) And I've just added another 4 pages to my San Francisco short story, which has been lurching along in small chunks--it's actually one of my favorite story ideas, but writing it always feels like cheating on my novels, so I feel guilty about it and only do it on the side, between novel chapters, when I think nobody's looking...

And in fun news for a geek like me, Oxford University Press has granted free access to the online Oxford English Dictionary until February 13th, to accompany a show that's going on on the BBC. So now's your chance to look up all those words you've always pretended to know the meaning of while never really being sure. (My word for today: "pusillanimous". I always kinda figured I knew what it meant...but I was surprised when I actually looked it up. I'd been guessing wrong the whole time.)