Lots of awards are open for voting right now by anyone on the internet...just this past week, I've voted in the Strange Horizons Reader's Choice awards and the Locus poll. Voting in the Strange Horizons poll automatically enters you for the chance to win a gift certificate from Amazon or Booksense, too...so heck, why not?

I've gotten to that funky point in the illness cycle where my body still isn't better yet--yesterday I took Nika out for a medium-sized walk into the valley and then collapsed and felt absolutely horrible for the rest of the day--but my brain thinks that I am (or that I should be, if only I had enough gumption/moral fiber/etc.) and gets so restless and impatient that it keeps talking me into doing things that aren't actually a Good Idea (re: going on a walk). Foo. Thus, lots of internetting.

Patrick and I just got the news that "Fire Magic", our co-written, swashbuckling high fantasy adventure (set, like all the best old stories, in an imaginary Eastern European kingdom), will be coming out in March/April from Andromeda Spaceways--woohoo! In a very cool addition, the editors let us know that the cover art for that issue of the magazine is actually based on our story. (Sadly, it's not posted online yet, but I'll link to it when it is.) That'll be the first time for either of us, and I can't wait to see it.

And speaking of swashbuckling...I'm at the 2/3 point in Congress of Shadows, where the climax really has to start cracking at any moment. Last night, after I read Patrick the scenes I'd written yesterday afternoon, he said, "Too bad she doesn't have a sword...they could go together with their swords--swish swish swish!" [mimicking swordplay] "--and give the baddie what for!"

My eyes went dreamy. "Ohhhhh, I wish..."

Sadly, it won't happen with this novel. But it reaffirmed me in my determination: someday I will take a fencing class to learn how to do it, and then I'm gonna write such a big swashbuckler, just like the movies I love. Last night I was listing in my head all my favorite swashbucklers. Scaramouche came first, no question, because it is the coolest and most awesome swashbuckler EVER (despite the fact that the hero ends up with the wrong woman), but then there are so many more: The Mask of Zorro (the Tyrone Power version, natch), The Adventures of Robin Hood...I definitely need to take that fencing class. As soon as I'm feeling better.