I'm not dead yet

but I am seriously considering pining for the fjords. In fact, unless I wake up tomorrow around noon and feel remarkably better, I will take myself to an urgent-care clinic and see what they can do to help me beat whatever is in my gut.

More tomorrow as I know more.

Fever redux

My friend the bed-soaking night fever came to visit last night. I'm pretty clearly not over this mess yet. A night of frequent wake-ups and frenzied fever frolics, combined with a lot of personal bathroom time, left me lighter than I entered Thanksgiving Day, but that's about the only good thing I can say about last night.

I very much hope to be better soon. I am tired of bathroom body and slow brain.

A few nights ago, Sarah and I were playing each other songs. With the release of the recent remaster and boxed set of the album containing this song, I had to spin it for her. The audio isn't ideal, but give it a watch; we can all stand to remember these lessons.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is not a break-from-writing day, because I don't believe in those.

It is, however, a (mostly) break from blogging day, because, well, I feel like it.

That said, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads this blog and everyone who buys my books and stories. You make it possible for me to continue to be paid to do something I love doing. You could not give me a greater gift.

I am truly and deeply grateful to you all for that.

Now, go eat some turkey and mashed potatoes and rolls and cranberry sauce and pie and...well, you get the idea.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Some Jon and Lobo news

I've been working hard to stop myself from talking about works in progress, because I believe that doing so is one of the ways I create crazy noise in my head. (Many of my friends disagree with this decision, but so it goes.) Despite that inclination, I thought it might be nice to give you two fun facts about the next book, the fifth in the series.

First, it now seems fairly certain that it will appear in February, 2012. I know that's a long time--18 months--between books, but I got busy with some other stuff, including editing and writing an original story for The Wild Side. That anthology, with my contribution, "The Long Dark Night of Diego Chan," will appear this coming summer, as I've noted in earlier posts, so you'll at least have a nice chunk of new fiction from me in 2011.

Next, after more than than the usual amount of thought on the topic, I finally settled on a title for the novel, one that makes me happy because it works on multiple levels.

No, I won't tell you what those levels are; you'll just have to read the book.

So, in true James Bond style, I will close with this end-of-the-credits announcement:

Jon and Lobo will return in

No Going Back

My favorite hotel design feature

of the most recent trip was one I've seen before in Europe but not yet in the U.S.: To enable the power in your room, you have to put your plastic card key in a slot right by the door. When you leave, you take your key, and out go the lights. It's a wonderfully simple way to reduce energy consumption, and it does so at no real cost to the user.

I wish all hotels here would adopt it.

I'm so easy

When it comes to movie trailers, I really am. I want to believe they can all be good. I want them to be good. Even a trailer with obvious issues can still tempt me.

I've recently seen these three, and I am still clinging to the hope that all will be good.

In this case, the cast alone is enough to make me hold that belief.



In this one, on the other hand, I have to hold to my love of comic books that I treasured as a kid.



The third really stretches the limits of even my faith, but I'm going to pray for it to be at least stupidly good.



See? I really am that easy.

On the mend

I'm going to keep this short, partly because I'm not yet feeling all that great, and partly because most of today has been about sleep. My fever broke in the night, so new sheets were in order after I soaked the original set. Now, though, my temperature appears to be holding at or slightly above normal, and I am continuing to rest. More tomorrow.

My illness is dull and tedious to me, so I can only imagine how boring it must be to you, but it's pretty much what I've got right now.