Hoping Everyone Had a Fine Thanksgiving

Or at least, those of you in the U.S., where we just celebrated a day of remembering things we're grateful for. For me, it was an atypical one, as my wife is in Puerto Rico with her parents, and my older daughter was at her boyfriend's house. Younger daughter and I enjoyed the afternoon at the home of good friends, with lots of terrific food.

The last month has simply flown by. Teaching at MIT, and simultaneously running the Ultimate SF workshop, has been both time-consuming and thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding. All the students have been great to work with, and have been bringing some real talent to their writing projects. I'll be surprised if I don't see at least a few of their names in print in the next few years. Meanwhile, I've had a bunch of family issues going on, which has taken a lot of my energy and is one reason why I haven't posted in a month. Another is that I've been experiencing serial computer failure. First my laptop: a nasty virus infestation, then a wonky hard drive, and finally the whole machine kacked. Only a couple of days after that, my office computer blew its video card. (That, at least, was fixable.) A few days after that, my PDA fritzed out. It felt almost like a concerted attack. Anyway, I've got a new laptop, a black Dell Inspiron named Cygnus-X for the black holes Cyg X-1 and Cyg X-3 (maybe). I know some people who have had bad experiences with Dell, so wish me luck. It seems like a good machine. What really sold me on it is the keyboard—vastly better for touch typing than any of the others I tried out. Anyway, so far I really like it.

So...back to getting some real writing done soon? Here's hoping! I got some cheery encouragement in the form of actual royalties for my ebooks that went on sale last Spring. That market truly seems to be picking up.