Are you ready for my excuse? It’s a good one.

It snowed!

Since I moved North, it’s snowed every winter, whereas when I lived in the South of England as a child I only remember it snowing three or four times. This is the earliest it’s snowed during my lifetime, though, and it all harks back to the winters of the 60s and 70s. We’ll have to wait and see a few more years as to which way the fluke runs.

We’re on a skeleton crew at work because people can’t get in, and we got sent home early on Sunday because the weather was so bad. My new wellies have been getting a good workout, and I’m learning that trick of winding my scarf around my face so it’s not too cold to breathe (I still keep steaming up my glasses, though). By the standards of any other country on this latitude we’re such big wusses in this country, but hey, we’re an island. It makes all the difference.

So how does this impact the lack of updates? Simple, really. My working laptop is in the attic of our house, it being a nice office space with few distractions (apart from the internet) and quieter than a lot of downstairs. And our attic is very, very cold right now. Too cold to type.

Also, it turns out America has some kind of holiday at this time of year, so there’s not been a lot going on in terms of news. Even with two weeks’ worth, there’s not a lot for me to throw at you.

Publishing: The Ellora’s Cave lawsuit still rumbles on, with the courts rapidly losing patience with EC. There comes a point where you wonder what they were hoping to achieve with the delays and absences, since all that’s happened is they essentially handed over any chance of a win. Now it’s just a matter of how much they lost by.

Interest-Piquing: Chris Meadows in Teleread about why social networking doesn’t sell books, and Nathan Bransford on the nine circles of writing hell.

InsPiring: 12 ridiculous vibrators (NSFW, obviously).

Procrastion: I’m sorry, did I not mention the snow?