"...making a gift for you"

The trouble with snow is that you can't simply wander outside to walk your dog. You have to prepare. You have to bundle up, and put on gloves and big boots and all that sort of stuff. And then the dog romps and vanishes and reappears and romps again (being the same colour as the snow he vanishes easily) and you simply tromp after him, or ahead of him, or at least somewhere on the same continent as him, singing Jonathan Coulton's "Skullcrusher Mountain" to yourself while the snow settles on your hair and your face, and you can't even take proper phone-photos because the gloves are too thick, and when you do, your finger gets in the way, and you can't really see the screen either. But still, everything's white and wonderful, and even shovelling the path to the house four times a day can be fun, sort of...

Most photos wound up looking like this:



And even in the ones that didn't have fingers in, Cabal looks like an ice-weasel.

.....

Mark Buckingham just sent me his illustrations for Odd. Here's the one for Chapter Three...

(Someone wrote in wondering how we make a profit or a royalty or anything on a ten penny -- or even one pound -- book. And the answer is, we don't. World Book Day is a good cause, and we did it for nothing.)

...

And finally, a Writers' Strike video with a message for all of us. Especially adorable animals.

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