Overwork seems endemic at the moment, and I find myself scrabbling around trying to get word in edgeways, but in some ways it’s not the worst thing. A little stress is a good thing they say, keeps you motivated and what have you. And hey, you’ve just gotta believe that if you work hard enough, good things will come from it, don’t you?

And to some extent good things are coming. Ink has had some pretty exciting news and is making some progress, which makes me all happy and warm inside.

I haven’t had so much in the news department, but I have been forcing myself to get stuck into a series of short stories – which was a bit of a struggle in the aftermath of the ‘Oh god the novel is kind of finished what the hell will I do? What’s the point? It’s all awful anyway, wah.’ period.

Ink’s news has set me thinking about self promotion and stuff though. For some reason it always seems easier to focus energy on getting someone else where they want to be. Like, there’s an opportunity for a New York trip that could (big could) be beneficial to his career, so I’m like ‘hell yeah, lets book tickets’ without so much as a second thought.

However, when a much smaller thing comes up that could possibly be useful for me, I think up a million excuses for not doing it.

It seems so silly, but then, it’s not exactly something isolated to things like this. I find it’s always easier to complain on someone else’s behalf or that you can buy embarrassing chemist goods without the slightest blush if you really are buying them for a friend.

I guess that’s one of the reasons agents are awesome – while self promotion is invaluable, it’s always going to help to have someone pushing you into it. Especially if they don’t give a shit for all of your kicking and screaming and excuses!