I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays: even if it’s not a time you celebrate, with luck you have some time off from your usual duties or a more slack period in which to do them, seeing as a lot of other people are taking time off.

Doesn’t Stephanie look fab with the wonderful cover she designed? It is nice to have tangible evidence of your work, much as I love the portability of ebooks. And her design came off so well in print, too.

I’ve been tagged in ‘The Next Big Thing‘ meme again, this time by the fabulous Mollie Cox Bryan, who is just a delightful writer. Very kind of her to point to me.

I am flattered that so many friends want to share the meme with me, though I admit to feeling more than a little doubtful of becoming ‘big’ in any meaningful way — or that it’s much of a likelihood for anyone, for that matter. The current state of publishing is not proving a lucrative one for any but a few.

As the man says, check the record, check the record.

We create because it’s our nature to do so. Who is happier than a child bent over a drawing, telling a story from her own imagination? If you’re lucky, you never lose touch with that well of inspiration. If you’re smart, you remember to replenish it regularly, too. Fill your head with new stories (and old), music, pictures, and play. Be friends with your head, as Mr Hoban told us.

I wrote a new piece for the Short Humour Site: ‘The Stages of Fame’ which I apparently started many months ago, somewhere, and emailed to myself and then immediately (as I do) forgot about it. But happening upon it yesterday with the right thoughts in my head, I wrote it and sent it off and — they being kind friends now — they put it up almost at once.

I have some reviews to write, a novel to work on and a couple of other projects to chip away at as well as enjoying fully the time with my sweetie. As Calvin would say, the days are just packed. May they ever be so.