A week that’s blurred past in a flash – I’m working incredibly hard at the moment, so I must be getting something right. There’s also been some incredibly nice after-echoes of Eastercon, with various people saying hello and keeping in contact via Twitter and Facebook. Being of a somewhat pessimistic disposition, I’m always of the opinion (or fear) that anyone I initially speak to or befriend will find a fantastic excuse for not keeping in touch (and after all, Facebook has virtually re-invented the idea of ‘friendship’ as basically clicking a button, sending a message of “Hello” to someone you haven’t spoken to in years and then never speaking again) – I seem to live in constant anticipation of the glassy stare followed by the polite backing away and repeated refrains of “Yes, anyway….” But this week has been a nice surprise on that front, and has livened up what would otherwise have been a very lonely few days in my garret. For the last few days, I’ve been finishing off a set of proofreading – it’s been a head-exploding blizzard of work, and it still isn’t done. I’ve got one more day tomorrow, and then it’ll be finished. And then I’ve got a manuscript report to do. And then there’s some more proofreading. And another manuscript report. And I’m off to London next week for four days, for various adventures including the Arthur C. Clarke Awards. As I said, I’ve really got to be doing something right, as I regularly seem to be redefining how much work I can get done. But it has been a good week – and while there may be a couple of shadows on the horizon which could give me a good reason to get worked up, I’m not going to let them. Excuse me now, I must go and collapse artfully in a corner…