I know I keep saying this but I need to start working on the novel regularly again. My life recently has become something of a Jason-work merry-go-round - and while this isn't a bad thing (I adore both dearly), it's sad that my writing, art and guitar is once again being overlooked.

This weekend, I'm going to try and get back on track. I'll tidy my room tonight - particularly the innards of my wardrobe, which urgently need sorting out - and then sit down to write four pages on 'The Great Couch Happening of '69'. After so many false starts with crap-titled novels like the first five drafts of 'Shadows Rising', 'Trinity', 'Voices From Above' (plus its many alternate titles) and 'Crimson Dawn', I'm determined that 'The Great Couch Happening' will go somewhere.

It has to. I've broken both my record of time spent on a project (a year and two months) and my record of pages written - 340-something. All that time and effort simply can't go to waste.

Also, I'm considering self-publishing. I put up a tweet about it earlier, asking for opinions but nobody's offered their thoughts on it yet. My idea was to self-publish first, after putting in all the work you might when going with a mainstream publisher. Then, if it's mildly successful (and also because I'm a raving traditionalist), I'll attempt to get my book out there through a mainstream publisher.

I know more about publishing than most people, but what I do know is only tidbits. My founded-on-hardly-anything opinion on the self/mainstream publishing debate is that while self-publishing allows you to get your work out there quicker and more directly, you have to promote it all yourself. Promoting your own novel is like standing in a room full of thousands - nay, millions of shouting people, trying to make yourself heard above the rest.

With mainstream publishing, promotion is largely down to the publisher. That being said, you might get a publisher who wants to do sweet bugger all to promote your work. Occasionally that happens - look at the recently departed Phoebe Snow. Her record company, the musical equivalent of a publisher, simply didn't want to promote her music. In which case it would be much better to go self-publishing and promote yourself to death.

There's availability and money, as well. If someone can find your work through the vast heap of self-published books out there, copies are easy enough to come across if you're looking for an electronic copy - you can acquire them and read in literally seconds, in some cases. My Twitter feed is chocker with writers who've gone down the e-Reader route. Not many go for self-publishing in physical book form, and if I got my work published... well, I'd be sad if I couldn't sell paper copies of my own work.

The way I see it, I've put so much time and effort into my novel that to see it only in electronic format would be a little... unfulfilling. I'd want to feel the weight of it in my hands, scrutinise the cover up close (and believe me, I've drawn a kick-ass cover that could only be done justice in physical print) and think 'wow, I spent x amount of time working on this Goliath'. Plus, like I said, the cover's really detailed, and I'd like to do illustrations as well. I couldn't trust an e-Reader to convey quality illustrations. Sorry, e-Book loonies. I just couldn't.

But then I know some rare and wonderful people (such as Sarah O'Donoghue, author of 'Primortia') who've self-published and opted for physical print versions of their work to be available alongside the electronic versions. These are the elusive legends who consider us bibliophiles... and our somewhat creepy love of paper.

I think this is what I'll do: self-publish first, with paper copies available, and then wait and see. You never know - I might not need to go mainstream after all. I might - and it's only a very slim chance, but it's there - get very lucky. Self-publishing, paired with some enthusiastic but not spammy/annoying self-promotion could be exactly what my book and I need.

Obviously I have to finish the book and edit it to buggery first. Which takes me back to my first point; I need to haul some writerly arse and get working!