All good things must come to an end – including, unfortunately, extended leave from work, which is about to come to a juddering, shrieking and extremely unwelcome end.

But, bills must be paid.

This year’s summer project has been to complete some writing that will help me to start generating that elusive second income – an income that I hope will, eventually, allow me to reduce my dependence on my main employment.

Like last year’s show project, I’ve learned a hell of a lot over the last three weeks – and once again, not just about the skills I’ve been developing, but about myself as a person. The older I get, the more assured I seem to become, which can only be a good thing in this world of uncertainty. It’s quite astounding, to be honest, because I have very little security in my personal life, and have to deal with an inordinate amount of stress every day. But the little voice in my head that has been whispering to me that perseverance pays off is gradually getting louder and louder.

One source of this voice has been from a book I’ve been reading called ‘Quiet’ by Susan Cain, which I would urge everyone to read because it does an extremely rare thing: it champions introversion.

If I had to class myself as either introvert or extrovert, I would choose introvert. But it’s a tag I’ve never been happy with, because I’ve never felt that it’s enough to define my nature: I’m rarely happier than when socialising with friends and family, I enjoy making people laugh, and I love trying new things. But in the past, I’ve found myself apologising because I’m very quiet in work meetings, or because I’d prefer to work on something alone rather than in a group. And I’ve met many extroverts – some of whom would otherwise be very close to me – who dismiss me as dull, simply because of the nature of my interests, or because I don’t shout loudly to tell anyone within earshot all about me and my life.

I used to think I must be missing out. I used to think that I needed to change myself to become more extroverted to achieve everything that human beings want to achieve. But Susan Cain’s book has helped me to see that, in actual fact, I’ve managed to embrace both worlds, whereas the loud, shouty people often embrace only one.

Which leaves me with the best of everything.