First

What do people say on their first blog? Is there a set formula you need to write down, like key goals in a self help book. Do people explain who they are in twenty words or less? Or should I spend my time agonising over something funny to say, something witty to keep people interested.

My stomach is too full of jacket potato for this.

Right, first things first. I am a twenty something girl/woman who writes, (really not sure if I am a woman. I mean, I know what sex I am – I’m not that confused, but at what point in a girls life does she become a woman? Is it menstruation, loss of virginity, adulthood, giving birth? Do I get a card or a badge to mark the transition?) For me, the purpose of this blog is to mark down my struggle with my Minotaur, otherwise know as my novel, which at present carries no title, and my struggle with the craft of writing itself. Yes, it is a struggle. It’s a struggle to find the time, it’s a struggle to take oneself seriously, and it’s a struggle for material.

Yet I can’t stop.

I am drawn to writing like a mouse to cheese. I am drawn to writing like the sea to the shore, I am drawn to writing like a spider to flies…and all other pretentious similes. You get the picture.

In related news, one of my influences, David Foster Wallace died earlier last week. Like so many others before him, he took his own life after struggling for so many years with depression. Why is it, I wonder, that greatness often can’t see it’s own worth?