Starting Post

A famous Private Eye cartoon shows two intellectual types at a party. One says “I’m writing a novel.” The other says “Neither am I.”

I am writing a novel. It's a fantasy novel. Not fantasy as in Fantasy Football. And not THAT kind of fantasy either. Put it away.

I don't want to give away the ending (which I know), or any of the twists and turns in the plot (some of which I know), so I'll just tell you that it's about a man who leaves chaos in his wake, meets some strange people, and finds out just how strange he is himself. Oh and he saves the world as well. Just like real life, then. My working title is The Chaos Man. I may tell you more when necessary, or I may just blog about my characters as I think and write about them, without helping you at all. You may be intrigued enough to follow my, and their, progress. You may just be annoyed. I don't know. But please leave your comments if you want to. They WILL be moderated, so please be clean and nice.

And right now, instead of writing my novel, I'm writing a blog about writing a novel. There’s a lot of advice for writers out in web-land, most of it written by successful writers. (Well, you wouldn't take advice from an unsuccessful writer, would you?) But can they really remember what it felt like to be writing their first novel? For many of them it was a long time ago.

So this is a blog about writing a first novel, by somebody who is writing his first novel. Some of you who are reading this are doing what I'm doing; I want you to share my experiences, feel my frustration when I get stuck with the plot, or can't get the dialogue right, and share my elation when everything runs like clockwork. And I might get some tips…

And I'm also learning how to blog. As I get better at it I'll be adding personal details and photies too. And I'll probably be rambling on a bit about things unrelated to writing a novel. But that's what this blog is about: writing a first novel. Mainly.

I’m calling it Postman’s Blog, because posting is what you do to put stuff on a blog. And it sounds a bit like Postman’s Knock, which is a game, and a song, and a Morris dance. And because I am a postman. And a Morrisman.