Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

The blank computer screen with its blinking cursor is intimidating enough when I’m starting to write a new novel. Chapter 1, Page 1. Gulp. But that’s nothing compared to staring at this blank page…

Fiction is a walk in the park compared to trying to decide which aspect of real life I want to write about. When I’m writing fiction, I can have my characters do just what I want them to do. Waggles eyebrows in a dictator-like fashion. It’s the best fun. Except when my characters tell me, in no uncertain terms, that they don’t want to conform to my plan and proceed to tell me what they intend to do instead.

Hmm. Perhaps this blog thing won’t be so different, after all.

I’ve spent the majority of my life listening. I’m the quiet one. I’m the one set on receive, rather than send. I’m happy like that. ‘Introverted’ appears to be the official title, but I like to think I’m more complicated than a label. And my forty-something (clears throat to hide exact number) years on the planet has proved to me that most things about life and people are more complicated than we are led to believe.

So, I suppose that is what my blogs will be about. How nothing is straightforward. How, just when you think you have a handle on something, the sands shift and the goalposts move and it’s a mystery again. And how that’s fine. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

Trust me – I know that’s right, because I heard someone say it.