Hello everyone! And particularly hello to early bird pledgers who are already aboard the Oh I Do Like To Be train. I'm already getting into trouble with my mixed metaphors there, although sometimes early birds do board trains: on at least one occasion I have seen a pigeon travelling on the London Underground. Anyway it's apt that I would be getting tangled up with my metaphors, because my book is about a writer who is getting nowhere with writing. He suffers from the usual things that the rest of us writers do - doubt, insecurity, laziness. Plus he is a clone of Shakespeare, which doesn't help. The pressure, you see.

Over the coming weeks I am going to tell you how I came to write this book, so you can get a bit of a behind-the-scenes experience. In films, writers stalk around looking stressed for a while and having affairs with people much younger than them (OK, not in Little Women) before suddenly getting inspired and typing over a montage with inspiring music and then the next thing you know there is a book signing that the ex of the writer turns up to, looking regretful, especially when they see the people much younger than them that the writer has been having affairs with. But in real life, things are somewhat different, as you will discover.

In the meantime, I am cracking over a festive beer, as it's day one of crowdfunding and we're already at 7pc. Thank you, early birds. Don't forget your Oyster cards.