Dear Backstreet Boys…no, no, not that…Purgatory Peeps…yeah, that works,

Welcome to my shed. In my head it is very far removed from the mosquito-infested rot-ridden sad affair somewhere down the bottom of my garden, a place into which I rarely venture (mainly because the door is blocked by a rusting mower and the ghosts of various other small pieces of machinery and an inordinate number of paint pots containing little more than the custard skin bit you get just before it completely dries out). What worries me, however, is that this may transpire to be the written equivalent. We’ll see.

(As an aside, transpire is an odd word, don’t you think? In French it means to sweat. I am reading the sentence I have just written as ‘this may perspire to be the written equivalent’. Why is that even funny?) 

Off topic already. This is the first time I’ve blogged by the way. Is it obvious? 

First off, if I haven’t already thanked you (because some of you I don't know personally and for that you are probably extremely relieved) I would like to send out a mega-ton of thanks for your early pledges. It was great to get off to a flying start. This whole crowdfunding business is pretty daunting. About as daunting as making the promo video but for that I was put at ease by Mark Bowsher who made the film (cheers Mark) and the cheery wee jakie further up the canal bank who serenaded us with ‘God Save the Queen’.  

Second off, in a highly original and inventive move, I decided I was going to title every post with a word containing SHED. I got as far a pished and crashed which weren’t really going to cut it so I enlisted the help of some friends who were staying with me. ‘I need every word you can think of with the word SHED in it,’ I requested. ‘For my blog posts,’ I said. ‘Like pished and crashed,’ I added to clarify. Bob was still working out where the shed was in pished when his 16 year old son (let’s disguise him and call him Tommaso McClafferty) immediately suggested Bloodshed. Maybe a bit full on for the first post. 

So astonished it is. Astonished to have got this far. Astonished to have finished my novel. Astonished to find a publisher as cool and creative as Unbound.

Face hurts from smiling.

H x