I’ve mostly managed to resist active participation in social media. I’ve dabbled of course, marvelling at the wonderful breakfast posted by a woman I used to work with six years ago, and the amusing antics of a pet Alsatian owned by someone I met in a bus queue last week. Then there’s my second cousins twice removed; it is important that I know their bedroom colour schemes and the depth of their feelings for Bolivian carnivals and natural hair extensions.

For a writer, social media is both a blessing and a curse. First off it’s inspiration, all that material just sitting there waiting to be developed from fact into fiction. But then clearly, it’s a distraction. The whole internet thing is. While you’re there trawling Facebook posts about cute kittens and ten things you didn’t know about celebrities you’ve never heard of, shouldn’t you be … ahem…writing?

Well, that’s what I’ve believed for a long time – until that is, it dawned on this late bloomer that social media can be a useful tool in the writer’s workbox. Not only useful, but essential. There are thousands of good writers out there competing with you; the ones who get published seem to be those who can market themselves. Enter stage left social media. Facebook is up there as a writer’s must-have, alongside Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, the list is daunting to a newbie…

So here I am, dipping my toe into blogging. A kind of on-line journal to share with like minded types. All my ramblings about being a writer, getting published, entering competitions and such-like. And reading, of course. I’m a voracious consumer of the written word, and like to share my literary opinions.

Meanwhile, would you like to see a photo of the delicious lunch I had with my friend Catherine the other day? There’s a writing connection – she’s a poet, too.

Oh sod it, I knew I should have taken a picture before we started eating. Never mind, here’s one of what I looked like in 2002, according to my daughter. Its not that accurate, big bum, Norah Batty stockings and curly hair notwithstanding…

See, I even looked like a writer back then, didn’t I?