Before we get into the real business of blogging, I feel I should introduce myself and catch you up on the story so far. And so you don't have to read through the whole decade-spanning saga - which mainly features me, daydreaming of being a writer while staring out the window and, um, not writing - I've condensed it into need-to-know bullet points...

Before we get into the business of blogging about the ups and downs of the writing life - everything from the early morning caffeine highs to the drowning depths of self-loathing and despair - I figured I should tell you a little something about my own writing life, or at least my aspirations to have something resembling one. To date, the saga spans about a decade and so as not to bore you with my very first post, I'm just going to give you some bullet points...

1. I have written one novel and am in the process of writing my second. 
2. I write women's commercial fiction, but read mostly crime. Go figure. 
3. I've read a ridiculous number of those How To Write a Novel in a Weekend Without Breaking a Sweat and Get an Agent, a Six Figure/3 Book Deal and a University Teaching Position By Monday Afternoon books. In fact I think reading those books is why it took me the best part of 10 years to start writing a book in the first place.
4. When I heard that Cecilia Ahern had got a book deal, I was so jealous I started to cry. We're the same age, for god's sake. THE SAME AGE!
5. I self-published a travel memoir, Mousetrapped: A Year and A Bit in Orlando, Florida, last March, which through hard work, social networking and LOTS of coffee, has sold nearly 3,000 copies in eBook and print formats (as of February 2011). You can find out more about it on www.mousetrappedbook.com. 
6. I drink obscene amounts of coffee. (That's not really a writing thing but I wouldn't get much done without it.)

Find out more about me on www.catherineryanhoward.com.