Well would you look at this! I am now officially a blogger. Now, in saying that, as I type this first entry I’m not even sure if it will go anywhere or be seen by anyone….perhaps I should have read the how to section first? (Note to self “read the how to section after this”).  Always been a a failing of mine, the fine print.  Decide what I have to do and then I do it, sign it, click “ok”, enter….and before you know it I’m getting emails from outer Mongolia thanking me for subscribing to receive information on the native Hucho Taimen trout (and all I wanted was to order a new remote for the tv?!).

Anyway, enough blather! Best get the introductions over with – I’m Deborah (full title HRH Mrs Deborah Ní Ghibne) and I’m a writer.  Feels good to say that and even better that I’m beginning to believe it.  I spent so many years of my life (15 to be exact) working in the wrong job.  Clocking into the grey office, run by the grey men, in grey suits who would rather stand on you than dirty their grey shiny shoes.  People came and went from the office – always full of colour when they came but a little less bright when the left. And any who stayed eventually turned a paler shade of grey.  No more brights blues, or vivacious reds….and I didn’t want this to happen to me.  Didn’t want the rainbow that surrounded every other part of my life to be slowly painted over and extinguished.  If I became grey would it be contagious?  Would my husband, my beautiful children, my friends catch it too?

So last year I took the plunge.  Ditched the full time job and decided to see if I could write the book thats been burning inside my brain for as long as I can remember. And that’s what I’ve been doing.  Concentrating on writing, learning the craft, learning to believe.  Signed up for the MA in Writing in NUIG and loving every minute of it.  And now there’s this. My blog.

Confession time – I haven’t written as much as I should have….as I thought I would have by now.  But today this changes and this blog will keep me accountable.  I am setting myself a deadline of a very manageable 500 words per day – no matter what happens, no matter how tired I am, how early or late it is, how fat or thin I am feeling, how bad my hair is or how messy my house is…no matter what.  And I will post everyday on this blog -track my journey, thrash out my ideas, my blocks, my highs and lows, share excerpts and hopefully get feedback and help.  And eventhough I may be only typing for myself and no one else it feels like I’m already talking to someone and d’you know what Ted but it feels nice.

So…day 1 done…(no writing mind…Jesus give me a break will ya! Amn’t I after writing a blog entry that’s over 500 words!?!…it all kicks off tomorrow so I’d best go and eat as much chocolate cake as I can – oh no hang on, thats the diet!).

Oíche mhaith!

Deborah

ps Thanks to Stephen King for the blog name – best teacher of the craft there is (and definately not a fan of adverbs!) 🙂