That memorable first blog...

I'm a blog virgin (blirgin?), so be gentle with me. Some might think it odd, me being a writer an' all, that I have so far managed to avoid this form of written communication, but I have a Commissioning Editor and Publicist now (these titles are capped with good reason, believe me), therefore I blog. It seems the modern author must connect with as many digital synapses as possible, spreading the gospel of their latest creation long before it hits the bookshops; where once the showman stood on his soap box wielding a megaphone, now we can FaceChat, SnapBook, InstaTweet and blog.

I don't know the rules, which can be both liberating and dangerous. I'm writing this, therefore, as I would a diary entry with promotional connotations. This may in future boil down to BUY MY BOOK! but for the moment I will couch the message in gentler tones. No-one will be fooled for a minute, I'm sure; aren't all blogs just another way of expressing an agenda of some kind? Even if they are created with the best of intentions, the purest of philosophies, can't we glimpse the glimmer of ego breaking through the fabric?

And how long should the damn thing be? My first novel for publication checks in at 116000 words, whereas I've learnt to compress all other utterances to 140 characters. Between these poles somewhere is my guess, but that's a pretty darn wide target to hit the bulls-eye. When I re-read and edit these ramblings it will be the first time I have ever read a blog, so I have, like the policemen whose toilet was stolen, nothing to go on.

We're told, are we not, to always make your first sentence count. Make it punchy, make it odd, make it sparkly, make it snappy, but for God's sake make it COUNT. Call me Ishmael, for it was the best of times and he was in possession of a good fortune as the clocks struck thirteen. That should do it. Does the same rule apply to blogs? If your first one garners little more than a collective 'meh' is the blogger doomed to failure? We'll soon see.

Murmuration by Robert Lock is published by Legend Press in July 2018 and will be very good.