Who are you, and why are you here?

As I’ve said before, I have never taken blogging seriously. There are people who think that blogging is a revolutionary new medium. The Manchester Literature Festival featured blogging masterclasses and blog award ceremonies. At a debate I went to, the writer Kate Feld said that no creative writing student should leave university without a blog. She went on to declare blogging as a vital marketing tool that is basically a stepping stone to publication.

I don’t know. Agents are hellishly busy – do the guys at Curtis Brown really have time to meander around the net, surfing for undiscovered new talent? Does the head of Random House get to his office and say, ‘Right, the first thing I’ll do today is plough through thousands of web logs written by frustrated call centre workers in Barnsley.’

And blogging takes up time that could be spent writing. As so often happens, the marketing tool becomes less about the fiction and more about the marketing. It’s a diversion, a distraction – ‘more fucking about in the garden,’ as Helen Garp put it.

‘Of course,’ Feld added, ‘there are some people who enjoy it.’

That’s my attitude. Bloggers are derided as Nathan Barley type pub bores – and the insult is more often true than not. I have my obsessions and obscurities, and it’s better to write them down here, so that I don’t end up going on about them in pubs, and losing all my friends.

I also blog for the best and first reason I write anything – because it’s a damn good kick.