I like to use this blog to reflect on all the wonderful qualities that make me the strange and delightful person that I am. And one of those qualities, possibly one of my most defining qualities, is my fussiness.

I’ve always been fussy. When I was little, I used to drive my parents mad. I wouldn’t eat this and I wouldn’t eat that. No egg, no peas, no mashed potato – and the list went on and on and on.

Everybody knows the story of the little red engine. How it gets to the bottom of a big hill and it’s not sure whether it can climb it or not. But it keeps on saying, ‘I think I can, I think I can,’ and in the end it manages to get to the top.

Well today that’s me. Today I am the little red engine. And here is why.

Over the last few weeks I’ve done grumpy posts and I’ve done self-deprecating posts. Now, in order to demonstrate that as a writer I’m fully capable of displaying a broad range of emotions, I’m going to settle on a new one today. I’m going to get all soppy and sentimental.

I’ll just gently brush a tear from my eye, and then I’ll begin.

I write fantasy. I make stuff up. I use my imagination to invent strange new worlds where extraordinary things happen.

Sometimes, I can’t help feeling like that leaves me at a bit of a disadvantage.

Last week, I wrote a post about how I’m terrible at lying. This week, I thought I should continue on the same line, i.e. things I’m bad at. Come to think of it, I reckon if I kept going on this theme, I’d have enough posts to last for the next three years. But it could start to get a little soul-destroying, so I may keep a lid on it for now.