For many, January can be a difficult month. Often it’s cold and wet, sometimes there’s snow and ice; the days are short, the mornings and afternoons dark. Not forgetting the financial fall-out from the Christmas and New Year festivities which are already distant memories.

I get all of that. But, still, I have a soft spot for January because it’s my birth month. I don’t doubt that my brother likes his August birthday but, to me, I’d find it difficult to consider new beginnings and resolutions well over halfway through the year in the heat and dust and weariness of that summer month. I love that mine is at the beginning of the calendar year, with those fresh twelve months stretching enticingly ahead, ready for adventures and dreams to fill the coming days and weeks.

Three years ago, I celebrated my fiftieth birthday. I opened presents, ate cake, drank Prosecco with family and friends. Then, when only crumbs remained on the plate, the bubbles had gone flat in my glass, and I’d thrown away the wrapping paper, I did a stock-take of my life. For various reasons, marriage and children have not been a part of my story; just one of those things. However, what gutted me most was that I haven’t had anything published in all this time -not even a letter to my local paper, never mind a poem in a women’s magazine, or a short story win in a competition. Self-publishing would have been better than nothing but there hasn’t been a manuscript to work with.

I began to doubt myself and to question how I could consider myself a writer when there was so little proof. Any ideas I did have suddenly seemed irrelevant; I was sure nobody would want to read the occasional drivel I did produce. I felt such a failure and an imposter: time after time I’ve said I want to write and yet I never seem to get around to it.

Last year my best friend died. It was so wrong, she was far too beautiful and kind; we were going to grow old, disgracefully, together. We’d met at Primary School over forty years ago and we each knew everything there was to know about each other. Sue was the only one who asked me, “How’s the writing going?” Whenever we met up and started chatting about the important things to us. And she was the only one who told me, “Your time will come,” when I’d miserably confess most of the pages in my notebook were blank and I couldn’t think of anything to write about.

As my grief and shocked numbness crumbled into the raw ache of loss, I decided to honour Sue’s belief in me. A month after her funeral I opened this account with the intention of writing a blog about the writing journey I wanted to finally carve for myself. Immediately, I was overwhelmed by the ‘business’ side of things. I searched Google and other blogs for answers but ended up more confused. It didn’t help that everyone else automatically seemed to know how to set up their details and account information. Disheartened, I abandoned the site.

Until now. It was my birthday on Sunday, but I lost my nerve, then. I’ve since concluded that I might never work out how to create a Menu or Title Page or how to download photos and images but I do want to write. I promised myself I would post this on the 14th – my lucky number – but it is now early on the 15th because it’s taken me longer to type than I anticipated.

That’s okay, though; the 15th of January would be Sue’s birthday.