...forced to glitter, forced to be gay...

Well not exactly (that\'s a line from the musical Candide, by the way) but I\'m certainly forcing myself to get out there and do something.

I\'m on a mission, and my daughter Jane tells me that in order to achieve even a modicum of success, I have to become an internet whore. Since it\'s unlikely that many daughters urge their mothers into whoredom of any sort, it would seem churlish to ignore such generous advice, so here I am.

And here\'s the mission.

As I said before, I\'ve posted my novel on authonomy, (thanks David) and now that I\'ve done it, I\'ve realised I have to create an Internet Presence (see? I\'m learning) in order to drive traffic to it. So this is where the whoredom comes in.

First up, I\'ve now started a blog: http://helenmeikle.wordpress.com. Please have a look, and if you like it, follow it. I\'m also in the process of creating blog roll for it, and signing up to follow as many of your blogs as I can, and any help with that would also be much appreciated.

Secondly, if you\'re really keen, you can read as much novel as I\'ve posted on http://authonomy.com/books/37213/six-weels-in-summer/. You can read it without committing yourself to anything at all. If you want to comment (or in the miraculous even that actually want to back it) you can register on authonomy for FREE, and again this commits you to nothing at all, but does mean you can read a whole lot of books for nothing.

I do need to warn you that if you\'re looking for the Great Australian Novel, this isn\'t it. It\'s fluff - the sort of thing you read to escape the vicissitudes of real life.

So how am I going? Whoredom is a whole new experience. Have I mastered it sufficiently?

At the moment my posting toolbars aren\'t working, and I\'d also like to change my avatar here (it\'s about time) and can\'t work out how, so help with these two little hiccups would also be appreciated.