The great thing about not-knowing.

So - I've taken the self-publishing decision, and have been trawling websites and blogs for advice. In particular, blogs about writing and publishing. And there are plenty of those.

Blogs - many, of course, are wonderful. They offer advice with humour, and often with humility. Written by bloggers willing to share blunders as well as successes. They inform and entertain and I turn to them first and join in with comments. (Others are too didactic for me; bossiness tends to send me to the back of the class, wanting to shout 'prove it.' But that probably says more about me than it does about them.)

Mine feels like a feeble addition to the blogosphere. I can find no other blog that wanders along the 'I'm not sure what I'm doing here but hello anyway?'path. Nor one that acts as a diary along the writing and publishing road, with mistakes on show for everyone to learn from, or not. The whole thing - this blog, and the leap into self-publishing, feels like a giant experiment.

But surely it's fine to say 'I don't know but I'm going to find out.' That's different from being ignorant - ignorance shuts out the possibility of learning. While not-knowing contains the possibilities of discovery, of creativity. It is not a position of weakness, but is exciting, and scary, and full of glorious choices. It feeds curiosity, fuels experiments, allows me to make mistakes. Ignorance is a dead-end; not-knowing is an opportunity.

Sometimes I wish more people would admit to not-knowing. It allows for asking questions, for alternative solutions, for second thoughts. But that's an opinion, and I've already said I don't know enough to have opinions.

So I don't suppose anyone will follow me for advice - in fact, I hope you won't. I need people who will laugh with me (and, sometimes, at me) as I unpack the jigsaw of the publishing world and try to piece it all together. And advice - yes, please offer advice.