My name is Mike. I wrote a novel. (Hi, Mike.)

This is not the book I wrote. Not even close.

If prior postings on this blog seemed rather disjointed and aimless, it’s because…they were. I was writing a book, of course, but it wasn’t something I shared with a lot of people. You see, I’ve been a professional writer my entire adult life, and I know how much effort it takes to complete any given piece of writing, from a 100-word news brief to a full-fledged book. I didn’t want to claim the title of “novelist” until I saw that there was a decent chance of actually becoming one.

Now, of course, I’ve not only written a novel, but I have an agent who, according to her last e-mail, “adores” my manuscript. I’d say she was just being kind, but her enlightened self-interest is working in my favor — she thinks she can sell this puppy and, thus, make money in her own right. To be fair, she really is super nice. You can follow her at @saramegibow on the Twitter thing if you’re so inclined.

So anyway…what did I write, then? Is it, perhaps, “a novel that turns out to be…an indelible portrait of our times?” Is it about “confused, searching people capable of change and perhaps even transcendence?”

Ummm…no. That’s Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, as reviewed in The New York Times. That guy is a Writer, capital W.

Me? I’m writing about people, too. The difference is, my people are crashing an 18th century Royal Navy frigate smack dab into the planet Mars. Willingly, I might add.

All right, so it’s not exactly deep and literary. But I’m pretty sure I’ve not seen that scene in another book, so there’s a chance this whole novel-writing thing could actually work. My agent seems to think so!