Blurbs. And chips. And a blurb about chips.

I’ve never had to write a blurb about myself. Blurbs are required of those who write novels or win awards and not of those who count among their proudest achievements things like giving birth and beating their mother in Words with Friends. I’ve been thinking about blurbs since I came across the following at this website the other day:

Jonathan Martin is the lead pastor of Renovatus: A Church for People Under Renovation in Charlotte, NC. He has been married to Amanda Keen for 11 years, and still finds her delightfully mysterious. Jonathan is an avid collector of comic books and is unashamed of his ten-pound shih tzu Cybil, despite the stigma that comes from being a very large man with a very small dog.

I love it! This makes me want to fly to the States just to meet Jon and Mandy (we’re already on nickname basis, that’s how much I like his blurb). Inspired by this golden example, I decided to have a go at my own and quickly discovered that writing a blurb is far trickier than I’d always assumed it would be. Not only do you have to come across as immensely likeable, you have to try to squeeze all of your immensely likeable parts into the fewest number of pithy lines. It forces you to sift through everything you think makes up you and then choose the parts that capture your youness most efficiently. I don’t think I’ve nailed it (it's a bit long, for a start), but I’ve already used up all of the thinking time I allocated to this task, so here's mine:

Belle shares an apartment with her hirsute and hilarious BFF/husband and her cheery and fearless little boy, both of whom make her heart flutter. She spends most of her time keeping said child from seriously injuring himself, which is a full-time job she loves (most of the time).

She could take over a year to get through a small tub of Maggie Beer’s Vanilla Bean and Elderflower ice cream, but open a giant packet of barbecue-flavoured chips in front of her and she’ll finish them before you can say, “Errr... I kind of brought them for everyone to share.” Besides her boys and barbecue-flavoured chips, clever writing, quirky music and fruity pavlovas also make her enormously happy.