Has Richard McComb got a blockbuster novel in him? He's about to find out at a new writing masterclass in Birmingham.

Okay, it’s time to cut to the chase and get to the intro.

It has got to be sharp, evocative, original. If the intro is duff, no one will want to read on; and my career as a novelist, still in the embryonic stage, will be over before the second paragraph.

So think. Think.

Right. How about this? “Call me Ishmael.”

It’s snappy. I’m intrigued by the unusual name. In fact, I’m hooked. I could have a whale of time with this one.

But no, it sounds familiar.

Try again. Hmm.

Right. Here we go: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ...”

I like it, but it’s – I don’t know – a bit old school?

Blimey, this is hard work. I deserve a cup of tea. While I’m at it I might see if the cat’s bowl needs filling.

She loves Go-Cat kibbles. And the loft, that could do with tidying ... But no. Don’t you dare move. Don’t give up. That’s what all novelists, proper novelists, say: don’t give up. Dickens didn’t get distracted by kibbles. Have the courage of your convictions and write.

So think again. Get in the creative zone.

Brilliant. Got it. “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.”

Oh, yes, that’s got you interested all right, hasn’t it?

It’s no nonsense, boom, no messing about with descriptions of ploughed fields. I would read on.

Something, though, call it a niggle, or novelist’s intuition, tells me this story might get awkward.

All this, essentially, explains why I find myself in a room with 12 strangers.

I am here because of my inability to put an introduction to a blank Word document. There is also my confusion over plot and narrative voices; my prevarication; my lack of confidence; and the sneaking suspicion that I’m just one of life’s chancers and life has just found me out.

The room where we meet is off a cafe, where there is chatter and pop music.

In here, it is quiet. We are looking at each other, sizing each other up, making nervous jokes.

Two people have arrived with bicycles. Presumably, they have been riding them, rather than walking about carrying them. Could this be a metaphor?

As we sit around the oblong wooden table, notebooks and pens unsheathed, we look like a jury in search of a foreman.

We are wondering what the hell is going on in each other’s heads; and wondering, too, if we are any good at writing. Could any of us – could I? – be the Next Big Thing on the literary landscape? Could any of us be equipped to write the definitive Great Birmingham Novel? We are about to find out.

It is the first session of Tindal Street Press’s new masterclasses in creative writing. I have joined the academy level course, designed for emerging writers, at Fazeley Studios in Digbeth. There is also a course for beginners.

I have been put on the higher level course on the basis that my day job, that involves writing.

Unlike my newly adopted family of scribes, I have never written creatively. Most of the group are on their first or second novel.

I am still struggling at the “Call me Ishmael’’ stage. It is going to be a challenge; but most importantly, we hope it will be a challenge you enjoy reading about.

During the forthcoming weeks, as I lurch through the course, shedding blood, sweat and clichés, the Birmingham Post will be running regular articles in our Life section about the novel-writing process.

There will be tips from Tindal Street editors and published authors, some of whom will address the experience of writing their first novel.

We might inspire you to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.