Well I'm home, and what's more I have skimmed milk. It must be warmer on the south coast though, as I've just found myself turning on the heater by the side of my desk for the first time since April. Obviously I live in a draughty peasant's hovel, but I don't normally feel the cold on account of all the bagels I eat, so it must be chilly if I'm willing to resort to electricity.

The cold's clearly affected my mind too, as I've just signed up for NaNoWriMo 2004, the (inter)National Novel Writing Month, thereby pledging to write a 50,000 word novel from scratch in thirty days from the first of November. No sweat. I was disappointed to have missed the boat last year, so I've been waiting eleven months for this. During which time you'd think I'd have come up with a great idea for a novel. You'd be wrong of course, but that's not going to stop me.

My motivation is based partly on the associated right to use pretty icons such as this one...



... and the one over there on the left. Though in my excitement I e-mailed it to Lisa, only to receive the reply "It looks like a smurf with a tail", which is NOT the required response thank you very much. It's clearly a blue squirrel wearing a viking helmet made from an acorn, and anyone who can't see that is blind.

In addition, I agree wholeheartedly with the following NaNoWriMo statement: "For one month out of the year, we can stew and storm, and make a huge mess of our apartments and drink lots of coffee at odd hours. And we can do all of these things loudly, in front of people. As satisfying as it is to reach deep within yourself and pull out an unexpectedly passable work of art, it is equally (if not more) satisfying to be able to dramatize the process at social gatherings."

Oh yes, I'm doing this for the attention. And for the right to talk at length about my struggle to anyone who'll listen.

Though when I give up and abandon my novel for good on November 2nd, I'll be deleting this post, removing the pretty icons and never mentioning this thing again. Seriously.