The National Novel Writing Month finishes today, and I've written 26,073 words. You can't ask for much more than that. Well, you can ask for twenty-four thousand more than that, but you're not going to get it. Obviously I'm not a winner, but that doesn't make me a loser. I prefer to think of myself as a silver medallist. I tried, I failed, but I've got something to take home and show the kids. Although whether Amelie will ever want to read the seventeen chapters I've written, seems slightly doubtful.

I don't regret trying though. I've spent the past year saying that between a fairly demanding job and a very demanding daughter, I can't write anything more than a blog, so at the very least I've proved that not to be true. On some days, anyway. On others, a three line blog post seems beyond me, never mind a novel. But it's made me realise what I'm capable of. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

I've finished this year's NaNoWriMo snowed in at Uckfield Hospital, where I've written four hundred high quality words whilst looking at this scene from the window of my room...


I don't know if it was the view that inspired me, or just the resulting cabin fever, but those four hundred improvised words feature references to stomach stapling, Satan and herring, plus one of the finest Venetian blind jokes you're ever likely to read. Although you're unlikely to read it unless I finish chapter eighteen. Give me until Christmas.

Anyhoo, having skidded home through the snowdrifts, I asked Amelie what she'd done today. She told me with great enthusiasm that she and Mummy had gone on a bus to playgroup, where she'd played with the yellow balls, eaten some beans and had lots of fun. Which would be fine if I didn't know for a fact that they'd been stuck indoors all day due to the weather. I'm beginning to think I can't believe a word she says.

Amelie's back from a weekend at her Grandparents...


So she doesn't look that happy any more. I'm not sure those horizontal stripes are doing her any favours either. She looks like an untapered traffic cone.

I asked her this evening what she did at Grandma & Grandad's house, and she said "Ice cream". So I asked her what else. She said "Sausages". At the third time of asking, she said "Tomato sauce". There wasn't much talk of running and jumping, but she did ask me for some of the "pebbles" she'd brought home, so I assumed she must have walked to the beach and back. Until Lisa told me that's what she calls Smarties.

Lisa and I spent most of yesterday at a lovely traditional wedding in Worthing. But enough about that - look! It's Paige from the X Factor! And I almost killed him!

You know what it's like. You're driving along the seafront at lunchtime on a Saturday in late November; you've just passed the pier; you see an X Factor contestant crossing the road in front of you; you floor the accelerator...

As it transpired, I changed my mind at the last moment. There are enough stories about the show's black contestants being the victims of racism, without me running one over in my car. And besides, he was in Brighton to perform at Revenge, "The South Coast's Number 1 Gay Club", and I didn't want to be accused of homophobia too. So I let him live. Obviously, if it had been Katie Waissel, it would have been a different story.

Wagner, the X Factor's real talent, sang (and I use that term loosely) a Radiohead song on last night's show, which was slightly spooky (and indeed Creepy) because just moments after clipping Paige with my front bumper, Lisa and I drove past Hove lawns, where Thom Yorke was busy moulding 2,000 people into the shape of King Canute...


Although from ground level, it looked like the queue for the log flume at Alton Towers. I've never seen so many cold people in ponchos. Obviously, from the sky, you get an entirely different perspective. It looks more like a cow walking up to a lamp post.

Anyhoo, our journey along the south coast might have been entertaining, but it wasn't the reason we left the house. We were actually heading to Worthing to attend the wedding of Taylor Swift and Minty from EastEnders, as conducted by comedienne, Sue Perkins...


It was held at the Chatsworth Hotel, which is the kind of traditional, Georgian fronted, Grade II Listed hotel where you'd expect to find Agatha Christie relaxing over a cup of tea in the lobby...


Or failing that, Lisa drinking a latte.

The wedding itself featured a lot of tears, partly from the bride, but mainly from Lisa who tore a hole in the bottom of her dress with the heel of her uncomfortable shoes, and me, who nearly choked on an olive. I realise it will come as something of a shock that someone as cultured as myself could have made it through thirty-seven years of life without ever trying a stuffed olive, but having grown up on a Basildon council estate, I was lucky to get a Viscount biscuit once a week. I thought a canapé was the stripy fabric over a market stall. So finding myself in a Georgian hotel in Worthing with a plate of free olives, I naturally helped myself. Anyway, I'm not saying I didn't like it, but frankly Gillian McKeith's been through less traumatic bushtucker trials. I came close to fainting at one point. It was possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. And I've eaten Lisa's scrambled eggs.

But that aside, the food was lovely. If you're going to put on half a stone in eight hours, this was the way to do it. The dessert alone must have been a thousand calories. I think I was the only person in the room who finished it. And just when everyone was on the verge of passing out from over-consumption, they brought around the wedding cake, and announced that the chocolate fountain was open. I think the event must have been sponsored by a bariatric surgery company.

On the downside, when you've eaten half your body weight in gourmet food, you do tend to struggle to make it onto the dance floor. I think I only ventured out of my seat three times all evening. And two of those were to dip doughnuts into molten chocolate.

But on that subject, if you're wondering how you eat from a chocolate fountain when you're wearing an expensive white wedding dress, here's your answer...


She's either protecting her clothes or about to throw up.

Lisa and I are going to a wedding in Worthing today, so Amelie's been packed off to her grandparents for the weekend. With a bit of luck it might snow and they'll have to keep her for a week. She left at lunchtime yesterday, which was obviously fantastic news because it meant that from the moment I got home until the time I went to bed, I could spend the whole evening novelling.

At least that was the plan. In reality, I had my tea and chatted to Lisa for a bit, at which point she realised that she needed some safety pins to hold her wedding outfit together, so we quickly popped to Asda before I started writing.

At least that was the plan. In reality, we were out until 9pm, spending more than a hundred pounds on tinsel, baubles and a pink Christmas tree...

Frankly it was a miracle we remembered the safety pins.

Anyhoo, I'd like to say that we chose that tree because it raises money for breast cancer charities. I'd like to, but I can't. It just happened to be Amelie's favourite colour, and we thought it would match our curtains.

So having spent half an hour putting away the trolley-load of food that we hadn't realised we needed until we were in Asda, we then spent another hour decorating the Christmas tree and putting tinsel around the living room mirror, before finally getting to bed about eleven thirty, with my daily word count still at zero. I'd finish my novel where it is, but I don't think I'd find the time to write 'The End'.

This was the view from our balcony at seven-thirty this morning...


It's almost worth getting up to go to work.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Phil, you've still got five days to go. You can hit that 50,000 word target". And you're right. Obviously. But what you don't know is that I'm going to a wedding on Saturday, so technically it's only four days. Admittedly, I do have the proven ability to produce copious amounts of rubbish in a very short period of time, but I think 6,000 words a day is probably beyond me.

I haven't given up though. Well, I have given up on the idea of writing fifty thousand words before December, but goddammit, I'm going to finish this story if it kills me. I've just been hampered by circumstances. I wrote 20,000 words in the first half of November, and... um... slightly less in the second half, but that's mainly down to health issues. Amelie's been quite ill, while I've been single-handedly proving the theory that there's no rest for the wicked, by struggling to sleep at night.

It means that for the past week I've only had enough energy to last me until 5pm. I barely have the strength to turn on Simon Mayo. Which isn't condusive to serious out-of-hours novelling. I did produce a whopping 200 words in Uckfield Hospital at lunchtime today, during which I started writing the back story of one of my characters. Quite a long-way-back story. It started in 1750. And I don't mean ten to six. But by 1pm the caffeine in my tea had worn off and I had to give up for the day.

So I plan to continue into December. Possibly 2011. By which time I hope to be sleeping properly. I don't care how long (or short) this thing is, as long as it features the words 'The End'.

It's my Dad's birthday today...


To paraphrase Amelie's hair, thanks a bunch for all you've done for us this year. xxx

Good news! I'd written almost a thousand words by 5pm today!

Bad news. It was all for my departmental newsletter at work.

I think novel-writing would be easier if there were more than twenty-four hours in each day. And if Amelie would sleep for most of them.

I'm getting an early night and starting again tomorrow...

It's November 22nd, and this is the scene at the block of flats next door...


Those decorations actually cover two different flats, which is interesting because it means there's more than one person in this world who thought that was a good idea. As Lisa's just said to me, "It's like we're living next door to the Griswolds".

Lisa's out all day today, attending the Regional Forum of AA's South East Regional Assembly. Whatever that is. It's in Burgess Hill, so I suspect she just liked the way I made the place sound on my blog this week, and wanted an excuse to visit.

It means that Amelie and I have been left to self-medicate for the day. To be honest, I'm a lot better now, but Am's still at death's door. You can gauge the seriousness of any Ammy illness by the list of foods she refuses. When well, the list is non-existent, but as things stand right now, she's turning away biscuits, toast and - I kid you not - chocolate. It's currently 2pm, and all she's had today are three smokey bacon crisps and a couple of Fruit Shoots. Gillian McKeith would be turning in her jungle grave.

In addition, Amelie's feeling so sorry for herself that she refuses to let me put her down for a nap, and will only drop off to sleep if I'm underneath her. Which makes it difficult to get on with anything. Left unattended, she's generally capable of going for a maximum of five seconds without bursting into tears and asking for a cuddle, so novel-writing's pretty much out of the question. This blog post's taken me three hours.

I did make the decision that if I couldn't get near a keyboard, and was going to have to spend the day on the sofa, wiping snot from the face of a distressed two-year-old, then I should transport myself away mentally, and take the opportunity to completely plan out the rest of my novel in my head. Which is a good idea in theory, until you try doing it in front of CBeebies. I challenge anyone to think of anything remotely productive whilst listening to a couple of llamas singing about health & safety.

Not that my day has been entirely unproductive. I have had a hand in the creation of a masterpiece...


I've speeded it up, so that you can see her nose running at four times normal speed.

She might be ill, off her food, and running a high temperature, but she can still do a mean Incy Wincy Spider...


It's a good job Chloe's not arachnophobic.

NaNoWriMo Excuse #327:

I'm ill.

And it's not just me...


Chloe's looking a bit peaky too.

And as for Amelie, don't even go there. If she's not flaked out on the bed, she's crying in your arms, leaving snot on your shirt and refusing to do anything. It's like having a mini version of Lisa.

But the worst thing is, she's given it to me. We've both spent the day feeling sick and congested with a splitting headache, but while she's stayed at home sipping Calpol, I've been forced to go into work. For a couple of hours. And eat chocolates. To be honest, it could have been worse. If you fancy joining me, click here. Apply now and you can cover for me on Monday.

I had an e-mail earlier this week from Chris Baty, founder of the National Novel Writing Month and Executive Director of the Office of Letters and Light. It was a deeply personal message sent exclusively to me, and to the 185,586 other people doing NaNoWriMo this year. In it, he offered these words of advice for the stalling novelist:

Incite change. If your story is losing momentum, juice it up by inflicting some major changes on your characters. Crash the spaceship. End the marriage. Buy the monkey.

It made me realise where I've been going wrong with my novel. I don't have a spaceship or a monkey. I do have a marriage, but I've already ended that with an unexpected tortoise-drowning incident. So I've embraced change today. During an unusually productive lunch break, I wrote 800 words in Consulting Room 10 of the Park View Health Centre in Burgess Hill, and metaphorically crashed my spaceship into Monkey World. Although I think that's already been done with 'Planet of the Apes'. Anyway, I think it's a plot twist that works. In fact I'm tempted to claim that I planned it from the beginning.

Unfortunately, I didn't actually make it beyond those 800 words, because I received a distressing e-mail from Lisa this afternoon. It read:

Disaster. Am's left Po on a bus. She's very upset.

I was upset too. Mainly because I read that as 'poo', and thought I was being asked to clean it up.

So instead of rushing home to write Chapter Sixteen, I drove from Burgess Hill to Toys R Us in search of a replacement Teletubby I could palm off as the original. I eventually found one, and having got stuck in a traffic jam in Hove for half an hour in the pouring rain, I finally made it back an hour late, walked in, and told Amelie I'd found Po at a bus stop. She took one look at my purchase, called it "New Po!", and told me to go out and look for the old one. It's not easy fooling a two-year-old.

I took this photo yesterday morning, just before seven, from the balcony of our flat, to symbolise a new dawn for my stumbling novel...


It's been raining ever since. Mainly in my heart.

I need to get a grip. This novel's in danger of expiring faster than the bottle of milk I bought in Lidl last week. I think it's because I've reached the point in the story where I literally have no idea what happens next, and I'm basically treading water until somebody tells me. Let's face it, chapter eleven was only written because a patient asked me last week what an orthoptist is. I need to meet someone inspirational. Not spend three days in Burgess Hill.

But I need to crack on, regardless. I've got to stop spending my lunch breaks e-mailing pointless jokes to numerous people. There's only one place for pointless jokes, and that's my novel. It's already 8pm, but I'm not going to bed tonight until I've written chapter fourteen. It could be a long night...

Or a short chapter. My money's on the latter.

I'm not sure I should have written yesterday's blog post. I already felt a bit rough with a slight cold and a dodgy prostate that had been hassling me all day, and by the time I'd tapped out a blog and hit 'Publish', the well of creativity had run dry and my brain said it was bedtime. Despite opening up my novel five minutes later, I failed to write a single word. Actually, that's not true. I did write a nineteen-word sentence, but I soon realised that I have no idea how to successfully trap a five-legged man-eating cow, so I deleted it, pending some serious research, and gave up for the day. I don't think I'm well enough to write a novel in a month.

To be honest, today hasn't been a lot better. I have, however, written almost 3,000 words on this blog in November (most of it excuses as to why I'm not writing my novel), so I'm tempted to add those to my total. Give it another week and I'll be counting e-mails. And if I get really desperate, shopping lists.