Well, November has come to an end, and with it, National Novel Writing Month has finished too.

The aim of Nanowrimo, as I’ve probably mentioned tiresome times before, is to write a 50,000 novel in one month – at an average of around 1700 words a day. Did I succeed in doing it in 2007, after 2006’s unimpressive attempt?

Did I hell.

In fact, I didn’t even make it to 5,000 words – 4,300 by my rough count, which is around 8.6%, which is up from last year’s 5%, but which is still almost unbearably lame. It’s actually quite embarrassing – which is, of course, the point of making a public declaration about this sort of thing, with the aim that the shame will spur one on – but I honestly don’t know where the time went in November, or (more importantly) where I could have retrieved the hours I needed to get more done on it.

Which is, all too often, the problem I face with the writing – the day job and the associated commute leave me feeling quite floppy by the end of the day, and BLAH BLAH BLAH… it’s all excuses, isn’t it? If I truly want to write for a living – and I sincerely believe I do, and that I could be all right (or maybe even better) at it – then I need to make sure that I make time, don’t I ?

It’s simple, but not necessarily easy – and in that distinction, I suspect, lurks the problem.

Anyway, onwards – Nanowrimo 2007 was a bust for me, but there are other projects to be completed, things to be written, and that can only be done with words as a path is made of stones: by placing one after another until I reach the end.