Homework completed, room tidied and television forgotten, I finally switch my laptop for a pen and paper. Not, many people would assure you, an unusual situation to find me in (at least with regard to the pen and paper aspect, my mother would argue I frequently leave my room "as if it's been hit by a bomb"). However, for the short month of November, this time of quiet simplicity was a daily necessity. I foolhardily decided to complete NaNoWriMo 2008, which involved me writing a 50,000 word novella in the space of a single month. No easy task, I hasten to assure you, not least when you add in school, coursework, and generally dancing around my room to the pop songs on my I-pod, procrastinating. But at the clichéd stroke of midnight on November 30th although I had a total word count of 51,100 words, I was still unfinished. I feel I should be lounging in a jazz cafe, wearing a beret and painter's overalls, scrawling a hundred words a minute on one coffee-stained napkin. Instead, I'm in my bedroom, chewing a mass-produced biro with no clue what to write next. Someone asked me yesterday what my novel was about; I stared at them, then winced and replied that I had no clue. I went into this with only two characters and no plot to speak of, no punch-line I could spout off to anyone who asked. But as I read over what I've done, what does that matter? So what if Nathan suddenly has a new flat mate or Karl should really have been Katie? This is my baby now and, Katie or not, I have a sudden resolve to finish it.