You’re grieving for a lot of things right now. Be kind to yourself, lovely lady.

Failure: The raw material of success.

Oh well, I’ll make something else up. I seem to do okay at that (crap that is).

Now, you do realise your novel doesn’t have to be *good* don’t you? At least that’s what they *told* me so it had better be the case.

This time last year I hadn’t written a single word. In fact, I didn’t start writing until the end of the first keep. Can’t remember why. Anyway, I still made it. No masterpiece but I did make it.

Does it help if I tell you that I tend to find the first 1000 words the most difficult? I think after that the characters start to come alive and it gains some momentum on it’s own. So don’t give up yet.

But, if you don’t make the “magic” wordcount – you’re definitely still not a failure!!! You’ve already written more words than you would have if you’d never started. Which is in fact the real point of the exercise. Not some fancy certificate you get to print off at the end…..

I’ve got an empty house today, and 4.5 hours of quiet to make up for the words I haven’t written over the last two days. (Word count still 598). I want to succeed, so that my friend Scott can’t beat me. (In the winning sense, not in a ‘Violence against women, Australia says NO’ sense.)
Your attitude to it is so reasonable and sensible. So seductively tempting…… winning isn’t everything….. anything I write is a gain……

but no! I have to beat Scott to the 50,000 words. Or at least finish.

Now you see why your attitude is far more realistic. I’m going to be a raving lunatic by November 29. Now I’m off to post something on my blog. I signed up to that ‘post a blog a day’ thing as well.

Why? Because I’m an idiot.