This year Christmas is being delivered by The Internets.

Things that have occured since thus far this month:

• I won NaNoWriMo by reaching 50k (over 55 actually) even though novel is not actually completed to date. I have a hold on most (alas, not all) of the threads of the story, but they are currently jumbled in two separate tangles which will not meet neatly in the middle leaving a huge, gaping hole in the crux of the tale.

Which would be easier to draft around (in the messy, first-drafty, scrawly fashion of the manuscript) if it were not for point the second:

• I developed a shockingly dreadful cold with associated chest infection which has been dogging my every breath for two weeks and promises to do so for another week or so.

For a good ten days of this I haven't been able to write; I have never been that ill before. I simply could not relate one sentence to another and keep a coherant narrative. I am now mostly able to string sentences into sensible paragraphs but consistent story threads are another case entirely.

Mostly I have:

• Spent my down time on the sofa, under a duvet, catching up on missed television and eating cheese.

I wish I was joking as the closest I have come to festive so far this December are the Christmas specials for Studio 60 & Boston Legal. For Christmas I would like a new immune system; my current one appears to have left for the holidays.

Unfortunate Keyboard Allergies Not Withstanding...

50k later and I win, although the story is far from over.

At least it's more extensive as a first draft than as an outline (and, as that only existed in my head, a lot more reliable!)

Of course, reaching 50k and the end of the month has left my motivation beaten and cowering in a corner - hit a bit of a slump in the previous week in actually transferring ideas to ink (and the keyboard is almost entirely out of the picture for now).

However I have fallen in love with the Kingsway Tramway Subway and suspect that it might well have been created for me, personally.

All my other words have been eaten by NaNo; I've got nothing.