I was watching TV tonight and around 9.35pm the ending of the novel I’m writing for NaNoWriMo came to me. Bam. Just like that, a lightning bolt straight into my conscious mind. I wasn’t thinking about the novel. I was just doing nothing, and maybe that’s why I got the idea when I did—I was free, for a time, from the internal knots and tensions that every writer is familiar with, and has to wrestle to the ground constantly and never-endingly if he or she is to win through and get the work done.

To say I was excited was an understatement given that the now-known final chapter will turn the entire story round, flip everything on its head, confound and surprise and terrify the reader who, I hope, will already have enjoyed plenty of mystery and surprises from the very first page. It feels weird saying that when I’m only writing chapter four today and am planning a total of thirty—one for each day of the competition. It’s also, remember, only the first draft I’m pumping out right now. There could be one, two, three or more before everything’s ready for take-off.

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A neighbour of ours who is becoming a very good friend kind of came out to me on Thursday as a devout Roman Catholic, and decidedly non-judgemental. It serves as a timely reminder of the foolishness of judging people en masse, be they religious, gay, male, female… Whatever. I told her a little of my pagan beliefs, and she was genuinely interested and enthusiastic.

I think it matters to her that we’re a spiritual household, not what spirituality we hold to. And that’s very nice to find in a person of a different faith to one’s own. She’s also kindly agreed to look after our hens while we’re away at a pagan festival this weekend. She apparently loves hens and wanted to keep some, but her husband didn’t, so it didn’t happen!