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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I had a fascinating experience over the weekend. On Thursday night I found a young pigeon, full-feathered but not quite adult, sitting on the pavement. She or he didn’t fly away as I walked close by, and I thought, “that’s strange” but continued on my way.

Twenty minutes later the bird was still there as I made my way home from the shops. I approached, it allowed me to pick it up and I took it home. There were no parents around, watching the youngster from above, and if there had been I’d have left well alone.

But what was wrong with the bird? I had no idea and still don’t know. I’ve no photos to show you—the one to the left is generic. All pigeons, you’d think, are generic—but look at them closely, they have lots of different personalities and faces.

The pigeon was clean, apparently disease-free and appeared in excellent condition. It just couldn’t fly. It wasn’t tame, and never did become tame, although it allowed me to hand-feed it using a pet syringe without resistance. I gave it a mix of chicken layer pellets and water all mashed up into a puree, following advice I found online. Friday and Saturday it refused to eat of its own volition and didn’t do very much. It seemed either exhausted or ill. It picked up within hours of its first hand-feed, just 5ml of gloop.

I named the little creature Nevermore, not intending to keep it unless the bird was likely to die if set free but wanting to have something to call it other than just ‘pigeon’. I think it was a hen but I can’t be certain.

I nursed the baby Nevermore all the way through to late Sunday afternoon, by which time s/he had proven her/himself capable at last of feeding and drinking without help, and of sustained flight in our living room (cats obviously excluded for a time). Maybe it was only just weaning when I found it, perhaps it had crashed and was simply stunned. I’ll never know. If I hadn’t helped that pigeon I’m genuinely doubtful many others would have intervened, or even noticed it sitting and suffering from confusion if not illness.

I do know the encounter was my second in two years with a pigeon needing help, the last having been a racing pigeon that crash-landed in our garden.

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