Family emergencies: ONE – NaNoWriMo: NIL It’s quarter to five in the evening (or is quarter to five still afternoon? I’m never quite sure). The sky is a moody blue (Mike Pinder, say) and the moon looks hazily through my bedroom window: ‘Ahem, you there. Yes, you, with your laptop open to BBC iPlayer. I’ve travelled 54,000 miles in the last 24 hours. What have you done?’

Hmm. Well, we did have a family emergency (literally just as I’d opened my document to start working…) The moon is a little blasé when it comes to emergencies. The moon has a serious work ethic.

*

It’s quarter past five now. The streetlights are on. What was green just an hour ago has become only vague silhouettes. Nightfall has swallowed the rooftops and chimneys. The moon has moved on, to a new piece of sky, a new window, another work-shy writer.

I’ll just boil the kettle and then I absolutely will get on with my novel…

*

The sky is black now. Light shines on the rooftops of cars. People walking appear for a little while as they pass by a streetlamp, then vanish again. There are fairy lights in my neighbour’s tree. They’re like stars. I can see my own face in the window in front of me.

Night falls faster than you think it will. Time flies.

I think I’m panicky enough now to actually start writing.

(P.S. Final word count for the day: 1829. V. good.)