It’s almost October, which means that the spectre of NaNoWriMo looms large across the next two months. Barely a moment will pass over the next four weeks where I’m not plan­ning my novel, or worse — wor­ry­ing that I haven’t yet planned my novel.

I was going to write a work of near-future sci­ence fic­tion, but a recent post by Charlie Stross claims that’s almost impossible given cur­rent world events. I cer­tainly agree with his sen­ti­ment, but many of his argu­ments (espe­cially about plot obsol­ence in the time it takes to pub­lish) are far less rel­ev­ant to what will more than likely be a van­ity work. An unpub­lished van­ity work, at that.

At least the new house meets my every fantasy of a writer’s home. Large garden, plenty of space, excel­lent pubs and cof­fee shops nearby. Not for­get­ting R and J — two won­der­ful writers (and friends!) are my house­mates and fel­low suf­fer­ers of November’s death of fifty-thousand cuts.

Even L is join­ing in this year, so hope­fully the house will be a suit­able retreat with writ­ing a con­stant activity.