A Trite or Obvious Remark

 I'm on draft one of my first novel.

I was about to write "never in a million years did I think I would be saying that". But it's really not true.

The correct sentence is "never in a million years did I think it would take me this long to get my shit together and write it."

It's not my first attempt. I wrote around 35,000 words of something many years ago in NaNoWriMo. If you know anything at all about NaNoWriMo then you will know that I completely failed, because the point of it, being short for National Novel Writing Month, is that you complete a novel in the month. 50,000 words. You hear me earlier? I wrote 35,000 words. Fail. 
But that was my first attempt.

NaNoWriMo sadly doesn't exist anymore. Did I let that stop me? Yes. 

Well. Honestly yes, but no. I did in fact start my novel in November of 2024, and here we are in September of 2025 and I am currently at... *checks notes*... 62,897 words. That was from scratch. Why am I bragging? It took me almost a year to get to 50,000 words outside of NaNoWriMo. The point I'm trying to make is I wrote a different story than those 35k from years ago. That was probably back in 2017 or something. God knows what I was on about back then.

But the truth is that I am about to turn 35 years old, and as somebody who has been "a writer" since they were a kid, I am definitely not amused by the fact that I have only now somehow found the strength and the energy and the motivation to actually fucking do it. When I sit down and think about it, I mean really think about it, I suppose all of my ramblings and thoughts that I have put down on some kind of metaphorical or literal paper in the last 35 years has been me working toward this. But not in the sense that I wish. This story that I'm working on, it's so deeply ingrained in me, so utterly, beautifully flowed out of me, that I wish I had started it years ago. I wish that I had the courage to start it years ago. Although I barely have the courage to continue with it now, to be fair.

It hasn't been easy. Some days it flies out of me like last night's curry (Christ, what a horrible image) but some days it is like trying to draw blood from a stone. But the story, oh my fucking god the story, it is so, so important for me to tell.

Well, here we are, I guess. Over 80% of my way to my word count goal to try and write the story that I have always wanted written, but this time, I'm the one at the keyboard. Wish me luck, I guess.