NaNoWriMo

The first time I met Steve was at the Dublin EPT in 2005, and I don't remember too much about that. He had a girlfriend then and I had a boyfriend, we spoke only once, I asked a stupid question and was embarrassed. He swears he didn't think I was stupid at the time. And I recognise Andy Black now.

The second time I met him was at the Gutshot card club. I think this story will always make me smile, it's almost certainly the most romantic thing that anyone has ever done for me. As I was leaving Steve said he was going my way, and asked to share my cab, even though he lived nowhere near Tooting. It cost him £30 to get to Blackheath from Tooting Bec.

He says he spent the cab journey wishing the driver would slow down, so we could chat longer. In the back of that cab we talked about writing. Steve said I was the first person he'd ever met who felt the way that he did about writing. He told me about National Novel Writing Month, with its challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. He joked about getting to 23,000 words without anything happening in his novel, or finding anything resembling plot.

He and I have been together seven months now, and lots has happened. I tease Steve about his habit of speeding up time whenever we're together. We sit on the sofa to cuddle and chat, we put the TV on then always ignore it (neither of us like TV very much) then suddenly it's 1am, and 5 minutes later it's 2am. And I need to go to bed, to be up for work at 6am... And if I were in a taxi I'd be willing the driver to slow down.

National Novel Writing Month starts tomorrow. It's a fun writing challenge... Hang on while I do a quick cut and paste from their website...

'Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing.'

It's November tomorrow. So Steve and I are going to sit in front of the sofa and cuddle, but there'll be no TV (neither of us like TV very much) instead we'll have our laptops, and rivalry to see which of us will hammer out the most words for Day 1 of the NaNoWriMo challenge.

Steve's the first person I've ever met who feels the way I do about writing. I'm not sure what my novel will be about. It could be Tooting Bec tube station magic, or stickers on tube posters? It could be about willing taxi drivers to slow down... It could be about love.