Nano, nano, nano

I am in danger of being seduced again by the whole NaNoWriMo phenomenon. I did it successfully in 2004 - successful meaning a 50,000 word novel in a month - and failed last year by grinding to a halt after a few thousand words because I didn't know where I was going with the story. I think the trick is to have a good plan, a reasonable structure, and then write to that plan. This year, I have an idea which is turning into a plan, but whether I have enough basic stuff in place to be able to pull off 50,000 words is questionable. Is anyone else going for it?

A and I went to see "The Devil Wears Prada" tonight - I think she summed it up quite well when she told her Dad on the phone "we've spent two hours being vacuous". The problem I had with the film was that it was essentially a shallow film about shallow, often fairly nasty, people. It wants to have its cake and eat it "the world of fashion is shallow and superficial .... yeah but its so lovely I want to do it too!!" Until we get to the utterly predictable denoument. It didn't make me care enough about any of the characters, and I would probably have left before the end if I had been on my own - not least because of the selfish thoughtless teenage morons in front of us who talked most of the way through the film.

Also saw "Children of Men" last week - really wanted to enjoy this, but I just failed to suspend my disbelief most of the way through. Most of the political points made themselves felt with the force of a large hammer smacking the side of your head going "hey! look! important political point here!" and despite Cuaron's clever imagining of the nasty messiness of a future Britain, I just didn't quite get into it.

Meanwhile, if you could see my hands, you would know the colour scheme I have chosen for my almost-completely-redecorated bedroom - I am a notoriously messy painter, and I've spent much of the last week painting. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be done, and be able to move out of the office (where I've been sleeping on my futon, v comfortable) and back into my bedroom and my brand new bed. Then my office will be an office again and I might actually get round to writing something up from the scribbly note pile.