Virtuous Dean

I'm not feeling too much like a lazy slob right now. After all, I've been doing well with the swimming - last Friday and then yesterday and today and have every intention of going back tomorrow, and I'm starting to feel less like collapsing after a couple of lengths. And I've got an interview with Proquest in Cambridge next Tuesday, which I'm feeling optimistic about - it will take the form of an Excel test (I'm all in favour of tests at interviews rather than just talking) and then a more standard talk, featuring 'competency-based questions' (you know the kind of thing, 'give an example of a situation where you...', arguably a less stupid interview technique than 'what are your strengths and weaknesses', although I'm still not a fan). I do quite like the sound of this job, so fingers crossed, eh?

And I've also embarked on this year's National Novel Writing Month project - for newcomers or oldcomers without flawless memories, this is the annual task of writing a 50,000-word novel from scratch during the month of November, the point being that you'll produce a load of rubbish but get your creative juices flowing. This year, instead of trying to do something different and stretch my boundaries, I'm going to write a silly but epic story that will be made up as I go along and not make any kind of sense. It's called "Virtuous Dean" and will consist of thirty chapters, each containing exactly 1,666 words, followed by a ten-word epilogue. So far, Virtuous Dean, Despicable Dean and the man whose dog Despicable Dean accidentally killed with an axe have decided to go to Paris to buy coffee beans. As the first stage of their plan to get there, they've acquired jobs as cabin crew on a plane going to Iceland, and I'm sure further adventures await them there.