This is such an annoying blog to write that I've been putting it off for ages. I really hate to 'fail' at things. I hate it. So much.

So yeah, I didn't manage my goal for NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.org) and that kind of sucks. In the end, I wrote 9000 words towards a novel but that fell far short of my personal goal of 25k words. I hate making excuses about as much as I hate to fail but here they are anyways...

1) I was a lot busier with work in November than I anticipated. Once I finished with the WSOP Final Table broadcast, I was planning to write while in London working on the Party Poker Premier League Mixed Game show but the schedule was far heavier than I thought it would be. The first day of filming, we finished at 3am and then I had to be back on set at 9.30am for another 14-hour day, followed by 3 more long days. With the jetlag, I only managed 2 hours of sleep between the first two days of work and it really knocked me on my ass for the rest of the week.

I've mentioned elsewhere that I'm not entirely happy with my own performance on that show. I definitely felt like I was struggling for words and on a number of occasions I had to restart interviews because I either lost the thread of the conversation, asked an entirely stupid question (you just busted out, how do you feel?.... oh, yeah. Pretty shitty. Right) or I made sounds that just simply didn't add up into actual words and sentences. Not my finest hour, although I think I caught up on sleep by the end of it and so finished better than I started.

2) Moving house is stressful. After 5 months of living on the road out of suitcases, I finally moved into my new place in Santa Barbara, the day after I returned from London. I'm incredibly happy to be settled again and I love (love love love) my new place which is an old renovated Barn. The moving process (coupled with jetlag) was more tiring than I expected and writing again took a back seat.

3) This one is probably the ACTUAL reason that I didn't make my NaNoWriMo word limit. I bored myself. I started writing and kept trying to push through tiredness or lack of creativity or 'writers block' but found myself confronted again and again by the reality that I was just. so. boring.

If I'm bored by my own stories, I'm certainly not interested in inflicting them on others. I'm not sure why I couldn't tell stories that were funny, interesting, compelling but one possible truth is that I'm just not as interesting as I thought I was! Or maybe I'm just not ready to write about shit yet. That could be it as well.

I've spent the past month settling into my life (and my barn) and feel far more grounded than I have in a long time. Being on the road and having my life thrown into some kind of 2011 randomness generator was a very cool experience. I've learned a lot about myself, about my friends (mostly how fucking incredible they are) and about what I love about my life.

I'm happy to have a nest to call my own even if it's only for a short period of time. I leave for Canada in less than a week to spend Christmas with my family. After that, I go straight to Europe until Mid February. Two more months of suitcase living but with a bit of stability back under my feet, I think I'm better equipped to enjoy and revel in the experience. I adore living on my own but I'm also a very social chaffinch so getting the chance to visit my family, my friends in the UK and spend time with my Party Poker family as I travel to play some WPTS.... well, life is good. That's all I can say about that.

I do wish I'd done a better job on NaNoWriMo but I think I need a bit more time to find my place before I can write with enough honesty to make it worth people's time to read it. Thanks for reading this blog though and I hope wherever you all are, you're cozy and warm and as content as I am!