Well, I've done it. Despite a barrage of interesting medical events, work and just plain laziness, I managed 50,000 words in 30 days.

I'm not entirely sure exactly what squirrels in viking helmets have to do with writing, but whatever bakes your noodle, I guess.

They're not 50,000 particularly good words, but I think the story structure holds up well, despite the oodles of padding it contains.

So, if you're feeling particularly brave (and forgiving), here's a link to Ladies' Man, my 2004 effort. Now remember, it's raw, it's unedited and it was written in a haze of, "Gotta write 50,000 words!" You can't afford to be too discerning. It's about a man, written from the perspective of eight women in his life. Enjoy.

For the record, my baby brother pointed out that my 2002 effort A Good Muse Is Hard To Find ended rather suddenly over coffee. Now, I knew the ending wasn't great, but it didn't end there. Turns out that I had uploaded an earlier version that was about 5,000 words short. Eeeep! So if you were wondering, now you can find out how it ended.

The apartment currently smells like a tropical paradise. Thanks to my boy, I have a magnificent bunch of stargazer lilies scenting the dining room and looking unutterably beautiful. He might not buy flowers often, but when he does, he's good.

On the weekend, I felt so miserable walking past all the gloriously scented mangoes that I was determined to buy something that smelled like summer to me.

I already owned coconut scented sunscreen (ahhh, memories of days spent sun baking on the high school oval, basting myself in Reef Oil... my skin is SO going to pay for that one day), so I needed something else that smelled of summer.

As a kid, my family would drive up to the Gold Coast, the Australian equivalent of Miami Beach, for Christmas holidays. I've only been back once as an adult, when my Aunt owned an apartment up there and I needed a couple of weeks of rest and relaxation. I had just worked three months straight, no weekends, no days off and I was done in.

I had literally just arrived and was walking down the street when I walked under a frangipani tree in full bloom. I remembered the scent of them from holidays as a kid and I swear, I nearly melted into a puddle on the footpath, I relaxed so much. My shoulders must have dropped by at least two inches as the tension drained out of me.

They smelled of holidays. They smelled of the sun and relaxation and summer.

So I took myself off to a nursery. I have a new addition on my balcony and she's lovely.