Today is the first day of the second week of NaNoWriMo, the usual point in the journey when the story you're writing sputters, the disbelief and denial drive disengages, the rubber band powering your creative engine slackens, and just when you think it couldn't get any worse, the right tire comes off and rolls into a ditch dug specifically for self-detaching tires.

Things look so bad, so bleak, you contemplate abandoning the heap of junk, hitching a ride home, and consoling yourself with a gallon of chocolate ice cream and fresh episodes of Lost, reruns of Jeeves and Wooster, and nonstop news reports about cabinet resignations, election results and pop diva divorces.

This is what you're thinking as you stare at the hopeless wreck sitting in the middle of the road. You give the story a swift, parting kick. You turn to leave, but as you do, the wind picks up, blows dust in your face, and temporarily blinds you. Impulsively, you close your eyes. You look away.

The wind dies suddenly; you reopen your eyes and find yourself seeing the world through a film of dust. And through the film, your story doesn't look so bad. Well, that's not true. It still looks bad, but not hopelessly so. It can be fixed. You can fix it.

Reinvigorated, you pop the trunk and grab the only tools you'll need: the Car Jack of Optimism and the Duct Tape of Delusion. In no time, you reattach the right tire and transform your clunky, dull gray Yugo of a story into a sleek, chrome blue Yugo of a story that runs. (Ah, the magic of chrome blue duct tape.)

With a smug smile of satisfaction, you toss the jack and tape in the trunk, hop in the driver's seat, yelp as a coil spring breaks through the seat fabric and stings you in the bum, and happily (those are tears of joy welling up in your eyes) continue on your NaNoWriMo journey.