What do you do if you have trouble writing a novel? Turn to the computer! Oh, great and wondrous machine that rules my mornings and afternoons and haunts my slumber’s dreams! Impart your wisdom in a barrage of retina destroying photons!

EVERYONE HAS A NOVEL IN them. And that’s exactly where most of them should keep it. In truth, most people have a public information book in them. Written by Mormons, and with spelling mistakes.
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So, what to do if you’ve got ideas, but are (like me) easily distracted, disorganised and find the prospect of writing an entire novel only slightly less daunting than embarking on an Arctic expedition wearing nothing but Bermuda shorts and with a sachet of Angel Delight your only sustenance?

Previously, the only alternative was the celeb route (taken by Jordan and Naomi Campbell) of getting someone else to do it for you: fine examples of what can be achieved with 100 PAs at 100 laptops for 100 minutes. But now there’s something for the rest of us: a computer program called NewNovelist that claims to “break down the novel-writing process into small, manageable tasks so even the most inexperienced writers can write a novel”. Great: plot arcs by Windows XP. I decided to give it a go.

The opening screen makes it sound so easy: there are only five stages, it tells me, to writing a novel. That’s the same amount of stages as the washing-up. In your face, Pynchon.

Five steps, eh? I knew most of my pals were shitty at math, but this really puts the boots to them. You suckers, spending all that time “crafting”.