Thirty Days to 50,000 Word Novel... Okay?

So now that I was proved to myself that I could write a 50k word novel in 30 days, I have to ask myself this:  WTF did I write?  Don't get me wrong, when I did the practice run during the 30 days of September (and passed the 1,667 word per day goal), I was making it up as I was going along.  I had an idea of a beginning, an ending, protagonists and antagonists,  a mind-blowing climax, some of the obstacles, etc.  But for that book, I fleshed it out to 20 chapters in 304 pages.  Plus I added the 31 days of October to complete it to call it actually being finished at over 100k words.

This time around I was able to complete a outline (that I only started 6 days before the November 1 kick-off).  And I had a clearer idea of how the story would flow.  I decided that I would be able to do this in 15 chapters.  Okay, I don't know if other writer's out there have this problem, but everything was moving along smoothly until the characters started to take over.  They started taking left turns all over the place no matter how much I was in control of the actual writing.  I know this sounds like I've completely lost it, but nobody ever told me that once your characters begin to invade your brain that they never stop talking to you!  I was beginning to feel like I may require stronger medications.

Even thought I am, according to the rules of the National Novel Writer's Month contest, a winner,  I'm still feeling a bit dazed and confused.  True, I will continue to write until, I feel like it's at least finished.  For now, I think I will be able to get a good night sleep now that I don't have the pressure of making the required word count per day quota.

But I will say this, not only has this experience been responsible for lighting a fire under me creatively, it's like now that I started writing, I don't ever want to stop.  Even if no ever purchases a book written by me (nom de plume: B. Mars Thompson), then at least I can say I did it.  Hence the resurrection of this blog that nobody ever reads.  As long as I have a forum, I guess it will make sense to someone, someday.

At least now I have something to keep me busy until STAR WARS; THE FORCE AWAKENS and AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON open up next year!