National Novel Writing Month 2014 - Winner!

I was a winner for National Novel Writing Month 2014, meaning that I managed to write a novel of at least 50,000 words during the month (November). I completed it, at least the rough draft, on November 25, 2014, about 7:42 AM, and validated it at the website later that night, about 6:35 PM. The OpenOffice word processor, which I wrote it in, put the word count at 50,508, less than last year's and relatively low compared to most of the other years. The website put the word count at one more. The book for 2014 was a sequel of the 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009 ones. I joined National Novel Writing Month [ nanowrimo.org ] on March 20, 2009, as user Stephen_M_99.

The novels' word counts, mine and the website's, and the date the novel was finished:

2014: 50,508 and 50,509, November 25, 2014
2013: 51,043 and 51,042, November 29, 2013
2012: 50,147 and 50,147, November 20, 2012
2011: 60,973 and 60,977, November 21, 2011
2010: 53,076 and 53,077, November 26, 2010
2009: 52,110 and 52,111, November 28, 2009

Below are the winner web badge images for this year. The top two were large in their original form, especially the top one, which was actually a banner, and I was not intending to include them here for that reason, but they were much reduced in size when I was looking at the preview of this post, and opening them individually in another window still showed them reduced in size. It looks like they will be safe to include without disrupting the display of the blog, and so I'm going to include them. All I can know about is how they look on my computer, and I hope it looks the same on other people's computers and devices. If forced to choose one as a favorite, it would be the second one down, the largest one with the dragon. If space did not permit for that, I would choose one of the smaller ones.

My novel is science fiction, and though I did not put a synopsis or excerpt in the Novel Info section this time, here they are for this post:

Synopsis:
The time traveler-in-training is still trapped in another dimension where reality is more pliable, and thoughts can sometimes become real, even hidden thoughts, and even good intentions can have unforeseen consequences. In this novel he runs into more adventures and tribulations, finding out more about himself in the process, and more about the world in which he is trapped.


Excerpt:
More days and nights passed, he couldn't say how many. Most of the time he wasn't much sure of anything, except to keep going and the direction he must go. He went on in a daze. Dark forms of trees and animals blended together without meaning.

And then, suddenly, he was in the graveyard again, looking at his grave. Or rather the gravestone. There would be no body. It was day, but a very dark day, dark clouds low overhead, and a soft rain falling. He was alone.

He looked at his gravestone. This was how all lives end, whether with a gravestone or not, or a body or not. Sooner or later, death took them all.

"So you're back."

He turned around and saw the ghost, the one that had been chained to the treasure chest.

"I wondered where you had gone," the ghost said. "Been doing some exploring, checking out the different levels, or just haunting people? I could show you a few things, if you're into poltergeist activity."

"Um ..."

"Just don't play any tricks on your mother. She's been having a real hard time of it. If all those relatives hadn't come, I don't know what she'd do."

"Relatives?"

"Sure. She's got loads of them. Her mother and father, brothers and sisters and their children, and their children's children."

"But ... how?"

"Well, you know that you gave her the special fruit and so on when she was a little girl, and she took it back to her parents after eating some. And they saved some of the seeds and planted them, and grew their own plants. And her parents stopped aging, got younger even. When your mother grew up and left for the big city, her parents found that they didn't like living alone, so they had a bunch more children. And when they grew up and left, they took seeds from the plants with them, and so on. So now we've got a whole bunch of practically immortal people around. Of course the time travel people had to give them new identities at some point. They were getting too old, chronologically. It would have been too suspicious. You've met a lot of them, in their new identities. They talked more freely when you weren't around, and I was eventually able to piece it all together."

Jack was stunned. He had thought her parents were long dead, and didn't have any other children. "I need to go to her, talk to her."

"That's a pretty common reaction to death, wanting to talk to the living. Some manage, some don't. You don't look like you're in any shape to try it, though. If anything came through from you, it would be all garbled, which would just upset her more. It might be better to go in the other direction. Accept who you are, and what you are. Maybe try to just check out some of the more spiritual levels. Maybe go looking for the light, if it doesn't come looking for you first. I've been waiting for the light a long time, myself. Hundreds of years. At first there was some indication of it, but then it went away. Since then, nothing. I've been thinking of looking for it myself, lately. There's only so much you can do around here without a body, and that isn't much. Just be sure to stay away from the lower levels. A lot of dark things in there. Some of them can eat you alive."

The ghost started to drift away and fade. Jack lunged out for it. "Wait ..." He came up hard against a tree, and tumbled to the ground, rolling in the dirt and leaves. He lay there for a while, in his pain and weariness. He could feel eyes looking at him from the darkness, waiting. After a while he got up, and continued on.



The previous years' novels:

National Novel Writing Month 2013 - Winner!
National Novel Writing Month 2012 - Winner!
National Novel Writing Month 2011 - Winner!
National Novel Writing Month 2010 - Winner!
National Novel Writing Month 2009 - Winner!