Cecil finds himself back on Earth.  His thoughts are quiet, a feeling that has alluded him since he awoke from his operation.  The feeling doesn’t rest easy with him.  Seeking some sort of respite, he goes in search of more information regarding the Mars Development Project.  What he stumbles upon may cause unrest among the population still upon the planet millions of miles away.

-Original Description given on my Nanowrimo page somewhere around the end of October.

It was a long month of writing almost every single morning and night, but I finished my book.  Fifty thousand words, the goal of Nanowrimo.

I started with the foundation of my previous story, Mother of Mars; which has been begging me for a sequel since I figuratively put down my pen months ago.  Having a selection of characters, struggles, places, and motifs that I could follow up on was excellent, but for the most part, I had little more than a rough overarching view of where I wanted the story to go.

Somehow, I managed to keep up my writing the whole month, spitting out a new passage every time I sat down to write.

At ten thousand words, about a week in, I barely had time to look back.  The ideas were starting to flow out, and the story was starting to come forth.

At twenty thousand words, not even a full two weeks in, I looked back at my Camp Nanowrimo project that hit this point.  I wondered how I even struggled with such a thing.

At thirty thousand words, my story hit a major turning point where I made the decision to split it into two parts.  The second act was set up and ready to run.

At forty thousand words, I had a ton of steam left, and a story climax was starting to build. I had a faint idea of how the ending would go, and I was barreling towards it ahead of schedule.

By fifty thousand words, I had found an ending that seemed to close everything up nicely, including some dangling threads from the first novel.  My characters said what they needed to say, and I put a “The End” stamp on it, just a few words over the finish line.

There is of course major work needing to be done on it.  A few passages here and there to better expose everything that happens, lots of internal fact checking for continuity, and even more editing, spell checking, and removing of unnecessary junk.  However, after returning to and advancing this universe that I’ve created, I feel like I know much more about it.  My first novel, Mother of Mars, still has yet to meet my standards of completion. However, now I feel like I know how to go back and complete it.

Tomorrow morning I’m heading off for a couple days to visit another city here in France.  The break from nonstop writing will allow me to refresh my mind and prepare myself for the next steps.  I will most definitely return with a vlog or two, and be ready to work on more stuff, “Hell to Pay,’ for example.

Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.