Fifteen Minute Novel 2025 Update and where we go from here.

I should have expected that a story with a more comic book like plot would not end up taking the entire year to get through, even working on it only fifteen minutes a day. It was a story I wanted the time to work on which was why I chose it for this year’s writing challenge though. It was a fun plot where Bob took down an alien invasion. And while it does leave space for continuation, I am happy with how it turned out.

It obviously needs loads of editing. But the point of the challenge is simply to get the full story out. Editing comes later. Actually resisting the editing is one of the hard parts. But necessary. I always choose stories that I know would otherwise get pushed to the back burner as they aren’t a priority no matter how much I want to write them. And this is there moment to become a fully written, if very rough draft. Actually I have started editing some of the past years fifteen minute novels and hope to have some of them out starting next year.

But for now, there is Bob.

And I have to say, Bob’s stats are kind of impressive. We reached Day 82 with Bob and went from basic idea through to the end of the story. The word count for this very rough draft stands at 48,817 according to Word’s automatic word count. I suspect there will be some trimming and places where I add to it. I suspect in the end it will be a either a novella or a short novel. And perhaps Bob will have more adventures. For now the Alien Slug invasion has been quelled and I am content to leave it there.

I have in the past tried to push stories well past the end of their plot. Sometimes it means fluffing it out with side story lines as I sense the end is approaching and other years I have just continued the story on well past the end of one plot and into a second plot as though it were the sequel. I am not going to do that this year. Partially because I like where Bob ended up and am not sure if I want to have the slug invasion continue in some form or fashion or have Bob face another threat all together. Perhaps he and the band from the retirement community will form a crime fighting crew keeping Centerville safe from all sorts of random intergalactic threats. I am not sure and would like to think about that a bit before I decide.

But I do like spending fifteen minutes on a story each morning.

So we are going to call Bob Versus the Alien Slug Monsters Part One of the 2025 Fifteen Minute Novel Writing Challenge. And I will spend the weekend delving into morning writing prompts past to find a story line that interested me when I wrote it but that I haven’t had time to double back to write yet. And it will have some time in the sun. (or at least being worked on).

At the moment there are several ideas about which to choose dancing in my brain. So I will make a choice over the weekend and list out some major plot points for it and then on Monday, Part Two of the Fifteen Minute Novel Writing Challenge will begin. Until then, we will leave Bob victorious and making his way back home.