This isn't something game-related, but I wanted to post it anyways as I'm proud of it.
No, it's not my first published novel, just the first one I've ever written. Over the years, and years, and years, I've written a bunch of short stories, and I have a folder full of chapter ones, but I was never able to finish any of full-length novels.
A few months back, I learned about National Novel Writing Month and their challenge to write a 50,000 word (about 150 page) novel in 30 days. I figured I'd take the challenge, if for no other reason than to see if I could. My novel combined a slasher and ghost story, placing a bunch of characters, based on people I didn't like IRL, in a mansion, and dropping them one at a time.
Well, I started on November 1. On Thanksgiving, I hit the 50k goal, but I decided the keep going because the web site had a badge (bragging rights reward) for updating your word count every day.
I finished today and the final counts are 55,000 words and 153 pages. Overall, I think the story sucks, as I spent more time focusing on word count than on quality. In fact, the first 7 or so chapters do nothing but introduce characters and pad the novel length. At one point, I even took a paragraph-long conversation between two guys and stretched it to an entire chapter.
Still, the kills were fun and at times, quite brutal and bloody. I'm not sure if i'm going to keep it or scrap it for spare parts, but I'm just happy that it's done!
