If you've been wondering why I haven't been posting, it's because I decided to do the National Novel Writing Month challenge. The challenge is to write a novel from scratch, new plot, new characters in 30 days. (with a minimum of 50k words; 50k words completes the challenge). Well, it was actually brutally intense, and I found it quite the challenge. It's also the best story I've ever written. I still have a lot to flesh out, scenes to add, editing to do, but I finished the 50k draft with one day to spare. I've had the story tumbling around in the back of my brain for a few years, but never got around to putting one word on paper. So, it is a fresh story, and completely different from anything I've written before. I might post the story here. I haven't decided. Story sample: Alone The clinking of tools echoed through the bunker as Dad and I worked on the water heater. I was used to the trips up the mountain, they were like camping trips. As Dad walked out of the room, he began talking about something he’d forgotten at the hardware store. I declined going with him, it had already been a long day. I’d had a game right after school, and then the forty-minute drive up to the bunker. I was tired and headed to my room. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. Suddenly, without warning, the whole bunker shook violently, like it had been hit by an earthquake. I lurched awake and looked around in confusion, only to see that the bunker was shutting down around me – air vents closing off, antennas retracting back into their housings, and with a loud echoing thud, the heavy doors sealed shut. I made my way to the control room to discover that a nuclear detonation had been detected nearby. With mounting terror, I realized my father hadn't come back yet from the hardware store. I wanted desperately to go outside and look for him, but I didn't have access to the code needed to unlock the bunker's main door. Now trapped inside without any way out, I was cut off from the world and might be the last kid alive on Earth. I was alone.