16,000 words and counting

I just passed 16,000 words on my novel for Nanowrimo. How is that an outline can be rattling around in your head for months, years and a simple goal -- that of simply putting words on a paper/screen -- can create things that you never knew were there.

My characters seem to be taking on their own lives. One of them just murdered another one of the characters (and I kinda like that character so it was kind of sad). Funny, she didn't seem like a murderer when I first met her..

And so it goes..now I understand better when I hear a writer talk about their work how characters do emerge from their imagination and begin to live lives that are discovered as each word builds on the next.

I have no illusions that my novel is anything but a learning exercise, that it is a story that most in the writing world might look and give a chuckle. Hey, that' s OK...just getting this far is a huge step for me and I look forward to seeing what my novel turns out to be. This is fun, plain and simple.