Nathan Almond

Alright, still putting the finishing touches on Push Notification, but since I already had the text up to the next milestone written, I decided to go ahead and post an update to Enter the Void first. Hit that magic 8,000 words, so went ahead and submitted for Round Two. We'll see how it goes, but now that that's taken care of, I should be back to getting Push Notification finally finished. Should hopefully be this week, so I can go back to focusing on Enter the Void for the final milestone for ONC (assuming I make it through Round Two, of course). Looking at my outline, I'm having those same worries as last year, but hopefully I should be able to keep things under 40,000 words this time. But knowing me... well, we'll see if I can manage it.

Alright, status update. First off, looks like I qualified through round one of the ONC. Whee! I've currently got enough text on my hard drive to get to the second milestone, just need to give it an editing pass and then I'll already be ready for the next deadline. The third deadline, though, definitely need to get some work done since I'm only barely at 8,000 words now. I think after getting Push Notification finished, I'm going to put my focus solely onto Enter the Void for the near future, since there's a lot left to write and I wouldn't mind trying to get it all the way through to the end, rather than giving up after Round 2 like I did with Push Notification.
          
          Speaking of Push Notification, I kinda stalled out for a bit trying to get that last chapter finished, but I wrote most of it tonight, and there's just a little bit more to do and an editing pass, and I'll finally have a finished novel on my profile. Honestly, that's more exciting to me than the ONC, it'll feel good to finally have something finished under my belt. Hoping to have that done by the end of this week, and then back to Enter the Void.
          
          And for anyone wondering when in the heck I'm finally going to get back to the main SLEGWIT storyline, fear not. Black Waters will be my sole focus once we're past the ONC; I think I'm going to put a self-moratorium on starting any more "side stories," just so I can finally get the first book of my massive saga finished. At least until ONC 2022 rolls around, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. :)
          
          Anyway, sorry as usual for my sluggish writing schedule, but I should be posting more regular updates going forward. Look forward to it!

Not quite up to 8000 words yet, but a new update of my ONC entry, Enter the Void, is in the books. Been putting it off, but just to make sure I don't get lost in the shuffle of everyone submitting at the last minute, guess I'll go ahead and officially submit my story for Round 1 tonight. Crossing my fingers.
          
          Going to try and get that last chapter of Push Notification all wrapped up in the next week or so, and then get up to the next deadline word count for Enter the Void after that. That should make things nice and comfortable for me deadline-wise, and ensure I can spend a good amount of time finally catching up on the main SLEGWIT cycle with Black Waters.
          
          One last thing, a bit of advice for all creative types: When you're already having trouble keeping yourself focused on your current writing projects, whatever you do, do NOT get started with AI Dungeon. I swear, that game/writing aid/improv tool is one of the most addictive things I've ever found on the internet. It doesn't exactly write stories for you, but when you come in with a germ of an idea and get into a back-and-forth with the AI's text generation, it can surprise you how well it takes your ideas off into wild and interesting directions. Gonna try my best to stay focused on SLEGWIT and its various aspects before I let myself play with it more, but you've never seen someone lay down money for a subscription to something as fast as I did for that site. Might have to try and use their scenario creation tools to create the SLEGWIT universe at some point. See what pops out.
          
          Anyway, going to put in my ONC submission now. Good luck to everyone else participating, and here's hoping we all make it through!

Well, decision made. Chapter 14 of Push Notification is in the books. Only one chapter left, and I will officially have a finished novel on my profile, finally. Can't say it turned out as well as I might have liked, but mostly I'm just happy to have something that I can mark as done.
          
          Fun fact: at this point Push Notification is already around 18,000 words above the upper limit of the ONC contest that it was originally started for, with one chapter still left to go. Part of me wonders if I could have gotten it finished and submitted for the contest if I had cut out the Miana/Sandra relationship that ended up kinda taking over the story. But I did enjoy writing that, and it'll be something to play with whenever I get around to covering the second half of the whole "creation of the SLEGWIT system" backstory sometime in the future.
          
          But that's probably a bit in the future. Plan for right now is to put in a little more for Enter the Void (might try to get it up to the word limit for round two, just so I have plenty of wiggle room as far as deadlines), and then knock out that last chapter of Push Notification and mark it as done-zo. Then, finally, I'll get back to the main storyline of Black Waters, and advance the goings-on in the main SLEGWIT universe.
          
          Gotta say, after my long idle second half of 2020, feels good to finally get past the writer's block and actively write again. Now, my only worry is that Enter the Void is going to make me two-for-two on "ONC entries that get too big to submit." (I've already caught myself adding in more subplots to my outline, and had to force myself to delete them.) Crossing my fingers I keep the textual diarrhea to a minimum this time. We'll see how it goes!

So, yeah, I did it.
          
          I really wasn't going to, but Prompt #4 for the ONC pretty much lined exactly with a side story I've been planning to write eventually, so I figured... why wait?
          
          What's that, you say? "You've got two other incomplete stories you've barely updated over the last six months or so. One of which is your *last* attempt to write for the ONC and ended up a behemoth of a novel that still isn't done."
          
          Yeah, those probably are good reasons to wait. But I did it anyway. :)
          
          Anyway, I'm already wrapped up with the first milestone for the ONC with my new story, Enter the Void, so check it out if you want to know more about Nadine Cutler, the mysterious hitman who has appeared several times in Black Waters, and will definitely be a major character going forward in the SLEGWIT cycle.
          
          So now, I have to decide if I want to try and crank out the last two chapters of Push Notification, or finally get back to Black Waters. If it's the latter, and if there's anyone who actually cares about that, the next chapter will be a Clio chapter, as we finally see where Lara ended up taking her, and what "The Reaper" is. I might try to get that posted soon, just on the off-chance that anyone reads my new Nadine side story and is like, "Wait, the main story hasn't been updated since September? Why would I waste my time reading that?"
          
          Dunno which way I'll go, but whichever 11 of you aren't spambots, you'll be the first to know. See you then!

Well, I didn't quite make it in 2020, huh.
          
          It's been a problem with a lot of my writing: I always have problems with finishing off a climax. (A problem in other areas of my life, too, but that's probably TMI ;) ) But the latest chapter of Push Notification is finally finished. Only two chapters left, and I'm trying to decide whether or not to just push through and finish it off now that I'm done with the hardest chapter, or go back to the long neglected Black Waters (so neglected I called it "Dark Waters" in my last update, heh.)
          
          Another decision to make soon: I wasn't going to do the Novella contest this year, since if it goes like last time it's just going to end up bloating up into a massive novel like it did with Push Notification. But I'm looking at some of the prompts and a few of them line up with some side stories I have in mind for the SLEGWIT universe. If I do end up taking a stab at it, going to make sure to get the whole outline set in stone ahead of time, so it doesn't get bloated out like Push Notification did. We shall see.
          
          Lots of excitement for 2021, and hopefully it'll be a lot more productive writing-wise then the latter half of 2020 was. Let's all cross our fingers!

Holy cow, has it really been three months?
          
          Apologies for the long gap in updates. The last few months have been a wild ride, between my actual day job keeping me plenty busy, an allergic reaction that left me covered in itchy hives for more than a week, and a big batch of stressing in early November (think you can guess what that was about), all of these factors not letting me concentrate on writing for a second.
          
          But I'm finally, slowly getting back into things. The latest update to Push Notification isn't the full chapter, but I figured I should get something out just to prove I'm not dead. Working on the rest and should hopefully have it out before the end of 2020.
          
          Speaking of that story: the long hiatus got me thinking about what's left to cover in Miana's story. Obviously, this whole saga has grown a lot since I entered it into that novella contest, and I've come to the decision to split off and expand a lot of the end material into its own separate story. Partly because I think there's a lot more interesting things I could do by making it into a sequel, and mostly because it means I can finish up Push Notification  #1, I guess now) in three chapters. It'll be nice to actually have a finished story on my profile (that isn't a tossed off piece of garbage for a contest). Only downside is I don't think that Push Notification 2 (probably not going to call it that, but just shorthand for now) is going to be my next priority. After I wrap up PN, probably going to just focus on Dark Waters for a while, get a few more parts done before putting any more side projects on my plate.
          
          Anyway, enjoy the latest update, and hopefully this won't be the last time you hear from me before 2021. Happy holidays, and talk to y'all soon!

Alright, all wrapped up on the second half of the latest chapter of Black Waters, and with it part 3 of the book. My current outline is a seven part novel, but the last part will be a bit of a climax and more fast-paced than the rest of the book, so I'd estimate that I'm half way done with it at this point. Woo, slowly but surely!
          
          But before we get started on Part 4, it's time to go back to Push Notification. Miana was in a pretty bad position when we last left her, and now so is your humble author, as he realizes he ended up having to write two somewhat action-focused chapters in a row. Never feel satisfied with how those turn out, but I'll give it my best shot. Hope to see you then!

First half of the latest chapter of Black Waters has been published. This will be the last chapter of Part 3, so you know that something's going to go down by the time it's all over. Is Nadine about to kick off a mob war with a single shot? Hopefully you should have the answer within a week or so, if I can keep myself motivated to finish it off. Once that's done, it'll be back to Push Notification, as we start to wind down that particular story as well. Doubt anything is going to be finished before those Watty deadlines (ha, that was never going to happen), but maybe next year.

Hey, took less than a month this time! I keep this up, I might be back to updating on a weekly basis again! But I doubt it.
          
          The next chapter of Push Notification in the books. I know this is a stunning development on my part, but it turns out that Push Notification is expanding again. (Remember when I thought this was going to be under the word limit for that novella contest? And now is at over 45,000 words with much more to come? Ha, ha!) The three remaining chapters have now gone to seven, as I felt like I was rushing things too quickly otherwise.
          
          But before we continue on that, time to get back to the main SLEGWIT saga, Black Waters. The next chapter marks the end of Part 3, and we will be returning to the darkest corners of the Network with Nadine. Tonight is the night of the big hit on Ambrose Gaultier's top lieutentant, and Nadine has made all the necessary preparations. Will it go smoothly?  Do professional hit jobs *ever* go smoothly in fiction, ever? Well, maybe this one will be different. See you all then!