I got a few notes back on a proposal currently awaiting a nod or a shoot-down from a well-known games publisher. The changes the editor requested make the story much stronger and make me kinda wish I'd thought of them first. Will rework the synopsis and send it back. Hopefully I'll hear back in January sometime.

On the original novel front, I've been stuck on the same chapter for a couple of weeks now. It's driving me mad. It's a "revelation" chapter, where things are finally made clear to the characters and they have to reevaluate their reasons for being there. I think I've found a cool way to make the supporting characters stick with the main character, one that won't compromise their own personalities. Once I get this chapter done it's officially at the halfway point. (Again. I had already written 100k in this story, but then ripped out 40k as it wasn't working. The characters were acting stupid, the writing was crap, the chapters were not flowing. It was a really hard decision to make, but I'm much happier with the direction now. Word count currently stands at about 70k.