So, what's everyone doing now that the competition is over? Do you have plans for your novel?

Personally, I've set mine aside for a little bit. I am: (a) looking for a better software solution (Sokio - I'm looking at Obsidian + Longform now...), (b) doing some research before I move forward (while I don't want to do hard SciFi, I want my novel to feel like a potential reality), and (c) obviously there are the upcoming holidays which means other stuff going on.

I'm hoping to get back to my novel by the end of the year, and have a real draft written sometime early next year.

I'm more just getting to terms with Obsidian at the moment... I looked at it a long time ago (like 7 or 8 years ago), and thought it was interesting at the time, but I wasn't happy with the syncing options, and felt like it was a bit too mind-mappy for my preferences.

At that time, I decided that Notion was the best option for me. But, then I found that Notion was too much of a tweaker's playground (ie, I spent more time creating new structures and forms, and developing different work flows, etc.). The final straw came when I ran into an issue with the editor (an issue for me - obviously not for everyone), and when I asked support they said there was never going to be an option to change (or fix) it.

So, at that time, I migrated to Joplin. Joplin is excellent - really fits my preferred model for writing / note-taking. But there are some things I don't like about it for novels.

Bottom line: I just have to see if I can make Obsidian fit my work flow. If I can get there with it, then I'll adopt it. If not, I'll keep looking.

"Worst" case, I'll fall back to my old system of using LyX for writing, and Joplin for notes...

Hiding out from the stress of the holidays!

Yeah, that's kind of what I am thinking here. Although, for me, this is also the time that I can do some research wtihout too much pressure (no family or obligations that I have to handle).

I think I have my timeline messed up. I remember that in 2015 I ended up using Notion for a while, until I had two issues with it: (1) some quirky annoying behavior with their editor that I was told they would never fix, and (2) their Android app started behaving very badly - it was so heavy that it shaved 2-3 hours off my battery life. This was somewhere in 2016 or 2017, so that's when I started looking again, and I thought I looked at Obsidian -- but it was likely still Dynalist.

I ended up on StandardNotes for a while before I found Joplin. Once I knew Joplin had an Android app that worked well, and I was able to sync between all my devices without having to pay for a service I went all in on it. (Also, somewhere in here I messed with CkickUp for a while, but it seemed like a Notion knock-off that wasn't any better for my purposes.)