Current Project Progress

Pilfer! (early-mid 2024)

Drafting: Complete!

First-Pass Revisions: Complete!

Second Draft: Complete!

Second-Pass Revisions: Complete!

Final Draft Candidate: Complete!

5/5/2024

Second-Pass revisions are humming along. The ice sculpture looks like a swan, now it's a matter of adding definition.

Maybe not a swan. Probably closer to a warthog. And it's not made out of ice, but some kind of cheese. The definition thing still stands, though.

5/1/2024

If there was ever a time to break out a dad-joke about it "being drafty in here", now would be the time to...

Oh. Welp. There it is.

Thanks to a birthday present of time to write, the second draft of Pilfer is complete! I know I've said this before, but I think this phase will go by quickly. Mostly, it's B-plots getting neatened up, then a good old fashioned line edit, and it'll be good to go!

I told a friend I'd been hoping to finish this up by the end of February. I know it's May, but I'm genuinely happy with what's been done with that time. Lord willing and writer's block being kind, I don't think this revision slog happens next book.

4/7/2024

I feel comfortable writing 80% there, because that's technically the amount done for where I'm at. The struggle is coming from the amount that has to come together in order for it to make sense and be polished. I'll be honest, I get a little daunted at this point in writing. I see all the threads from the first draft coming together to make a tapestry, but then I see where I didn't match the patterns correctly or where there's a bunch of other small adjustments to be made and I get overwhelmed and write run-on sentences in other media as a rebellion against the rigor I hold myself to and I'm doing it right now aren't I?

I feel like I'm letting someone, somewhere down by not finishing sooner. I feel guilty when I'm not writing, because I'm not "productive". I feel like a schmuck because I had grand ideas for three books a year (somehow, while working full-time and not ignoring my family) and those ideals aren't being met. I feel like a failure who is not only a failure but in the process of failing in a whole new way.

Internal Aaron's dialogue isn't kind right now. Say a prayer for me that I might be able to finish this thing well.

3/10/2024

Second draft continues apace, past the 40% mark now. There's been a few out-and-out rewrites, which take time to button up when you're not writing full-time. The end product is stuff I'm really, really happy with, so it's been well worth it. There's also a few stylistic changes I had to make (tense change during certain scenes/flashbacks, when and where they show up, how it ties back in, etc.) that have eaten up time.

I mean, no, I don't actually have a time limit outside of the timepiece of Providence, really, but I also want to move this along. I'd like to have four books under my belt before 2025.

2/14/2024

Apparently, when I schedule out second drafts, I need to add the Scotty factor to cover the "this is all garbage and needs to be completely rewritten" plaguing the early chapters of a draft. I think I'm almost out of that initial slog (although, I do know at least one later chapter is going to be completely rewritten from the group up). Beta reading has most definitely been pushed back to the beginning of March at the absolute earliest, though.

Splinters (early 2024)

Drafting: Complete!

Trunked: 100%

1/16/2024

As the immortal Sandi Patty once said, another time and another place.

I think there's a good story in Splinters, a story and a world that I love dearly. It was quite literally therapeutic to write. But the writer I need to be to make this into what it deserves doesn't exist quite yet.

So into the trunk you go, sweet Splinters. I love you.

Month: January 2019

Wait for the Drop (Part 1)

Wait for the Drop (Part 1)

Published on January 9, 2019

I fluctuate at any given point between crippling self-depreciation and riding around my ego like some kind of psychological rodeo. I feel like I’m either all in or I’m all bin. There’s no in-between. When I was on a stage, I would be flying high, feeling like I was finally whole. It didn’t matter what I was playing or who I was playing with, that was were I was the most Aaron I could possibly be.