Armored Piercing Operations

I will be taking a long break before starting the second draft of AP3. Like I said in the last update, I did a lot of work on the AP series this year. I like to game, but I had to do a lot less of it in order to work on AP. By looking at the first two AP books, you can see that I put a lot of effort into this series. AP3 will be a massive endeavor, and so will AP4 when I get to work on its second draft.

I also have another standalone book that I started in 2023 but haven't finished yet. I want to return to work on that and if I keep the same momentum I had with AP4, I can finish it very quickly. I'm also thinking about writing a quick blog post about AP3/AP4. It has been a long wait…

So about a day after the last updates, I finally finished the outline for AP3. It is 151 pages long, which is the longest outline I've ever written. I've been writing the outline almost everyday since September, and I did put it on hold so I could focus on AP4. I've been taking a break since finishing the outline but I plan to get to work on the second draft soon. This has been a very busy year for the AP series and I accomplished many goals. I'm very excited to see how AP3 will turn out and I can confidently say it will be the biggest book I've published so far.

To add on top, the AP3 outline is officially longer than the original draft of AP2. That is pretty insane to have an outline that long. I think my second draft of AP2 was above 260 pages, and I doubt the outline will surpass that. Despite the heavy workload, I'm glad to have made so much progress with AP3 and AP4 this year.

So I have been making a lot of progress on my AP3 outline. I'm above 30 pages of notes so far, which cover the first 600 pages of the original draft. I never wrote an outline that long before and AP3 will be the first book I write with a full outline to guide me. It has been very difficult, like I mentioned in my last posts. One of the most annoying things so far is needing to rearrange certain scenes to fit within my notes. Let's say I have a battle in Augsburg, Germany in the original draft, but in the new draft, I need to have that battle take place in Stuttgart, Germany and add in a different context. Or the Augsburg battle takes place on Chapter 27, but now I need to move it to Chapter 38. This is the type of complexity I've been dealing with…

Sometimes I regret adding extra details to AP1. For example, groups like Warhawk, Zaeed Front, and the Afghan insurgent groups were not in the original drafts for the first three Armored Piercings. They do add an interesting dynamic to the world of the series, but it created a lot more work for me. One recurring issue I had while writing AP4 was repeatedly forgetting details I wrote earlier, which resulted in plot holes later on in the book. I don't usually write outlines, but for AP4 I had to write multiple for each main plotline so I could properly keep track. I may need to do the same with AP3. I think I was premature in stating that AP3 will come out in 2026 at the earliest.

So, I just ran into a snag with AP3. There's a section set in Germany in the original draft, in fact a big chunk of the book takes place in that country, and I'm having difficulty trying to figure out how to reconcile a rewrite with my outline notes so far. The main reason for this is because I stopped working on the outline for AP3 when I decided to focus heavily on finishing AP4. Now coming back to this months later, I forgot the ideas I had before.

My approach to rewriting AP3 is similar to how I rewrote AP1. The beginning of AP1 and a few other missions were mostly unchanged. So with AP3, I'm trying to recontextualize the book with my published versions of AP1 and AP2 while keeping the same story beats of the original AP3 draft. But also after finishing AP4, I have to be…

So I finally finished my 1st draft for Armored Piercing 4 on August 19. It stands at 1465 pages, which solidifies it as the longest book I've ever written in my life. I started writing this book in August 2017, which means I've been working on this for 8 years! It has been a crazy journey working on this. I will write a blog in the future about my writing journey on AP4. Now I can finally return to working on my 2nd draft for AP3. The outline will take some time and then I'll get straight to writing. If I can repeat the writing speed I had in the tail end of AP4, maybe I can publish AP3 next year. We shall see how long it takes.

I'm now above 1440 pages for Armored Piercing 4, making it the first time I ever went over 1400 pages for a book. It still amazes me how much progress I've been making on the book this year. I wrote the last major battle of the book and things are in a falling-action attitude right now. I could possibly be finished with the book by the end of the month or early next month. Very exciting times!

I recently passed 1380 pages in Armored Piercing 4. I'm well on my way to reaching 1400 pages, which would be another first. I feel like I'm nearing the end of the story, so I don't think I'll hit 1500 pages. Hopefully, I will finish the story this month.

With Armored Piercing 4, I have now surpassed 1330 pages, making it the first time I ever wrote a draft that exceeded 1300 pages. I'm very proud of the progress I've been making these past couple of months. I wrote over 100 pages in one month alone, which is the most I've ever done in a long time. I hope I can keep this up!

In my current draft for Armored Piercing 4, I have now surpassed 1280, which means I'm well on my way to hitting 1300 pages. This would be another first for me. It's been very exciting to reach these many pages. As a reminder, I write my first drafts on paper, so I have a thick stack of papers. Story wise, things are moving at a very fast pace and some characters have to deal with shocking revelations. I won't mention any plot details since Armored Piercing 3 is still not out yet. I'm very motivated to finish AP4 soon so I can get to work on AP3.

I recently surpassed 1230 pages for AP4. This makes it the longest book I've ever written. My 1st draft for AP3 was just below 1200 pages. I never imagined reaching this length for the book, but there's still so much story to tell. There's no doubt I'll surpass 1300 pages, and maybe I'll hit 1400 pages, which would be insane. I'm trying to finish AP4 as soon as possible so that I can get back to working on a final draft for AP3. It's been 4 years since publishing AP2 and I don't want to keep any fans waiting for more years. When I finish AP4, I might write a blog post about my writing journey on that book.

I surpassed 1170 pages for AP4 and there's still a lot more to write. I have no doubt I will break my 1200 pages record I made with AP3's first draft. It's crazy that I've written so much over the years, but it's sad it took me over 7 years to reach this point. AP3 took me 3 years to write. I think the hardest challenge with AP4 compared to the rest of the series is keeping track of all the plotlines. There's a story you see at the forefront and another story that's in the background, but that background story has a huge impact on the main story. AP3 will be a huge effort to edit for publishing, but AP4 will be a bigger monster.

I surpassed 1100 pages for AP4. Things story-wise are moving at a fast pace. But one of the most difficult parts of writing this book is how complex the story is. There are a lot of moving parts and I've made many notes to keep track of different storylines. I keep forgetting details from early on in the book and I think I'll have to reread the whole book before finishing it. Maybe I'll write a blog about how hard it is to write a book with multi-level storytelling. Even AP3 will be tough to finish. My outline for changes for that book is about 17 pages now, and that only covers the first 300 or so pages. If I ever work on a different series, I'll try to keep it simpler to make it easy on myself.

I surpassed 1050 pages for AP4 recently. I feel like I'm at the last third of the book. Been working on this book for too long, I really want to conclude it soon. Haven't finished an outline for the new draft of AP3. I don't know when I'll ever publish it to be honest. It's easier to make a new novella than to continue working on AP3/4.