Armored Piercing Operations

I'm now 131 pages into the second draft, which is 13 pages since the last update. I struggled a lot with the Pripyat, Ukraine mission. I needed to make a battle scene work and I kept getting stuck on how to make it work. Thankfully, I did end up finishing the mission, and it's like 25 or so pages. The next few chapters will be talking/briefing scenes and I think after that I'll have a mission where I introduce another from the Mayakovsky family.

Despite writing a bit less than last week, I actually did a lot of writing overall. I wrote two chapters for a standalone book and I added a few more pages to my AP5 brainstorming. So, not all my writing last week was done on AP3 exclusively. There's a lot of work to do all around. I'm also thinking about taking a break from AP3 so…

AP1's 7 year anniversary is coming up very soon. I haven't really been celebrating each year on the blog, but I hope any fans will rejoice with the series being around for so long. I think I'll try to make AP1-related Q&As on Goodreads. I don't think I'll return to VSS365 just for AP1, but I suppose it would be an easy way to celebrate. I've been working on this series since 2010, which is a very long time. It is very close to my heart for sure.

I'm now at 118 pages in AP3's second draft, which is 15 pages since the last update. I did say it was likely that I would end up writing less than last week. This time around, the difficulty was with a mission set in Ukraine. If you remember at the end of AP2, Sipho and team were on their way to an outpost Merlov Krachenko had in Pripyat, Ukraine. So, this mission was them finally reaching that outpost. They do run into some complications, but I had a hard time figuring out what sort of problems they should face. I do look at my first draft constantly to see how the original versions of scenes played out. Despite both versions having the same time and location, they both play out very differently. I did end up working through a lot of the mission, but I'm not done writing it yet.…

I'm now at 103 pages, which is 31 pages since the last update. This is the most I've written in a week so far. The first 27 pages were written in 5 days. I ended up missing two days in a row this last week, but I still ended up writing a lot. And I've finally passed the 100 page mark. I'm on page three of the outline, which is crazy to see that 100 pages only cover up to that amount. The outline is 151 pages, so how many pages in the second draft would it be once it's all finished?

Overall, this was a great week for AP3. But I predict I'll end up writing much less next week. Hopefully, these updates have been exciting for any AP fans.

I'm now 72 pages into the second draft of AP3, which is 22 pages since the last update. Things got a little rough but I'm glad I wrote two times what I did last week. I'm finally on page two of the outline. The current chapter is set in Moscow, Russia. I forgot to write a chapter before where a different group of characters get kidnapped. Thankfully, I found a way to add it in without having to do any restructuring. The Moscow scene is split into two parts: one that is essentially a briefing and the other is the mission. I put the kidnapping chapter between the briefing and mission.

I think I can get the Moscow chapter done quickly. The next mission will be in Afghanistan and I think I'm going to have challenges again with character bios of returning characters. So don't be surprised if I write…

I'm now at 50 pages for AP3's second draft, which is 11 pages since the last update. So, one page less than last week. I struggled with doing character bios for new characters. See, most of these "new" characters are in AP4 as well, so coming up with consistent details between the different books was challenging.

I also struggled a lot with the first battle set in France. I kept erasing and rewriting different parts. I keep overextending scenes compared to the OG draft. For some reason, I keep worrying about the action scenes not being too over-the-top. If you read the sample chapters of the OG drafts of AP1/AP2, then you'll know how over-the-top my old writing used to be. I don't want to fall into the realism trap where I can't write any fun scenes. I need to go back to being ok with writing silly scenes.

At…

So I'm currently at 39 pages written for the AP3 second draft, which is 12 pages since the last update. The main reason I wrote much less than the first week is because I've been having more difficulty figuring out what to fix. What I've written covers the first page of the outline, so basically one page for the outline accounts for 39 pages for the draft. In comparison to the OG draft, it would cover around the 20-28 page mark. Not having the beginning parts in great detail on the outline has made it hard to go through this part in the second draft. However, I do have ideas of how to continue so this slump won't last long I hope.

Some weeks I'll write less than others despite writing almost every single day. This is the process with writing. But doing these types of updates will help me…

I procrastinated for a long time before starting the second draft of AP3. My mental health went down again and I'm still dealing with stress. I wish I could change my environment so I wouldn't have to deal with it anymore, but that's not feasible right now. However, just like with AP4 last year, finally working on AP3 has given me a boost and working on it has been the main thing I look forward to doing everyday.

If you followed my updates last year with AP4 and AP3's second draft outline, then look forward to more updates with AP3's second draft. I know it's been 5 years since AP2, so I hope you'll bear with me as I try to get this next entry out.

I finally started working on the second draft of AP3. I started at the end of March and as of now I've written 27 pages. I didn't write a full detailed breakdown for the intro section in the outline, so I had to do a lot of filling in the blanks. It will get a lot easier down the line for sure. Another challenging part are the recaps. In this sense, I have to reintroduce characters from AP2 but not make it too lengthy. These books tend to have a lot of characters, so I shouldn't get too bogged down in the details.

What I've written so far would cover the first 7 pages of the original draft. There is one news report, instead of the typical news roundup. In the OG, it was one page. In the second draft, it's 3 pages. It's also different because I wrote it…

I will likely write updates on here when I start writing AP3's second draft like I did for AP4 when I first started this group. Though, I want to try to do weekly updates so I can easily track my progress. With AP4, I only wrote an update when I made a milestone, like reaching 1200 pages or 1370 pages.

I predict the second draft will be 600-800 pages. Though, that's how long I thought AP4 was going to be. I have an outline to follow this time so the only thing I really need to figure out is the details for each chapter.

I may also write another novella so I can have something out this year. Perhaps if I focus, I could get the second draft at least typed up on Word by the end of the year. We shall see!

I've been reading through the first draft of AP4. It's crazy to see how the book evolved throughout the years. There are a lot of inconsistencies and plot holes that I'll need to fix for later. The beginning is rough, especially due to there being a lot of news stories in the News Roundup and a chunk of them don't add anything meaningful to the story. Also, some of my writing was confusing to follow with how I described things. However, I find the book gets a lot better the further I get into it.

I will likely write an outline for a second draft like I did with AP3 last year, but I don't foresee that draft being radically different story-wise. I've been writing some notes in parts of the draft to fix for later. I won't get a second draft done anytime soon since I need to publish…

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.

I'm above 130 pages for the AP3 outline and I have less than 40 pages of the original draft to go through before I can finally start the second draft. So, I wrote over 30 pages since the last update, which is the most amount of pages added to the outline in a week. However, it was very challenging because I scratched out ideas a few times. As I said before, recontextualizing the book has been a difficult process. For example, I'm at the second last battle of the book. In the original draft, the battle played out one way, but for the outline it has to play out a different way. This caused a lot of writer's block that took a lot of effort to overcome. At the very least, I'm nearing the end of the outline. Either I finish the outline this week or next week.

I'm now above 100 pages on the AP3 outline. This covers up to 1075 pages of the original draft. I'm past the Germany segment and am getting close to the final plot points of the book. It seems I keep adding 20 pages to the outline every week. Hopefully, I can finally finish the outline in the next 2 or 3 weeks. Also, it is kinda crazy that the outline is so long. This is longer than the first drafts of Nibowin: The Island of Death and AP1. The second draft for AP3 will surely be an interesting task for me.

I'm close to 80 pages on the AP3 outline. I made a lot of progress since my last update and I'm nearing the end of the Germany segment of the book. In the original draft, nearly half of the book took place in that country. A major character died in the end of the Hamburg arc, but for the outline I decided to keep them alive and bring them for Berlin, the last arc in Germany. I also chose to redo how another group of characters get introduced. I think things will get a lot easier once I get past Germany.

I have to be vague because a lot of things happen in this book. There isn't any way you would be able to predict what happens next after reading the first two AP books.

So I'm about 60 pages into the outline for AP3. This covers about the first 850 pages of the original draft. I'm making progress everyday and I hope to get it done later this year. Though, I don't always make a lot of progress each day. I tend to spend at least 30 minutes sitting at my desk trying to figure out what to write next. This is the difficulty of writing under heavy constraints.

I last left off in the middle of an action scene. This is the last major battle in Hamburg, Germany. The characters have gone through many trials to combat a major "General" of sorts who works for Merlov Krachenko. I can't go into more specifics without going into spoiler territory. The last thing you are likely familiar with is Sipho and team flying in Petrenko's jet in England, and that jet getting shot down. Maybe…

The first drafts of the first three AP books exist in one timeline, while the second drafts of AP1/AP2 (i.e. the published versions you're familiar with) exist in another timeline. While writing the outline for the second draft of AP3, I have to make it fit with the second timeline. One big issue I noticed with the first draft of AP3 is that it has a lot of plot holes and inconsistencies. For example, in Germany, there are different factions: German military, Russian military (i.e. Merlov's henchmen), and Sipho Morgess's crew. There are times when the Germans and Russians are working together against Sipho Morgess but then also against each other and sometimes the Germans and Morgess team up against the Russians, which makes no sense. I was in high school while writing AP3, so I didn't have a deep enough grasp on plot consistency. This makes preparing a second…

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…

I already started writing down brainstorm ideas for Armored Piercing 5, which is about 3 pages now. I won't jump into AP5 right away, despite really wanting to. When I finished my 1st draft of AP2, I started on AP3 a few weeks later. If I were to guess when I'll start my 1st draft of AP5, I'd say 2027 or 2028.

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 also wondering if I should start teasing Armored Piercing 3 some more. It's been 4 years since publishing AP2, so I figure any fans would be hungry for details. I did make two VSS365 posts on Mastodon Social that teased AP3. I could make more, but I've lost a lot of interest to do any VSS365 posts since they get no engagement.

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'm very close to publishing a new book soon. After that, I should probably spend more time on getting more AP books out. I've been going back and forth on whether I want to make spin-off books. I'm not keen on doing prequels, but it could bring more eyes to the series. I dunno.

I think I'm gonna split AP3 into multiple parts. It's going to take a very long time to type up the whole thing, so it's better I split it. This will extend the number of entries in the series to above 5 books, but it's been almost 4 years since I published any new AP books. If I work at it, I could have Part 1 done by the end of this year.

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.

Welcome to our group Armored Piercing Operations! A space for us to connect with each other and share our love for the series. Feel free to post your thoughts, theories, etc.