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I'm now 333 pages into the second draft, which is 17 pages since the last update. I finished the France finale and started a segment in Australia. I was able to hit the minimum before the weekend, which is a huge step up compared to the last few weeks. So, my mental health got a boost. Like I said before, my mental health is tied to how much work I get done per week. The weeks where I struggled to hit the minimum lowered my mental health, while the weeks where I easily surpassed the minimum increased it. It's not healthy to have it tied to my performance, but it doesn't seem like it will change anytime soon. I guess I should be happy that I made more progress last week. I'm also on page 17 of the outline and after the Australia segment, Germany chapters will begin.

I'm now 316 pages into the second draft, which is 10 pages since the last update. I mostly had talking chapters and then started the France finale, which I predict won't be that long. In comparison to the OG draft, the second draft is about 20 pages shorter at the same point of the story. So, this is a sign that the second draft will be shorter than the first draft.

I also struggled greatly to reach the minimum. I hate that I've slowed down so much and it has become a challenge to even hit the minimum each week. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself because I never had this level of consistency before. Even with the final months of AP4, I didn't do a weekly goal. At one point, I was expecting myself to hit 600 pages by the end of August, which is definitely not happening.…

I'm now 306 pages into the second draft, which is 13 pages since the last update. It was another week where I struggled to hit the 10 page minimum and only hit it the last minute before posting the new update. However, I did manage to finish another short segment. The France finale is coming up and then segments in Germany will begin. I think I said this before, Germany took up at least half of the book in the first draft of AP3. So, it will be similar in the second draft.

It is unfortunate that I've been struggling a lot more lately compared to the high productivity I experienced writing the Brazil segment. Like I said before, my mental health is tied to how much or how little I write per week. So, barely hitting the minimum each week has been hurtful for me. At least I reached…

I know the last post was more rambling than I usually do. No one really reads these posts, but doing these updates help me keep track of my progress and help me put things into perspective. The Draft2Digital debacle really hurt my options for self publishing and made me feel more boxed in. As I said before, Amazon is the only thing keeping me around as a publisher. If they copy Draft2Digital, then I will quit publishing for good. I'm putting so much time and effort into AP and I need it to feel worth it in the end. The Raid of Hotel Laurier barely moved units, despite it being very cheap. If AP3 does similar or worse, then it would feel like I wasted so much time for nothing. Me going out of my way to hit at least 10 pages a week is something unprecedented for me. So,…

I'm now 293 pages into the second draft, which is 14 pages since the last update. I dropped the ball this week and almost didn't reach the minimum 10 page goal. I wrote some pages hours before this update, which I've never done before, and because of that I hit 14 pages. I felt more tired and procrastinated more. I did manage to finish another short segment and set up another one. I think I have a harder time writing chapters that don't focus on characters from the first two APs. Also, my mental health declined because I wrote a lot less. It seems my mental health is dependent on how much I write in a week. During the Brazil segment, my mental health was a lot higher since I had consistent good writing weeks. Before the weekend, I didn't hit the 10 page minimum and I almost felt like…

With the post I made when I reached 200 pages, I said I hoped I would reach 600 pages by the end of August. That was a lofty goal to make. If I am to hit that, I would have to write at least 10 pages a day, or 70 pages a week. From now to the end of August is about one and a half months. So, I would need to write over 320 pages by then, which would be record breaking for me. I didn't write that much in a short time during the final months of the AP4 draft. So, I'm more likely to reach 400 pages by the end of August and maybe 600 by November.

I'm now 279 pages into the second draft, which is 11 pages since the last update. I ended up doing less this week because I had to do some publishing-related stuff, which took up a lot of time. And I did run into a brief roadblock where I wasn't sure how to continue the book. I did finish the final battle of Afghanistan, which really tested Conrad's limits. After that, I got stuck. It was mostly related to travel timing. One character has to leave one country and end up in another, but I had the time inbetween be very short which was inconsistent when other characters travelled to that same country. I had to shift some plans around on the outline, but I figured it out. I think I will write more this coming week.

I'm now 268 pages into the second draft, which is 16 pages since the last update. I did say I would likely end up writing less, but it's not that much lower. This also breaks the streak of doing 20+ pages a week. I'm now on Day 4 of the war and there is a lot of stuff coming up. The finale of Afghanistan is the next segment and the France finale is also coming up. I will hit 300 pages soon, but I don't know if it will be this coming week or after.

So, I just counted the last weeks and I did 20+ pages five weeks in a row. Which means I wrote 100+ pages within 5 weeks. This is very positive progress! However, I think I might end up writing less this week because I'll be switching to different groups of characters. I guess it was easier these past 5 weeks because they were mainly focused on one segment, Brazil. I have some France battles coming up but they won't nearly be as long. But I'm still motivated as ever to keep going with this book and hopefully any fans are excited by the progress. I am determined to make the 5+ year long wait since AP2 worthwhile.