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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.

I'm now 252 pages into the second draft, which is 25 pages since the last update. I finally finished the meat of the Brazil segment. Only thing left is an epilogue of sorts, but the battle is over. I've been on Day 3 of the war for weeks now and I think I'll finally start Day 4 this coming week. I'm also on page 11 of the outline. So, there is about 4 pages to go until I get to Germany, which will be the biggest segment of the book. This is the fifth or so week in a row I did over 20 pages, which is very impressive. The book is already getting thick and there is still so much more to write. With Brazil alone, I could sell it off as a book on its own. I could also end it here as a part one since what…

I'm now 227 pages into the second draft, which is 23 pages since the last update. I'm still in the Brazil segment, but I think this coming week I will finally finish it. The villain I mentioned in previous posts has finally been introduced and he will bring about a very tense conclusion to the Brazil segment. I think this is the third or fourth week in a row that I managed to hit 20 pages. I'm very proud of the consistent progress and it has really elevated my mental health, which would've been very poor otherwise. Brazil has been so much fun to write, it was also fun when I wrote it in the OG draft years ago, and I think you will have fun too when you finally get to read it.

By the way, I think this is the 6th time I wrote a book that hit 200 pages. The first was AP3's 1st draft, second was an unfinished zombie story, third was an alien invasion story, fourth was AP4's first draft, fifth was AP2's second draft. I don't think I'm forgetting another book, at least I hope not.

It's also going to be interesting to compare the length for the published versions of first 3 AP books. AP3 will absolutely be the longest in the series.