2025 has been the most productive year for Armored Piercing

If you have been following the updates on my “Armored Piercing Operations” Wix group, you’d know I’ve made a lot of progress on both Armored Piercing 3 and 4. Firstly, I completed my first draft of Armored Piercing 4 on August 19. This marks eight years of my writing journey on that book. Secondly, I finished the outline for the second draft of Armored Piercing 3 near the end of October. The outline is 151 pages, making it the longest outline I’ve ever written.

I’m amazed that I was able to make so much progress with the series this year. I started writing updates on my Armored Piercing 4 progress late last year. The updates became more frequent from May to August. This year alone, I wrote under 400 pages, with about 300 pages of that during the May to August period. I honed my skills and maintained a focus I haven’t had in about 10 years. You see, Armored Piercing 4 took so long to write because I kept procrastinating. Life hasn’t been that great for me since 2018, which has impacted my writing. I’ve dealt with depression, which made me not want to write as much. I did have times when I got energized to write, but they wouldn’t last as long. There were several times I wanted to quit writing Armored Piercing 4. I even wrote a one-page outline to cram Armored Piercing 4’s story in the last 20 or so pages of Armored Piercing 3. I also wrote a two-page outline to redo Armored Piercing 4 and write a very condensed version with a dumbed-down plot. Thankfully, I scrapped those outlines. Armored Piercing 4 ended up being 1465 pages, which is the longest book I’ve ever written. My previous record holder was Armored Piercing 3, whose first draft was 1199 pages.

I also had some trouble with Armored Piercing 3’s second draft outline. As I mentioned before in the Wix group updates, recontextualizing the second draft to fit with the current versions of Armored Piercing 1 and 2 was very difficult. And I had to avoid contradicting what I wrote in Armored Piercing 4. I’m a pantser writer, so needing to adhere to so many rules was very straining on me. I did get it done eventually.

2025 is the most productive year I’ve had in years. First, publishing The Raid of Hotel Laurier. Second, finishing Armored Piercing 4’s first draft. Last, finishing the outline for Armored Piercing 3’s second draft. I’ve been taking a writing break throughout November, but will likely return to writing in December. It has been four years since publishing Armored Piercing 2. For those patiently waiting for Armored Piercing 3, I appreciate you for sticking with this series that means so much to me. Though Armored Piercing 3 is nowhere near ready, I hope you at least enjoyed my book updates on the series. You can expect more updates when I start writing the second draft. In the meantime, reread Armored Piercing 1 and 2 if you haven’t already, and check out my other books.