Status Updates From Splinters of the self

Up to chapter 31. Almost halfway done with the rough draft. Looks like this one might be a short but sweet read.

In chapter 29, seventeen-year-old Zach walks in on his mother shooting up heroin.

Chapter 28 of rough draft complete!

"And he believed her. And he listened to her. And her words helped him through so much of that pain.
Until she showed her true colors, and inserted her own pain into a void in his heart that she created by leaving him."

"Rage flowed through his veins like the blood itself; he pictured Andre and the rest of his squad, and the desire for revenge possessed him almost like a demon.
And yet, he remained planted where he was, chained in place by his mind."

Just finished chapter 19. Let's go!

Upto chapter 19 of the rough draft. So far pretty emotional and crazy.

"He had nothing to say to his father. In fact, he was terrified of his father; at this time of night, his father was like an unstable brick of dynamite, and one wrong word could set him off. Zach learned through time and experience to keep quiet before this man. To never speak unless spoken to, and even then only respond with the minimum and most necessary words."

"But he’d been working for the same company for eighteen years. Had thought he’d work there for the rest of his life. It was a hard blow, because although he didn’t particularly like his job, he liked his environment, and he loved the guys he worked with - he said it was so hard to find the kind of military camaraderie on the outside but he found it there. He gave that job his all, and trusted the people in charge."

"If she’d truly loved him, as he loved her, she would have stayed. She would have been empathetic and understanding and she would have stayed with him.
But he should have known."

Now upto chapter 16

A line from what I wrote today - "He couldn’t help but think of heaven. Couldn’t help but wonder if he deserved to go there even if it did exist."

Just finished writing chapter 14, in which Zach thinks back on life when his family was whole. Before his father began to withdraw into himself. "The signs were there, but they were too silent too see at the time."

I'm working on the rough draft of this book, and it's already pretty wild. It kicks off with this guy Zach - he’s a Marine - stuck in a room in Afghanistan with another dude named Andre. Andre’s bleeding out from a wound Zach didn’t even know he had. Things are getting intense fast, and now we’re about to get into Zach’s messed-up past and figure out how he ended up in this situation.