Aaron Stone: Blog

I just want to thank readers for the wonderful feedback I've received for American Teen. I marvel that something I wrote so long ago and was initially reluctant to publish has been so well received.

People have been asking about the sequel and unfortunately, I have nothing new to report. I am probably about two thirds of the way through, but then again, I'm not much further along than I was two years ago. I have some ongoing health issues which make it hard for me to focus for any extended period, so writing is a real challenge for me.

I will revisit my outline to see if I can shorten what I want to describe, as a tradeoff to publish sooner. If I can't achieve this without sacrificing the writing too much, it may be worth it. We'll just have to see how things go. In the meantime, I appreciate everybody's patience and understanding as In try to figure this out.

Incidentally, I'm aware that the epilogue of American Teen got tacked on to the end of Chapter 48. I've sent a fix and left a moderator note to clarify.

Thanks again to everybody who passed along their comments about American Teen. Your support and interest really made sharing Tommy Matthews's story a worthwhile endeavor.

Aaron

Hi Readers-

Next Saturday will mark the last two chapters (and an epilogue) of American Teen. I want to thank everyone for the kind comments, advice and thoughtful criticism the story has gotten. Despite the story not being perfect, overall, I believe it has been very well received.

I want to thank my wonderful editors, TenDerloin, Old Rotorhead and Mr. Wolf. I would also like to thank my 'beta readers,' bigfoot227 and Conradca. These guys helped me to catch a number of goofy things that I missed or failed to correct when pointed out by my editors. Thanks again to all involved in this project!

As I have previously reported, this story is not the end of Tommy and his friends adventures. They will continue in American Teen 2: Freshman Year. I will ask for your patience, as the story is still a good deal away from completion. Then it will need to be edited and thoroughly proofread before I start to post it.

Now for housekeeping issues. There are a number of typos and small boo-boos in American Teen that need fixing and for posterity, I will get to those over time. I want to thank readers who reported them to me. As far as this batch of chapters, I've already found one. I guess nobody likes Mrs. Ransom, because so far, nobody has reported that I got her first name wrong (it should be 'Lavina' and Tommy referred to her as 'Eugenia.' I'll fix that one shortly (once I see if I've missed anything else from this latest batch).

Anyway, thanks again!!!

Aaron

Hi Readers-

I will be away for a little while and Internet access will be kind of sporadic. The good news is that I managed to get Saturday's posting in the queue, so it should not affect Chapters 41-42. I will do my best to keep to the following batch of chapters on schedule, but my process has a lot of moving parts that may be hard to coordinate.

If there is a possibility that the story will be delayed a few days, I will do another blog entry. Otherwise, I hope all of my American friends have a great Independence Day and that everybody is enjoying Wimbledon.

Hi Readers-

I just wanted to let you know I'm aware of the formatting issues with the East Chilton Babe Ruth League 1981 Standings in the past chapter (and elsewhere for that matter). I'm not an expert in html/xml stuff and how converting it from rtf, doc or odt can change the way it appears when it is converted and uploaded, but I'll look into it to see if I can improve the aesthetic of the standings.

I would also like to thank the eagle-eyed reader who caught the typo in the name of the first baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, not "Keensaw," as it appears. I'll add it to my fix list (which sadly I'm behind multiple chapters, sigh).

Speaking of Judge Landis, his heavy-handed (though somewhat understandable) treatment of the the eight "Black Sox" players (and the situation leading up to it) was fairly well documented in the film Eight Men Out. The need to police the game was important, but to give the same draconian punishment to each of the eight players (regardless of each's complicity in the plot) seemed unfair.

To this day, I feel like Buck Weaver and Joe Jackson got raw deals (getting a lifetime ban) considering Weaver's only crime was not ratting out his teammates. Weaver was a very good player and had every chance to have had an outstanding career.

Next to Willie Mays, Joe Jackson might have been the most complete outfielder who ever played the game and based upon the merits of his play, should have been a first ballot-Hall-of-Famer. Jackson purportedly took money, but played a sterling outfield (making some excellent plays) and hit .364 in the '19 Series (almost 10 points higher than his lifetime average. Many baseball historians feel that due to his naivete and his reportedly fairly low intelligence, he didn't fully understand the implications of taking the money from gamblers. That is what makes his situation so sad.

The only other player I felt sorry for was pitcher Eddie Cicotte. Cicotte was one of the best pitchers of his day and had a historical 1919 season. He pitched to an outstanding record of 29 (wins) and 7 (losses), with a remarkable earned run average of 1.94. The reason Cicotte was stuck on 29 wins was that White Sox owner, Charlie Comiskey, had him "shutdown" early (purportedly to save him for the World Series). More likely it was because there was a sizeable bonus in Cicotte's contract if he had won 30 games. Considering how underpaid (compared to other teams) his players were, it is a reasonable conclusion to believe it was Comiskey's legendary cheapness that caused him to cheat Cicotte out of his bonus.

Sorry for the baseball history lecture and rant. Thanks for bearing with me and hope you continue to enjoy American Teen.

Aaron

Hi Readers-

I'm aware of the problem and have just reposted Chapter 25. Hopefully what I've done corrects the problem. If not, I've notified the moderators and hopefully, they can manually correct the problem (just in case).

The story hit an important milestone. As of Chapter 26, we've just passed the midway point in the story (in terms of word count). Also, in Chapter 25, school bus bragging rights are on the line between Tommy and David Lincoln (as Tommy's Lions play David's Cheetahs). Tune in to the baseball game to see what happens!

Thanks for the continuing great feedback and reader comments. I'm glad to see that people are still enjoying the story.

Aaron