Aaron Stone: Blog

Hello Readers-

One of the themes of American Teen is racial issues in suburban/rural America in 1981. In future chapters, there will be a few examples of racial slurs used by both some white and black characters. Please understand that I do not use these words to glorify them, only to show that bigotry was (and unfortunately to a certain extent, still is) part of life in these kinds of communities. After all, we are barely 15 years or so removed from the Civil Rights Act at the time of this story.

In this chapter, there is also an Italian slang word that some people might find offensive. Again, please keep in mind that I do not glorify the use of such language, but it does reflect the way these characters were raised as they are a product of their times.

Despite these warnings, I hope you continue to enjoy the next installment of American Teen.

Thank you.

Aaron

P.S. It's baseball time (at least for Tommy, lol)!

Hello Readers-

I want to continue to thank you for the wonderful e-mail responses, great votes, and the overall response that this story continues to get. Some of your e-mails have been really touching and have really struck a chord with me. It's humbling to think that a story I started so long ago would be so well received. Thanks again!

Now just a little housekeeping. I've had some readers ask about my future posting schedule and about whether this story will land on Bookappy or not. The answers are a little complicated.

I started posting this story after it was written, but before it was fully edited. That's my fault. The only thing in my defense is that I never imagined that it would garner such interest. Since I don't consider the story ready to be made available for pay, I won't post it to Bookappy for now. If and when it gets to that point, I'll definitely consider doing so. In the meantime, I will also need to research the consequences and limitations (if any) for existing readers before adding the story to Bookappy (since I have no experience with Bookappy).

The good news is that I have enough chapters ready to commit to a once-a-week posting schedule for some time. As of now, I plan to post the next three chapters of American Teen next Saturday. After that, I will try to post at least one chapter a week (though I will start with two and see how things go).

Thanks again for the wonderful response to my story.

Aaron

P.S. Baseball is just around the corner and that is true for Tommy in Chapter 9, lol.

Hello-

Just wanted to alert readers that I made a couple of small corrections to Chapter 3. They have no bearing on the overall plot of the story, so it doesn't need to be re-read (or downloaded again).

I'm still amazed and quite happy with the reader acknowledgment and feedback I've received. This community has always been a supportive place and I appreciate everyone who has reached out to me and/or voted for my story.

Baseball has always been a great love of mine and will feature very prominently in future chapters. I've done my best to keep the game action as believable as possible, drawing on my years of playing and my knowledge of the game. I've been lucky to have our own TeNderLoin as one of my editors. He's an honest-to-goodness baseball umpire, so he's been helpful in correcting me here and there (mostly about some youth baseball rules and umpire etiquette).

Still, if you don't like baseball, you can still skip the game parts and still enjoy the rest of the story, lol.

Thanks again to all of my readers and hope you continue to enjoy American Teen.

All I can say is WOW! The reception for American Teen is beyond anything I could have expected and I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who took the time to write to me about the story. I'm truly humbled. Not only did I receive a great deal of encouragement, but I also got some very useful feedback.

I also wanted to report that I made some minor fixes to the story that I just dropped into the queue. Most of these were silly punctuation problems (I think I got just about all of them), but there was one pretty serious continuity problem that I fixed too. Please don't feel obliged to download the new version, as the story is not materially changed in any way.

Thanks again, Readers! I hope you will continue to enjoy Tommy's adventures over the following weeks to come.

Hello Readers-

I've just posted the first installment of a new (well, I wrote most of it a long time ago, but newly published at least) story. It is a serialized novel that is set in the year 1981 in Western Pennsylvania. There is absolutely no descriptive sex (or any penetrative sex hinted at or even alluded to). The story IS finished and clocks in close to 200 K words. I'm also working on a sequel which at this time is about two-thirds complete.

I plan to post updates for American Teen every Saturday morning but will let people know if I have to change my schedule. I hope that you enjoy Tommy's adventures. He's been a fun character to create.