LittleBuddhaTW

Can't win 'em all! 😉 Or you can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time. Something like that! 😁

That's part of the "problem." Nick didn't have a crush on Tommy before or now. Only Jack's mind has convinced himself that that was the case. He nodded, but it bounced off him. “He used to be your crush.” “In eighth grade,” I said. “And it was never a ‘crush.’ We were just casual friends, that was it. I’ve told you this several times before. Tommy and I are just friends. That’s the way it’s always been and the way it always will be.”

Two observations from Nick about his mom's involvement in this. He doesn't seem to blame her at all. I think the commentary so far may be chasing down a rabbit hole or missing the forest for the trees: "Here’s the thing: Mom didn’t know when she set this up (because how could she?): there might be a little static between Jack and Tommy. Not huge, scary, lightning-strike static – more like the kind that makes your arm hairs lift. Little shocks. Little looks. Mostly Jack. Mostly jealous. Mom’s goal had been sweet and simple – get us out of the house with a friend, touch some grass, and don’t hibernate with video games all summer. She wanted laughter and fresh air, not… whatever this was shaping up to be." "Mom had meant well – get us outside, get us with a friend, keep summer from turning into a couch imprint. She couldn’t have known she’d sat us down at a table with the legs uneven. And Jack… Jack had been good for so long. Steady. Meds right, sleep mostly normal, jokes that landed, storms held at bay. But tonight I could feel a low-pressure system building – a headache behind the eyes, the way birds get weird before rain." She was also unaware when the three of them went to the amusement park. All three of them got along fine while they were there. It wasn't until the next day that Jack shared his jealous feelings privately with Nick. And, there wasn't any tension between Nick and Jack at the time that she would have been aware of. The last "big" argument they had ended the moment Jack set eyes on Nana Bev for the first time, and immediately turned to give Nick some love. So, I'm not really getting all the hate for Nick's mom. In his own words, Nick is clear on what his mom's noble (yet misguided, but not intentionally) intentions were. She's not the perfect mom, she has her faults, things she could have handled better, things she should have noticed about her own son, but I don't think this is one of those times.

We heard Mr. Bojangles before we saw him – barking in rapid-fire bursts as Jack and I rounded the last stretch of sidewalk. His big fuzzy head poked between the living room curtains like a sentry on high alert, tail ticking back and forth like a metronome having a panic attack. The second my key hit the lock, everything detonated. The door cracked open, and forty pounds of canine missile shot past my knees, shrieking joy. Jack got one syllable of “Hey—” out before Mr. Bojangles launched lik

Chapter 38 will be posted tomorrow morning! Some long-running questions will be answered, and we'll see how the boys start off their summer vacation. Let's hope they stay out of trouble, everything goes smoothly, and they have a fun and relaxing few months to wrap up Book 1. And I can confirm at this time that Mr. Bojangles will be present in abundance in this chapter.

He said that in the context of wishing that Nick didn't feel that he had to hide it from him for so long. If they hadn't had that secret between them, maybe they could have been better friends back in the day.

No, it's an entirely different story/universe/canon.

Correct, it is a total of 45 chapters, and as of now, the sequel is also planned to be 45 chapters (but the chapters in the sequel will be quite a bit longer than in Book 1). As soon as "Swing for the Fences" is done, I'll start posting my new novel, "Medellin," which is a VERY different kind of story than SFTF. For anyone who rags on Nick's "faults" (I'd love to get into an in-depth conversation on Nick's "faults" or "shortcomings" someday), the main character in "Medellin" is about a million times worse. But I like it, and I hope a few of you will as well. I've lived in Medellín for 7+ years, so it holds a special place in my heart, and, as much as the novel's regular characters, the city itself is one of the most important. "Medellin" will have a total of 30 chapters, significantly longer than the chapters in SFTF Book 1. I'm planning on posting one chapter per week (to give me time to finish up Book 2 of SFTF, so it will, hopefully, be done and ready to post when "Medellin" ends, or at least relatively shortly thereafter, then SFTF Book 2 will probably return to two chapters per week. By the way, for those who don't follow me on Twitter/X, I am very seriously considering returning to and finishing "When I See You Again" in 2026. All I can say is that the second novel will include a time jump of about 4 years or so, and I will also be going back to revise/edit/improve the original five chapters so they match the tone/style/voice and level of writing as the remainder of the novel. Thanks to @Altimexis for harassing me to finish it! 😉 Unfortunately, other than "2026," I can't get more specific about the timeline, because I have some other stuff in the works, too, and I may need a short rest at some point before I get Carpal tunnel syndrome.

Thank you very much. I'm glad you're enjoying it! Only eight chapters left to go, but they will be a very full eight chapters!

Finals week was hell. But honestly? Not the inferno I’d been bracing myself for. More like a slow, suffocating burn, the kind where you don’t even realize you’re crisping until you smell the smoke. By Monday morning, my brain wasn’t a brain anymore. It was a broken search engine, tabs left open from every subject imaginable: history dates blinking at me like annoying pop-ups, math formulas scrolling past in strings of gibberish, vocab words from three multiple languages jammed into one

Imagine a teen romance novel in which the characters don't ride off together into the proverbial sunset, but instead, walk together into their therapist's office holding hands ..... 😂🤣😂🤣 Book 2 ought to be a real experience .....

I couldn’t stop staring at the letters. I must’ve read them ten times already, waiting for the words to rearrange themselves into something less awful. But they didn’t. They just sat there, heavy and merciless, like they were mocking me. Every sentence felt like a punch to the gut, and by the time I reached the end, it was like the air had been knocked out of me. And then, against all common sense, I started from the top again. Because maybe – just maybe – I’d missed something. I hadn’t. The fir

My phone buzzed. It was Mom. I slipped into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind me. “Hi, Mom.” “Oh, good – you picked up. I didn’t want to send this in a text.” A knot twisted in my stomach. “What’s going on?” “The letter from Jack’s grandmother’s lawyers was officially delivered this morning. His parents have it. So, the ball is in their court now.” I exhaled hard, leaning against the wall. “Okay. That’s… big.” “Now it’s just a waiting game. But listen, Nick

That's because they usually post as they write. If they get sidetracked or get writer's block, you may not see anything new for a (long) while. I always complete my novels before I start posting them, so that doesn't happen. Whether it's two posts per week or one post per week (which is what "Medellin" will likely be), I'll always stick to that schedule (unless I get lost in the jungle or wind up in the hospital 😉).

Chapter 35 will be posted tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.

I usually hated waking up early on weekends, but this morning felt like a new level of torture. My mom flicked on the basement lights like she was auditioning for a role in CSI: Parent Edition and told us to get moving if we wanted to beat traffic. Jack and I had packed most of our stuff the night before – well, I packed mine neatly, then salvaged Jack’s heap of laundry and random socks from collapsing into a black hole. So, the morning routine was mostly dragging ourselves out of bed, shov

No, thank you. It's receiving comments like this that give me the energy and motivation to keep writing. I'm glad you're enjoying it, and hope you will like the sequel as well!

I usually loved Fridays. Fridays meant freedom – late nights, no homework (or at least pretending there wasn’t), and Saturday mornings with a bowl of sugary cereal, cartoons humming in the background, and Mr. Bojangles curled up against me. Fridays meant more time with Jack – warm skin, tangled legs, the world shut out like it didn’t matter. But not this Friday. I was dreading this one. Because I didn’t want to go home with Jack. I didn’t want to spend the whole weekend prete

It is indeed terrible. Got those little bastards twice in college. I was so ashamed and embarrassed when I went to the Student Health Center, and they said, "Oh, it's nothing, we see at least twenty cases a day." 😆

Jack had promised to call his grandmother nearly a week ago. Yet here we were, Thursday afternoon, and still nothing. Not even a text. It wasn’t like him to drag his feet on something this important – unless he was scared. And knowing Jack… yeah, that was probably it. Still, Jonah’s fourteenth birthday party was the next day, and I didn’t want this hanging over us like a thundercloud. We needed to rip the Band-Aid off now, so we could actually enjoy ourselves instead of spending the whole w

I agree, to an extent. I need at least a rough outline to get me going and keep me organized, but the final product rarely resembles the original outline all that much, except maybe the chapter titles, general themes behind each chapter, and the main arcs of the story (although I do occasionally change some main arcs, and "Medellin" is a super example of that). We'll see how SFTF Book 2 turns out. I'm only on Chapter 7 so far (aiming to get that written this weekend, and maybe Chapter 8, depending on how much trouble Chapter 7 gives me -- it's a tough one, with a tough and delicate subject matter). Oh, and Chapter 32 will be posted in about 5-7 minutes.

I look forward to those days, believe me. I wake up every morning with all kinds of aches and pains that usually last a good part of the morning. I'm a lot slower than I used to be and can't walk as far, my near-photographic memory is shot, my eyesight is crap, and it actually takes a little effort to seduce the cute 20-something Colombian guys (it still doesn't take much, but still ...). I feel mentally about 20, but physically, I'm pushing 75 or 80 (although I'm actually decades younger than that). What I really need is a nice vacation. I could hop on a plane and get to a Cartagena or Santa Marta beach in 45 minutes, but too much work to do, too much writing to do. Ah, life.

In my dog's younger days, he used to love chasing possums, raccoons, squirrels, and all kinds of small jungle creatures. Fortunately, he never came out of the battles with a scratch. Sadly, his hunting days are over, and he kind of just lays around and licks himself all day.

Dead raccoon is probably one of the worst smells you can imagine, depending on how "fresh" it is. If you hunt it yourself, though (or know a place that sells it fresh, like in West Virginia), raccoon is one of the tastiest meats, if it's cleaned/washed properly, and you really need an old grandma who knows all the tricks to do it. If it's not cleaned/washed properly, the meat has an extremely gamey taste. When done right, it's wonderful, especially in a stew or something like that. To get back on topic, I just finished writing Chapter 5 of the sequel last night (first draft), and that sucker came out at 11,000 words! An average chapter from Book 1 is about 4,000 to 6,000 words or so. I have a feeling that Book 2 is going to be a BEAST. There are also some really cool new characters, and of course, lots of drama and tension. One character, who has the potential to become a core character, just came to me as I was writing. He wasn't even in my outline or character sketches, or anything. No matter how much time you spend planning, creativity and new ideas just keep popping out. I'll give y'all a little preview: His name is Adam, he's in English II with Nick and Jack, he's so far in the closet that he can see Narnia, he loves baseball, and so far seems like a nice guy.

Sorry to disappoint, but I'm just a regular guy who likes to live around the world, write (for a living and for fun), and occasionally hang around with cute Colombian guys. I've always thought of myself as a bit of an itinerant monk, but I seem to have settled down in Colombia (South America), where I've been for the last 7+ years, and don't really have any plans on leaving unless the violence gets a lot worse (although I live in one of the safest areas) or all the guys miraculously turn ugly all of a sudden.