A Year in the Sandbox

This is not your conventional novel. It does not follow traditional rules. It was not written under traditional rules. This was written with one goal in mind. To see what kind of story I could create while adhering to certain restrictions:

The book starts on October 15th, 2025 and must be completed no later than October 15th, 2026.

I am not allowed to plan anything I am going to write.

I am not allowed to read anything I have written prior to the entry I am currently working on.

Each entry must have a definitive starting point and a definitive stopping point.

Each entry cohesively continues the story from the previous entries.

Each entry must be completed in one sitting.

I am not allowed to edit anything I have written.

I must publish the book as-is when I finish.

The goal of this project was never to write a perfect story. There is undoubtedly grammatical, punctuation, and surely other errors that would have the literary world in a fit hearing me call this experiment a proper novel. But what is a proper novel?

This experiment was meant to consist of entries each day. I was supposed to have 365 entries by the time I finished. That is far from what transpired.

Some of the entries are over 1500 words while some are barely 500. Some entries occurred on back to back days while others sandwich weeks between. I did not write as much as I anticipated. What I thought was going to be the easy part turned out to be the hard part, at least for me.

Writing everyday on a project that requires so much mental capacity is too much. It was far easier to remember the happenings of my entries weeks apart than to force myself to write when the juices were not flowing. That is why this book is only around 35,000 words instead of 350,000.

I am not the type of writer who can write everyday. I need the story to be oozing out of my brain and seeping into my skull before I sit down and tap the keys. I can not do what many authors do. I cannot plan with outlines or pages of notes. I cannot even write a book if I already know the ending, even if I am in love with the concept I have come up with. I get bored when I know the ending.

That is one of the main reasons I decided to put these restraints on myself and embark on this year-long journey. There are aspects of my life sprinkled into the mix.

It was an interesting year. My mental state changed quite a bit over the past 365 days. I believe my writing speaks to that. This book has many abrupt changes that make sense with the story… I think. I still have not read it. I will when I get the hardcopy. There is something about feeling the page turn that does it for me.

This whole book was written in Stream of Consciousness. Real Stream of Consciousness. Each entry was completed in roughly an hour or less.

This book ended not because I had decided on a proper ending, but because I had no more to give. I could not go on writing this story in this way. I had exhausted my creative juices. That is not something I expected. This experiment taught me about my limitations as much as anything else

This book is not going to be for everyone. But if you made it this far, maybe this book is for you.

This book, along with all other books I have written or will write, will never have reviews or praise included. The opinions of my writings by others should in no way affect your experience before you even start.

The literary journey is different for each individual. What reads like gold to one may be considered a steaming pile of dung to another. Read what calls to you.

If you like my books then you have great taste. If you don’t like my books, then you also have great taste. Who am I to judge?

This journey is yours, and yours alone.

Think free, live free.

Run wild and free for all the world to see. Let no voice be louder than the one inside. Only we can see what we see, as we see it. Do not believe another’s words without first gaining proper understanding of the matter they speak.

Question everything.

Perception is reality.

Mr. Richard