One of the strange things about building a long-term creative body of work is realizing that eventually the projects begin speaking to each other.

At first, they feel disconnected:
a memoir here,
a horror screenplay there,
a recursive literary experiment in another folder,
a civic history project,
a middle-grade camp novel,
a political labor story,
a fragmented notebook full of grief and joy and survival.

But after enough years, enough drafts, enough failures and rewrites and strange obsessions, patterns emerge.

Recently I sat down and tried to honestly assess where all of my current projects actually stand — not just emotionally, but structurally. Which books are nearly complete? Which are still becoming? Which ones are concepts searching for form? Which ones are already alive enough to stand on their own?

What surprised me most wasn’t the number of projects.

It was the realization that they no longer feel random.

They feel like parts of the same ecosystem.

The memoir work informs the fiction.
The fiction feeds the civic writing.
The horror projects reflect the same themes as the literary projects:
memory,
identity,
grief,
systems,
survival,
authorship,
belonging,
and the strange recursive process of becoming yourself through revision.

Some of these books are close.
Some are still mostly ghosts.
But together they form something larger than I realized while making them.

Here’s where everything currently stands.

Current Fulcrum & Axis Project Status

The Recursive Man: A Novel of Grief and Memory

Estimated Completion: 92–96%

This has become the flagship project.

What began years ago as Unto a Golden Dawn slowly transformed into something far stranger and more personal: a recursive metafictional novel blending grief memoir, Edgar Allan Poe, Crowley, AI collaboration, recursion theory, memory, authorship, and existential philosophy into one layered narrative system.

It is simultaneously:

literary fiction
metaphysical horror
grief narrative
recursive philosophy
authorial self-examination
and, somehow, still emotionally human underneath all the machinery.

This is probably the closest thing I have to a “big statement” novel right now.

The Cancer Diet

Estimated Completion: 98–100%

The book that changed everything for me.

A memoir about cancer, adoption, addiction, bipolarity, grief, family rupture, and survival. More than anything else, this was the project that forced me to stop hiding behind abstraction and start writing emotionally honest work.

Without this book, most of the others probably don’t exist in their current form.

The Lying Years

Estimated Completion: 75–85%

Possibly the most emotionally dangerous project.

A sprawling confessional memoir blending:

relationship history
bipolar reflections
masculinity
shame
addiction
emotional invisibility
radical honesty writing
and attempts to understand why people become who they become.

The structure has become more literary over time and less traditionally memoiristic. It increasingly feels like fragmented emotional archaeology.

Trying to Be Good

Estimated Completion: 90–95%

A quieter memoir project.

Less explosive than The Cancer Diet, more reflective and observational. It deals heavily with morality, self-perception, recovery, work, Southern identity, and the long awkward process of trying to become a decent person after years of chaos.

Ain’t No Bootlicker

Estimated Completion: 45–60%

One of the most ambitious structural projects I’ve attempted.

A Southern political/labor novel set around Greenville during the 2016 Republican debate era, blending:

investigative journalism
labor exploitation
ICE raids
education politics
civic mythology
mill history
and class systems.

This project has developed recurring motifs and systems that now feel extremely strong:
“Paper remembers.”
“Counts That Count.”
The idea that institutions manipulate language to manipulate reality.

It’s one of the most structurally coherent worlds I’ve built so far.

Think Stoopid

Estimated Completion: 35–50%

A satirical dystopian novel about a society that criminalizes intelligence.

It follows Elber, a gifted child navigating institutional absurdity, anti-intellectual culture, prison-school systems, and eventual escape toward freedom.

This one feels more commercially viable than some of my other work while still carrying the same deeper themes underneath.

Camp Chaos: Survival of the Fittest

Estimated Completion: 40–55%

Written under the Fritz Abercrombie name.

A middle-grade summer camp novel balancing:

awkwardness
humor
bullying
creativity
sports culture
identity
and belonging.

What surprised me most here is how emotionally sincere the voice became. Frank’s journal narration feels genuinely alive.

Empire, Nevada

Estimated Completion: 70–80%

My first novel.

A YA/literary hybrid focused on friendship, adolescence, loneliness, and small-town emotional landscapes.

It still needs structural cleanup and revision work, but the emotional core remains very real to me.

Firepit: The First Kill

Estimated Completion: 20–35%

A slasher screenplay inspired by:

Southern camp horror
local legends
generational revenge
and real Upstate folklore.

This one leans more cinematic and pulpy, but still carries the same obsession with memory, mythmaking, and inherited trauma.

Seen / Unseen Greenville

Estimated Completion: 60–75%

This project has evolved from “blog posts about Greenville” into something much larger.

It now functions as:

civic history
urban analysis
class critique
memoir
regional philosophy
and living archive.

The goal is not just documenting Greenville, but using Greenville as a lens for larger American questions:
growth,
identity,
gentrification,
mythology,
belonging,
and who gets written into the official story of a city.

Montage of Joy: On Embracing Joy

Estimated Completion: 15–25%

An emotionally restorative project built from fragments, memories, vignettes, and moments of gratitude.

This one feels less plot-driven and more like reconstructing a self through moments of beauty and presence.

Climbing the Hill Toward Home

Estimated Completion: 10–20%

A reflective memoir project about reclaiming emotional wholeness after years of descent, chaos, grief, and fragmentation.

Thematically adjacent to Montage of Joy, but more overtly narrative and autobiographical.

Blackwater Key

Estimated Completion: 15–30%

Southern gothic coastal mystery built from family lore, disappearances, atmosphere, and buried regional mythology.

Still early structurally, but the tone and emotional atmosphere are strong.

Happy

Estimated Completion: 10–25%

A quieter literary/philosophical project centered around joy, gentleness, emotional reconstruction, and surviving cruelty without becoming cruel yourself.

Potentially one of the softest things I’ve ever written.

MORTAL ERRORS

Estimated Completion: 10–20%

Still mostly conceptual, but orbiting themes of:

mortality
identity collapse
systemic contradiction
existential failure
and the limits of human meaning-making.

Feels like a future prestige-literary project once it fully forms.

Final Reflection

The biggest realization lately is this:

I no longer feel like someone with “a bunch of unfinished ideas.”

I feel like someone building a long-term literary ecosystem.

Some projects are nearly complete.
Some are still becoming.
Some may collapse entirely and evolve into something else.

But the connective tissue is there now.

The themes recur naturally.
The voice is recognizable.
The questions persist across genres.

The bottleneck isn’t ideas anymore.

It’s:

finishing passes
editing discipline
release sequencing
sustainable publishing
and deciding which books become pillars versus side projects.

That’s a very different problem than having nothing to say.

And honestly?

I’m grateful for that.