Musings & Thoughts for Wednesday, June 21, 2023, or: On Writing, Weather, and the Summer Solstice*

* Not necessarily in that order.

Thunder in the Morning, Sunshine in the Afternoon

Hi, there, Dear Reader. It’s late morning – almost midday, actually – here in Lithia, Florida, on Wednesday, June 21, 2023. It’s a warm (82°F/26°C) and soggy day in my corner of the Tampa Bay area. It’s also the summer solstice – the longest day of the year as well as the first day of astronomical summer – although I doubt that we here in west-central Florida will see much sunshine; the day started (for me, anyway) with a thunderstorm around 7 AM, and even though the forecast calls for mostly sunny skies and a high of 89°F/32°C. (I guess, since Hillsborough County is huge, a case can be made that even if it rains parts of the county, such as Tampa, Ybor City, East Tampa, etc., it doesn’t necessarily mean it will rain in this more inland area.

I’m off to a late start today because (a) I woke up around 7:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time, which is an hour or so after my usual “wakey-wakey” time, and (b) a boomer was somewhere in our vicinity. Judging by the volume of the (thankfully) infrequent booms of thunder I heard then that storm cell was a long distance away from our neighborhood. However, the one time I lost an e-Machines PC 19 years ago, the skies overhead were clear, the sun was shining, and even though the thunder I heard then was also way off in the distance, a stray lightning bolt struck a tree in the backyard of an adjacent townhouse and not only killed it, but it also fried the circuits of my PC. Since then, and much to the amusement of “lightning skeptics” I try to not use any “plugged into the wall” electronics. I have been known to use laptops during storms, but on battery power, and then only in emergencies.

Action this Day: To Write as Much as I Can, Whenever I Can

Anyway, moving on to my agenda for this Summer Solstice/Hump Day. It’s a “work day” for me as a first-time novelist, so my plan is to write as much as I can, whenever I can, depending on whether there are thunderstorms or storm cells nearby.

I do, however, have a creative dilemma.

As you know, I finally started Chapter 10 of Reunion: Coda on Monday after getting stuck on Chapter Nine for…well, far too long a time for my taste. I want to go ahead and fix the scene I wrote on Monday, and then push on to the next one. You know, to move the story forward and finish, within a reasonable span of time, the first draft of the novel. (I want to finish the damn thing by mid-summer and publish it at some point before Christmas 2023.)

And yet, I also need to revisit an earlier “Jim and Maddie” chapter (aka, one that’s set in my protagonist/narrator’s “Present Day” of early 2000 instead of a “Jimmy and Marty” one set in his high school years) to see if it needs to be expanded a bit or not. I would prefer to not have to add any material to Chapter Eight, but after reading the final scene, I fear that sooner or later I must go back to it and do just that.

That scene, frankly, is too short as it stands now, and it just…I don’t know…peters out without a satisfying resolution. It starts out well – although I see that I’ll have to go back and fix a few things even before coming up with new material – but it seems rushed, incomplete, and not thought out all that well.

Decisions, decisions….

Well, it’s now early afternoon – it’s taken me over an hour to get from the “lede” to here, ladies and gentlemen – and I need to eat a quick lunch, take a shower, change into fresh street clothes (even though I am going nowhere) and see what I can rustle up for lunch. I want to get some work done, yes, but I need to have energy and feel at my best. Being hungry doesn’t help me write – indeed, it’s a distraction I do not need or want.

So, on that note, I’ll close this post here. Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.