On Writing & Storytelling: A Quick Sunday Afternoon SITREP on ‘Reunion: Coda’

No Stormy Weather, But Sweltering Heat Continues

Sunday, July 9, 2023, Lithia, Florida

It’s early afternoon in my corner of Hillsborough County as I begin this, my 1,172^nd post in A Certain Point of View, Too. Outside, the heat is oppressive: the current temperature is 92°F/33°C under partly sunny conditions, but when you factor in the humidity and relatively slow westerly breeze (7 MPH/12 KPH), it feels like 106°F/41°C. That’s insanely hot this early in the season; summer in the subtropics is, of course, a season where hot weather is the norm, but until the early 2000s June and July (especially early July) didn’t see temperatures this high on a regular basis.

I’m surprised that there are no thunderstorms in the forecast – they usually form in days like today – but meteorologists’ predictions are imperfect, so I wouldn’t be surprised if showers or even a couple of “boomers” do come ashore from the Gulf of Mexico in the late afternoon or early evening hours.

On Writing and Storytelling: Back to Work on Reunion: Coda

“To write is human, to edit is divine.” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

I didn’t make much headway with Reunion: Coda yesterday. I suppose I was tired and stressed after uploading what I hope will be the last batch of revisions to Reunion: A Story (the first volume of the Reunion Duology); I don’t have any problem making the actual edits, but I don’t want to keep finding mistakes in a story that, in its various iterations, I’ve been working on since I was 24! As I wrote in yesterday’s post, “I’m not exactly fond of having to constantly revise and reissue Reunion (it’s not a marketing ploy on my part), but I do it because that’s my name on the cover and the copyright page. There are far too many self-published authors who don’t give a fuck about the quality of their work and give ‘self-publishing’ a bad reputation. I have many faults but being lazy or careless about giving readers my best work…. that’s not going to happen.”

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

STEPHEN KING, “ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT”

I was up late on Friday night/Saturday morning sending the corrections to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). I also woke up early yesterday (6:30-7 AM, I believe it was). So, of course I was tired both physically and mentally, so I only made a few minor edits to Reunion: Coda and didn’t write any fresh material for Chapter 10.

Today, Dear Reader, will be a more productive version of yesterday: no new material for Chapter 10, but some substantial edits and revisions to existing scenes and chapters.

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

The biggest change: I decided to change Maddie’s name from “Madeline” to “Madison,” even though the latter name wasn’t “hot” in the early 1960s, which is when she was born per the timeline in the duology. I liked (and still like) Madeline, but there’s a key scene in one of the chapters where the new name is dramatically relevant.

Thankfully for both the reader and writer, I made this decision “early” in the creation of Reunion: Coda, while the manuscript is still in “first draft” mode and not yet published on KDP either in print or e-book form. I’d hate to go through what I did with Reunion: rush like a bat out of hell to write and publish a story, only to have to constantly fix things that should have been corrected – or even averted – in the early phases of the publication process.

I’m also trying to reduce as many mistakes and inconsistencies as I can now, even though combining the “first draft” and “revise and edit” stages slows things down quite a bit. Again, my experiences with Reunion have forced me to change my approach to writing (and self-publishing) fiction. It’s better to deal with editorial problems now rather than later.

Okay, I’ve prattled long enough here. I have a manuscript to edit, and it’s getting late – it’s just past 2 PM now – so I’ll take my leave of you. So until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.