On Writing & Storytelling: My Novel-Writing Journey Continues…Slowly but Surely

Late Afternoon, Monday, August 14, 2023, Lithia, Florida

Hi, everyone. I’m back to give you a quick update on my daily writing journey and the progress of my first novel, Reunion: Coda.

First, as expected, the weather was typical “Florida mean season” stuff. It was sunny and hot for much of the morning, then turned cloudy and stormy – yes, we had thunderstorms, and lightning fell as close as one mile away before the wind blew the storm cells away from Lithia. The temperature at noon was so high that even when the rains caused the mercury to dip a few degrees, the heat index was a whopping 118°F/47°C.

The rain is gone now, and the sun is once again out in full force, but the rain stuck around so long that the temperature is 87°F/29°C, but the heat index (or “feels-like factor”) is 95°F/33°C. And because there was lightning around, I had to wait quite a while before I could work on my primary computer, and my mandatory rest break was therefore longer than I would have liked.

Second, as I also suspected, I didn’t write any “new” material today; I can’t concentrate well when bad weather is around because I’m tense and impatient (Geez, when will this goddam rain stop?!), and fretting about things such as lightning strikes and losing precious writing time thanks to the vagaries of weather is not conducive to creative writing.

So, instead of writing, I ended up – once again – editing and revising the manuscript. I would have preferred to start Chapter 11’s second scene, of course, but since editing is where the real magic of writing stories happens, it’s not a terribly bad thing. Maybe a bit annoying – to me, at least – but I’d rather edit and revise now rather than wait till I finish the rough draft and then edit and revise the entire novel. It might save me some time when it comes to publishing Reunion: Coda, and it will prevent (or at least reduce) the large number of corrections and revised editions I’ll send to Kindle Direct Publishing.

Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow will be different, at least in the writing department.