Musings & Thoughts for Monday, October 23, 2023, or: A TBR Update, and My Writer’s Journey Resumes – with a Change in the Itinerary

Late Morning, Monday, October 23, 2023, Lithia, Florida

Hi, there, folks. As I write this, it’s just past 9:15 AM on a cool October Monday. Outside, the temperature is 66°F/19°C under sunny skies. With the wind blowing from the northeast at 5 MPH/KMH and humidity at 80%, the feels-like temperature is 72°F/23°C. Today’s forecast calls for sunny skies and a high of 87°F/30°C.

On Books & Reading – The State of My TBR Stack

As I wrote in last month’s TBR Stack update, I’ve finished two of the six books I had on my reading rotation in September. I also removed Chuck Wendig’s The Kick-Ass Writer because I wasn’t even browsing through it much, so I put it back on my bookshelf. I’ll get back to it at some point, but for now, it’s off my current reading list. As a result, my TBR stack now consists of:

• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King
• Who Can Hold the Sea: The U.S. Navy in the Cold War, 1945-1960, by James D. Hornfischer
• Fire & Steel: The End of World War Two in the West, Peter Caddick-Adams

Since I needed to take the weekend off from working on Reunion: Coda, I tried to get some reading time in on both Saturday and Sunday. I managed to finish one chapter in Who Can Hold the Sea (Chapter 19: Nerves of Ice), and one-third of a chapter (Chapter 14: First and Ninth Armies – From the Ruhr to the Elbe).

When I was younger – and had less weighty issues on my mind – I would have read both Who Can Hold the Sea and Fire & Steel at a much faster clip – like a week’s time for each book. Now, with my mind fixed on writing a novel and worrying incessantly about other things, taking time out just to read is difficult.

On Writing & Storytelling – Action This Day

Today is, of course, the first day of a workweek. So, of course, the top item on my agenda is to work on Reunion: Coda. I plan to restart Chapter 12 as straightforward narrative prose rather than the “epistolary chapter” notion I had earlier this month; I love the idea of telling the story of Jim and Maddie (this chapter being set in the 2000 Present Day instead of the 1980s High School Years Past) via an exchange of emails between NYC and London, but I’m not confident that I can pull that rabbit out of the hat.

Am I disappointed? Yes, very much so. I was hoping to add another color to my writing palette by trying out a different storytelling technique. And maybe if I didn’t have a self-imposed “publish the damn novel in time for the holidays” deadline, I might have been able to use – for one chapter only – the same technique used by British writer Matt Beaumont in his e: A Novel, which is presented exclusively as emails exchanged by management and employees in a London advertising agency.

But, as I’ve pointed out in previous posts on this topic, epistolary stories require far more prep time and forethought. I’m not a whiz at planning things well in advance – that’s been my Achilles heel throughout my 60 years on Earth – and I do want to finish this novel in time for the holiday shopping season, so I am now back to Square One as far as Chapter 12 is concerned.

Well, it’s almost 10:30 AM now, and I need to begin my two-hour-long rest break so I can start working on that chapter feeling at least a bit fresh and fit for duty. So, until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.