Musings & Thoughts for Wednesday, November 8, 2023, or: The Moving Process Goes On, and an Update on the ‘Reunion Duology’

Late Morning, Wednesday, November 8, 2023, Lithia, Florida

Hello, there, folks. It’s another mild late autumn day here in the Tampa Bay area. As I begin this, the 1,325^th post in A Certain Point of View, Too, the temperature in my current neighborhood is 77°F/25°C under sunny skies. (It actually feels warmer though; the heat index outside is 88°F/31°C.)

In contrast, my future town of residence, Madison, NH, isn’t as balmy. The current temperature there is 37°F/3°C under partly cloudy skies. Wow. If it’s that chilly now, imagine how much colder it’ll be when I arrive there in mid-December.

Movin’ Out – The Saga Continues

Well, we’ve removed many of my books from my IKEA Billy bookshelves. Almost all of my history books are boxed up, as are all of my Stephen King and my Tom Clancy, both fiction and non-fiction. I still have a few books in my room to read between now and M-1, but most of the remaining books – Star Wars and Star Trek novels, references, screenplays, and comics – will also be going into the moving boxes over the next few days.  

This process of packing up and getting ready to leave a place I’ve called “home” for seven years is both sad and a lot of hard work, but I’ve been under the “I Must Move Out” edict for almost a year now, so I’ve already gotten over most (but not all) of the emotional shit and now I’m worrying more about the actual move, whether I’ll accidentally leave something behind ,or if stuff will somehow break or go missing during the transit from Lithia to Madison.

I’m sure that the packing process will continue this evening; the clock on the move is ticking, after all, plus we also have to get ready for what will be my last Thanksgiving in Tampa…or Florida, for that matter.

On Writing & Storytelling: Progress Update & Action This Day

Yesterday I made some progress with the epistolary chapter in Reunion: Coda. Not a lot, mind you, because the move to New Hampshire and the packing process are very much on my mind and I am not able to focus solely on my writing. I did add a few more emails to the correspondence between my protagonist/narrator, Prof. Jim Garraty, and his musician sweetheart Madison, who is in London recording an album with the New York Philharmonic at Abbey Road Studios. Jim stayed in New York because he’s a history teacher at Columbia University and he can’t easily step away from his professional commitments on short notice.

In total, I added three new messages to the latest thread in the Jim-Maddie transatlantic correspondence yesterday afternoon, but I must edit the last one cos I wrote it in a hurry, and it just doesn’t look or sound right to me. The other two look fine, though, so I won’t be spending much time revising the entire thread – just that one last email.

As for the novel and its future publication date, I don’t think I will finish it before I leave for Madison on December 12. I had hoped to have the manuscript ready by late November and up on Amazon and the online version of Barnes & Noble by December 10, but because Chapter 11 took so long to complete and the epistolary chapter is so challenging, I doubt that Reunion: Coda will be finished this year. I really wanted it to be out in time for the winter holidays, but…it just didn’t work out that way.

As for Reunion: A Story

Meanwhile, the existing half of the Reunion Duology, Reunion: A Story, has had a modest uptick in sales, with eight processed orders between late October and November 6, plus two new orders that were made this morning.

Most of those orders were made by some of my online friends – as far as I know, none of my relatives in Colombia have bought a copy, even though I’ve been told that folks in that South American nation can order from Amazon. Yeah, yeah, most of my cousins are not English-speaking and therefore can’t read my novella, but some of them are bilingual and can read American English literature just fine.

I made three orders between last week and today. I donated a copy of Reunion to my high school’s library – it arrived at South Miami High on Friday afternoon, according to Amazon. I also ordered two copies this morning as presents for two friends in Miami. That last purchase is still not processed, so it’s not showing up either in my Amazon’s author ranking or on my Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) sales report.

I’m still hoping that more of my friends will purchase copies of Reunion as I prepare not just for my move, but also for the November-January holiday season. Sure, it’s a self-published work, and as such it lacks the marketing support that more established authors receive from the big publishers. And perhaps some readers out there have had bad reading experiences with self-published books (I know I have!), but all of the customer reviews and ratings for Reunion on Amazon are positive. I mean, look at the most recent brief five-star review:

                 

Peter

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read

Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2023

Verified Purchase

A story that everyone can relate to.
A nostalgic trip about what could have been.
Very well written. A good read!

Anyway, I hope that some of you who are reading this will consider purchasing a copy of Reunion: A Story. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Kindle e-book edition or the paperback edition, as long as folks order copies, either for their reading enjoyment or as a gift to a friend, significant other, family members, or even as a donation to a lending library.

WyLo and Me

5.0 out of 5 stars Leaves you longing for more.

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2018

Verified Purchase

Reunion is a wonderful story that leaves you longing for just a little bit more. It’s a glimpse into the life of an extraordinary yet wholly relatable man; seeing his choices unravel, it leaves you to question everything you’ve done in your own life, and more importantly, what you’ve not done.
Excellent work by Mr. Diaz-Granados!

In Closing

Well, my friends, it’s almost time for my mandatory midday break, so I better wrap this up. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.