Musings & Thoughts for Tuesday, February 27, 2024, or: A Quick SITREP on My Novelist’s Journey

Late Morning, Tuesday, February 27, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

Greetings, everyone. It’s a lovely late winter morning here in northern New England. Currently, the temperature is 40°F (5°C) under sunny skies. With humidity at 56% and the wind blowing from the west-northwest at 1 MPH (2 KM/H), the feels-like temperature is 54°F (15°C). Today’s forecast calls for sunny skies and a high of 54°F (15°C). Tonight, we can expect a mix of rain and snow. The low will be 34°F (1°C).

On Writing & Storytelling: Making (Some Progress) with Reunion: Coda

Well, yesterday I was able to focus on writing fresh copy for Goodbye, Farewell, and Adios (the 13^th chapter of the novel and final “Interlude” set in Jim Garraty’s high school years). It wasn’t easy, especially cos the other guy who rents this house had guests over in the late afternoon, and because he didn’t deign to tell me about his get-together, the noise from the living room area caught me off-guard and disrupted my concentration till I found my headphones and connected them to the IO jack on the bottom of my Lenovo “all-in-one” PC.

Despite this annoyance, I was able to write 520 of the 1,000 words I was striving to add to the scene. I didn’t finish the sequence I had in mind for yesterday’s working session; I think I managed to get two-thirds of it down before I looked at the clock on my PC and saw it was well after 5 PM.

“Here, Mom,” I said, handing her my empty diploma case and my orange-brown tassel with the shiny “83” on it. “We’ll catch up with you guys at the parking lot after we drop off our caps and gowns.”

Mom nodded and took the stuff from me. “Okay, honey. Don’t hurry; we’re not in a rush to go. With all these other kids and their folks trying to get out of here at the same time, it’s going to be a zoo, so Dale, Leslie, and I will hang around until the traffic clears up. And you’ll probably want to say goodbye to – ” She stopped and looked like she was going to say something else, but then she changed her mind. ” – some of your friends.”

Alex Diaz-Granados, Reunion: Coda

For those of you who are keen on seeing some of the new material I’ve written for Scene Six, here’s a brief excerpt:

The sun was still high and hot over South Florida when the graduation ceremony finally ended. The last notes of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance No. 1” died in the sticky air, and I smelled the chlorine from the Olympic-size pool adjacent to the Gibson Center.  The South Miami Senior High School Class of 1983 shuffled out of the huge Theodore R. Gibson Center. We headed for the spot near the parking lot where we had to give back our caps and gowns to some bored-looking teachers at a bunch of tables.

Before we did that, Mark and I stopped for some more pictures with our moms on the sidewalk outside the Gibson Center. They had their Instamatic cameras ready and snapped away like crazy. They made us pose with our diploma cases as if we had just bagged a couple of big game animals in a safari, taking off our tassels from our grads’ caps, or goofing around for the camera. We also got the usual hugs and the teary-eyed speeches of “I’m so proud of you, son” from Mom and Dale, while Mark’s kid sister Leslie watched with a smirk on her face.

“Here, Mom,” I said, handing her my empty diploma case and my orange-brown tassel with the shiny “83” on it. “We’ll catch up with you guys at the parking lot after we drop off our caps and gowns.”

Mom nodded and took the stuff from me. “Okay, honey. Don’t hurry; we’re not in a rush to go. With all these other kids and their folks trying to get out of here at the same time, it’s going to be a zoo, so Dale, Leslie, and I will hang around until the traffic clears up. And you’ll probably want to say goodbye to – ” She stopped and looked like she was going to say something else, but then she changed her mind. ” – some of your friends.”

“Got it,” I said, acting like it was no big deal. “See you in, what, half an hour?”

“Yeah, sure, kiddo. Like I said, Dale and I don’t want to get stuck in the Great Cobra Traffic Jam of ’83.”

“Okay, Mom. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Jim.”

Mark pulled on my white gown; his eyes impatient. “Let’s go. It’s too damn hot out here, and these things aren’t exactly comfortable, especially over a suit. I feel like I’m in the Sahara or something in this freakin’ heat.”

Action This Day

As far as I know, my order of How to Write a Romance: Or, How to Write Witty Dialogue, Smoldering Love Scenes, and Happily Ever Afters has not shipped yet, and because it is not sold or shipped via Amazon, there’s no way on Earth that it’s going to arrive tomorrow like Amazon claims it will. I might cancel the order and choose a different book instead of that one. I’ll think about it during the midday break, though – I don’t want to act hastily and miss out on a good writing resource.

That’s all the news I have that’s fit to share on this blog, so I’ll just close here. After all, if you are a regular visitor to this space, you’re already familiar with my working routine, and today is the second day of the regular workweek, so I’ll be working on the manuscript after my lunch/rest break.

Sayonara, everyone!