Musings & Thoughts for Thursday, March 28, 2024, or: Tidings for a Rainy Thursday in New Hampshire

Late Morning, Thursday, March 28, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

Howdy, folks. It’s a gray and rainy day here in my corner of northern New England. Currently, the temperature is 41°F (5°C) under cloudy skies. With the wind blowing from the east-northeast at 2 MPH (3 Km/H) and humidity at 86%, the feels-like temperature is 50°F (10°C). The forecast for today calls for light rain throughout the day. The high will be 47°F (8°C). Tonight, we can expect scattered rain showers. The low will be 38°F (3°C).

On Writing & Storytelling: Writer’s Block Strikes Again

Yesterday was, unfortunately, another working day full of frustration regarding Chapter 14’s progress – or lack thereof. It doesn’t matter what I do – rest, eat a good lunch (or as good a lunch as I can prepare with what I have on hand), or start working at a decent hour – or how positive my mindset is when I sit in front of my computer to work on Reunion: Coda….I  can’t find the right way to move the story forward.

I know – at least in my innermost mind – what I want to happen in this chapter. My problem, as I’ve said in a few previous posts, is that I’m not sure how much detail I should get into in telling the story of Jim and Maddie’s reunion when she flies back to New York City after her working trip to her hometown of London. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on Jim’s activities during the day before he drives out to JFK International Airport to pick Maddie up, and since (a) I don’t live in NYC or (b) drive, I also don’t want to write a long scene describing Jim’s experiences en route to his rendezvous with the woman he is falling in love with.

My best bet is to start the next scene in the chapter in media res with Jim already at JFK and waiting for Maddie at the Arrivals section of the terminal. That way I can avoid getting bogged down by what happens before Jim gets to the airport.

My friend Patti suggests skipping over this part  and writing the next scene to get around this  “writer’s block.” I’ve done that before, and sometimes it works, so I might try that when I return to my desk after the midday lunch/mental health break.

So, my Wednesday didn’t go as planned, and I was disappointed. I did, however, work on Reunion: Coda yesterday afternoon, even though that entailed edits and revisions to the existing copy. I did most of the work on the Kindle Create app and not on the “master file” on Word. It’s not what I wanted to do, but at least I didn’t shirk my responsibilities as a writer/storyteller.

Ugh. And people who can’t pen a coherent sentence – much less write a novel – think writing fiction (even if it’s self-published) is a hobby and not a “real job.”