Late Morning, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

“Change is inevitable in life. You can either resist it and potentially get run over by it, or you can choose to cooperate with it, adapt to it, and learn how to benefit from it. When you embrace change you will begin to see it as an opportunity for growth.” ~ Jack Canfield

Embracing Change: A Writer’s Journey Goes Full Circle

As I sit in what, for now, is my cozy – if perhaps incompletely arrayed – writing room in Madison, New Hampshire, it is a gray chilly summer day, which, as a temporarily displaced Floridian, seems out of place in late July. That’s the difference between the mountains of New England and the coastal metropolis that is my once and future home.

Yesterday was a rough day. Not as rough as Sunday was, but close. I was tired. I was annoyed. Stress and anxiety kept me awake the night of July 22/23. Despite taking an extra hour’s break midday, hoping to feel refreshed enough to work on the next part of Reunion: Coda’s nineteenth chapter, it didn’t happen. I was maybe physically less exhausted, but mentally, I still couldn’t focus due to stress, frustration, and disappointment.  

“We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.” ~ Charles R. Swindoll

I slept better last night and woke up at 7:00 AM, which is a big change from the 2:42 AM wake-up call I had the day before. I’m still feeling tired, annoyed, and worried because I have to work late into the night to finish my novel before next month’s deadline. If I don’t pull through, I’ll finish Reunion: Coda later than expected; fickle Fate is sending me back to the starting point of my “post-Mom” journey in spring 2016.

I’m going to dive into this tricky subject later on. But for now, let’s say that “Unexpected Life Change” wasn’t something I predicted would come up.

On Writing and Storytelling: Action This Day

As I mentioned before, my writing day was a bit of a letdown yesterday. It’s clear that I needed to get some work done on my manuscript because I’m aiming to get Reunion: Coda out before the end of August. Even though I wasn’t expecting to hammer out a whole scene, much less finish up Chapter 19, I was at least hoping to have an outline ready for when I started working later in the day.

I didn’t do any of that.

My plan for today, then, is simple: Do today what I did not do yesterday.

Like I said in yesterday’s post:

I want to write.

I need to write.

It’s a simple enough plan. Now…it’s time for me to get ready and carry it out.