Late Morning, Saturday, September 21, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire
“Every writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write. — The world is crying for new writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new stories. If you won’t write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have any. Good luck.” – Anne Rice
It’s a chilly autumn morning in northern New England on this third Saturday in September 2024. It’s cloudy, and even though the sun is trying to burn through the veil of gray, the day looks slightly gloomy and uninviting. The forecast for the day calls for light rain throughout the day, so it doesn’t look like I’ll be venturing outside today.
The State of the Novel: Reunion: Coda – September 21, 2024
I spent Thursday and Friday – or, better said, my working hours on Thursday and Friday – making revisions on the last scene of Reunion: Coda’s Chapter 19 (The Storm Breaks). That’s the one that features my first-ever physical fight scene. I finished the first draft of that scene on September 6, but I was never satisfied with it, a feeling that was confirmed when I saw my Beta Reader Denise Longrie’s comments on the Google Drive copy we use for “Beta reading.” (She liked that I didn’t try to write a long, Hollywood-style fight sequence in which history professor Jim Garraty holds his own against a younger and angry assailant with military experience. She appreciated my attempt at realism but pointed out that some of the dialogue in that first draft didn’t sound right.)
On Thursday night, I tweaked that troublesome scene a bit, but after a second read and some insightful suggestions from my friend Juan Carlos Hernandez, I decided the fight scene needed a few more touches during the last writing session of the week. Radical changes weren’t necessary—just some extra details to make the New York City night brawl feel more authentic. Juan’s feedback on the revised version was encouraging, so I’m sticking with The Storm Breaks as it stands now.
So, now that Chapter 19 is complete, this is where things stand as far as progress with Reunion: Coda goes:
- Number of Chapters Completed: 19
- Number of Pages (6” X 9” Paper Size): 450
- Number of Words: 111,943
I will be taking today and tomorrow off from working on the novel; with my move back to Florida less than a month away, I know I won’t finish Reunion; Coda before I leave New Hampshire. It doesn’t make sense for me to try and rush the novel to completion; I’d just fuck up the ending to meet a self-imposed deadline that made sense in March – when I had zero intentions of leaving Madison – but now is unrealistic and stress-inducing.
Don’t worry, I’m not abandoning Reunion: Coda. I’ve set a new goal to release it by December 2024, just in time for the holiday season. Despite needing to do some packing before the cavalry arrives on October 16, I’ll keep pushing ahead with writing — aiming to make some headway on Chapter 20 before my big road trip back home. In the meantime, I hope some of you, particularly those who enjoy reading on Amazon and can easily afford either the paperback or Kindle edition, will consider picking up copies of the first book in the Reunion Duology. The royalties, though modest, would be immensely appreciated and lift my spirits.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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