Crafting Stories: My Writing Journey

Late Morning, Monday, November 18, 2024, Miami, Florida

Greetings, Constant Readers.

It’s another gray-shrouded late autumn morning on this first day of a new workweek in South Florida. The temperature is 79°F (26°C) under mostly cloudy conditions. With humidity at 54% and the wind blowing from the east at 8 MPH (12 Km/H), the feels-like temperature is 82°F (28°C). Today’s forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies and a high of 81°F (27°C).

Being a writer means doing your daily shift even when you’re alone in the house and nobody else will know or care whether you did. – Harry Turtledove

As you know, today is a working day for me. I’m sticking to the writing schedule I established in March 2023 when I started writing Reunion: Coda in Lithia. My day begins with morning blog writing, followed by a rest and lunch break around noon, and then diving into the manuscript for about four hours. I don’t have a strict timetable for these phases, but I aim to start the “midday” break at noon or close to it.

I don’t always hit my “lunch at 12” goal; sometimes I miss it by 15 to 30 minutes, and other times by an hour. It all depends on my energy levels, time management skills, or if I have other tasks besides morning blogging.

On Writing and Storytelling: Action This Day

All right. While I’ve set aside the ambitious “Finish the Novel by Early December” plan that I had before leaving Madison, New Hampshire to return to South Florida—has it truly been a month since I departed the Granite State?—that doesn’t mean the journey of writing Reunion: Coda has come to a halt. Far from it. I remain committed to my five-day workweeks until the novel is complete and ready for the world. I still hold hope of publishing Reunion: Coda by the end of 2024. The story is crescendoing towards its emotional climax; the only question that lingers is, “How many chapters are left until I can drive the final spike at Promontory Point?” I wish I could say it’s two or three, but given the narrative’s intricate web, it feels more like three or four.

Having wrapped up the editing and revision of Chapter 20, the next chapter looms ahead. As I pen these words late on a Monday morning, I contemplate whether to dive into Scene One headfirst or spend the next few hours carefully outlining it today, then bringing it to life tomorrow. The allure of “flying by the seat of my pants” as I did in the earlier stages of this project is tempting. However, while this spontaneous approach served me well at the onset, it’s become increasingly challenging to simply ask, “What happens next?” and proceed accordingly. This method worked when alternating between Jim’s Present Day narrative and his high school memories of his “lost love” Marty. Drawing from my own high school experiences and transforming them into fiction provided a clear direction.

Now that I’m focusing on the set-in-2000 Jim and Maddie romance exclusively, it’s harder to improvise, especially now that I’ve added a subplot that borrows from other genres, such as stories set in an academic institution and even crime stories. Those involve more research, imagination, and a willingness to take creative risks. The shift from a purely personal narrative to one that encompasses broader thematic and genre elements brings with it a set of challenges that demand meticulous planning and a deeper engagement with the material.

With each keystroke, I find myself entangled in the complexities of the narrative. It’s an exhilarating, albeit daunting, task to weave the threads of the story into a coherent and compelling tapestry. But the joy of storytelling, the anticipation of seeing where the characters lead me, and the promise of reaching that final, satisfying conclusion keep me motivated. So, here’s to another day of writing, revising, and discovering the tale that lies within the pages of Reunion: Coda.