Midday, Wednesday, November 20, 2024, Miami, Florida

“The hardest thing about writing is writing.” ― Nora Ephron

Writing Journey

Well, I’ve been diligently working on Reunion: Coda – my first novel and a continuation of Reunion: A Story, a novella I wrote in 1998 and published 20 years later – for precisely 20 months and one week. This is the longest I’ve ever dedicated to any project, excluding blogging, since I decided to pursue writing in my early teens.

Relocation and Progress

Since embarking on this manuscript, I have moved twice. First, in December 2023, I relocated from the Tampa Bay area to Madison, New Hampshire. Then, in October of this year, I moved again, this time back to my hometown of Miami, Florida. Both moves seemed to coincide with periods of significant progress but inevitably led to prolonged and detrimental delays due to the stress of packing, relocating, and readjusting to new environments.

Recent Developments

Since my return to South Florida a little over three weeks ago, I have made modest progress with the novel. I finished Chapter 20 – the last part of the story I started in New Hampshire before leaving the house in Eidelweiss District on October 17 – shortly after arriving back in Miami. However, I struggled to move on to Chapter 21. It wasn’t until Monday that I managed to “break the code” of Scene One and write it, and I spent all of yesterday reading, evaluating, and revising what I had written the day before.

Current Status

For those of you keeping track of Reunion: Coda’s statistics, here are the latest numbers as of late morning on Wednesday, November 20, 2024:

• Number of Chapters (including the Prologue): 21. 20 are complete, one is in progress
• Number of Pages (based on a paper size of 9 in. X 6 in.): 464
• Number of Words (including the title page but excluding front and back matter): 115,247

Background

That’s a considerable amount of work on just one project, especially considering I resisted writing this story for years. Until last year, I firmly believed that Reunion: A Story was a self-contained narrative, complete with a well-defined beginning, middle, and end. It told the tale of Jim Garraty, a smart and talented man who, despite his successful career as an educator and writer, was haunted by unresolved emotional conflict over “the one that got away.” I saw no wiggle room for a sequel and thought the story had reached its natural conclusion.

Reader Demand

However, some readers disagreed with my viewpoint and felt a strong desire for a continuation. Ever since I shared the unpublished draft of Reunion with a select few trusted individuals in 2004, and even after its eventual publication, I received numerous pleas to delve deeper into Jim Garraty’s life. They felt that his character warranted further exploration. One Amazon reviewer even described Jim as “an extraordinary yet wholly relatable man,” and this sentiment echoed among many readers who were eager to see his journey continue.

Breakthrough

Fortunately, I made an exciting discovery for the fans—and for myself—in the conclusion of Reunion: A Story. I found a small but crucial detail that opened the door for me to continue Jim’s journey in a coherent and hopefully immensely satisfying way. This breakthrough allowed me to explore the backstory of Reunion, focusing on Jim’s relationship with Marty, the girl he loved but never told. At the same time, I could move the story forward. Now, two years after the events of the original novella, Jim finds himself falling in love with someone new.

Challenges and Perseverance

I sometimes feel – based on Reunion: A Story’s lackluster sales despite all the good reviews on Amazon and WordPress – that I’ve wasted almost two years of my life writing a novel that few people will purchase and read. I read somewhere that most writers – including successful ones such as Ernest Hemingway – agonize over their work and whether they are successful or failures, and I often feel utter despair, especially when I see that even friends who read for pleasure still haven’t bought the novella.

Hopes and Goals

The journey of writing is fraught with emotional highs and lows, but I hold on to the hope that Reunion: Coda will resonate with a wider audience and provide the continuation of Jim Garraty’s story that so many readers have asked for.

(Here’s Denise Longrie‘s take on the novella:

5.0 out of 5 stars What might have been

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2024

Verified Purchase

Jim Garraty’s dream of becoming a history professor at a prestigious university has come true. He has some well-regarded publications under his belt and is working on the next one.

However, he’s still hurting from his recent divorce. And then comes the phone call from his old high school pal. Marty—the girl he loved back in the day—has died in a car crash. One of Jim’s greatest regrets is that he never told Marty he cared for her. Would romance have come of it? Or even friendship? It’s too late to know now.

Jim’s story is told in a series of flashbacks and returns to the present. The reader follows him through the last few days of high school when he had the chance to speak to Marty— but didn’t.

It’s a lyrical tale of regret for chances not taken, told in dreams and memories. It speaks to anyone who has been to high school and anyone who remembers the one who got away.

This pleasant, if bittersweet, novella is short enough to read in one sitting.)

Conclusion

Despite the delays and the challenges, I will soldier on and complete the novel, even though it will be released later than I originally planned. My goal is to read the finished work with fresh eyes, as if I hadn’t written it myself, and to find satisfaction in the story I have crafted. Do I hope it will be successful? Of course I do, and maybe this will be my breakthrough novel. In the end, though, I am writing Reunion: Coda because there are readers who asked for this story and want to read it…and because I am, after all, a writer. It’s what I do.