Writer’s Shop Talk: From Chilly New England to Sunny Miami: Reflections on a Saturday Morning

Late Morning, Saturday, February 22, 2025, Miami, Florida

It’s a cool, mild late winter day in the subtropical zone. Currently, the temperature is 72°F (22°C) under partly sunny skies. It promises to be a delightful Saturday; according to the forecast, we can expect partly sunny skies and a high of 74°F (24°C), all thanks to the polar vortex that didn’t quite make it to South Florida.

Meanwhile, up in Madison, New Hampshire, where I was living this time last year, the sky is actually clearer than here, but it’s much chillier. My Weather app says it’s 27°F (-2°C) under mostly sunny conditions, and the high today won’t rise much above 35°F (2°C). If I were still there, I’d likely be sipping hot cocoa with an English muffin, pondering how to spend my Saturday – unless, of course, it was one of those weekends where I needed to stock up on groceries. In New Hampshire, my go-to spots were Market Basket and Hannaford, which, to me, were the New England counterparts to Winn Dixie and Publix here in Florida. So, I’d probably be bundling up for a grocery run and dreading the inevitable glove hunt.

Usually, though, my Saturday routine up north wasn’t all that different from what I do here in Florida. Back in Madison, I was definitely more active than I ever was in Tampa Bay or even here in Miami. On days when it wasn’t snowing or raining, I’d often take a midday walk along Huttwil Drive. I did it partly for exercise and fresh air, partly in the hope of catching a glimpse of the attractive divorcee who lived across the street. (I had no plans to ask her out or anything – it was just that my ex-housemate Stuart always talked about how pretty she was, and naturally, I was curious to see her for myself.) Mostly, though, I walked because I found that the rhythmic crunch of my steps on the dirt road often sparked good story ideas for my novel, Reunion: Coda. Especially once spring arrived and the stark New England landscape began to bloom with green again.

There are, of course, some differences between weekends in Madison and weekends here in Florida, both before and after my time in New England. But one thing that stays the same is that I generally take a break from writing and try to enjoy my leisure time.

Speaking of Reunion: Coda...

Using the outline I created on Thursday, I spent yesterday working on several drafts of Chapter 25’s third scene. The detail in the outline made the initial draft a breeze – I knocked out over 900 words in about two hours. Most of what I wrote survived the various rewrites that took up my entire Friday evening. I focused mainly on enhancing character interactions, paying special attention to body language and dialogue to make the scene come alive.

When I finished working on the scene sometime after 9 PM, I had added 965 words (around five pages’ worth of fresh copy) to the manuscript. My novel is, almost two years into the process, 521 pages long and has a word count of 127,569. It’s not as long – or heavy – as Stephen King’s It, but it is the most ambitious literary work I’ve attempted.

Now, after a day of diving deep into the lives of my characters, I think it’s time to step away from the keyboard and lose myself in someone else’s world for a while. Perhaps a good book and a cozy corner will be just the escape I need.