Time Marches On: Reflections on Turning 62…and Pushing the Novel Closer to Completion

Late Morning, Thursday, March 6, 2025, Miami, Florida

“Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened.” – Cora Harvey Armstrong

Yesterday marked my 62nd orbit around the sun, and it was my first birthday celebration in Miami since 2015. Ten birthdays had passed since I last celebrated with family. My friends, Eric and Rosie, didn’t even know it was my special day, as I had kept it under wraps. Eric, bless his heart, remembered my birthday was in March but was convinced it was on the ninth.

As such, the celebration was delightfully spontaneous. Eric asked if I had any culinary cravings for the day. Given our love for Chinese food, Hesitantly, I suggested we indulge in delicious fried rice. After all, what better way to ring in another year than with a feast of spring rolls, shrimp, and laughter?

Aside from that, Birthday #62 was a quiet day filled with moments of rest and reflection. I didn’t touch my novel; my thoughts drifted to the Land of Birthdays Past, a place where cherished memories reside, both joyful and melancholic. It’s a realm peopled with friends who have moved away from South Florida in search of new horizons, or who have journeyed to the “undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.” Yesterday, I found myself smiling and even laughing as I reminisced, but there were times when my eyes threatened to brim with tears.

On Writing and Storytelling: Forward…Ever Forward

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

That, dear friends and Constant Readers, was yesterday. Today is another working day for this first-time novelist, and I plan to return to Reunion: Coda and coax it, scene by scene, ever closer to completion.

The manuscript has grown to a formidable 538 pages (9 in. x 6 in.) and boasts 138,602 words, according to Word’s trusty word count feature. Even accounting for the pages with titles and the “This is a work of fiction” disclaimer, it’s a substantial literary journey – certainly the longest and most ambitious work I’ve ever shepherded this far along.

It’s almost laughable now when I think back to my high school days, struggling to churn out a mere five-paragraph essay. It felt like pulling teeth to reach the word count, and let’s not even mention those freshman-year college papers that were more fluff than substance. The irony isn’t lost on me that now I’m wrangling with a manuscript that’s 3,740 paragraphs long. How times have changed!

As I sit here, well before my midday break, I’m mulling over whether to wrap up Chapter 26 with Scene Three – a key moment that’s the novel’s emotional high point – or to stretch it out with a fourth scene. Right now, there’s a pretty neat idea for Scene Four swirling in my mind. I really hope it doesn’t disappear into thin air when I get back to my desk around 2 or 2:30 PM, because I’d prefer to end the chapter with this new scene. Of course, that’s only if the idea still seems good once I pull it out of my imagination and start outlining. If it holds up, awesome. If not, it’s on to Chapter 27 we go.