From Childhood Dreams to Grownup Reality: My Hopes and Aspirations for ‘Reunion: Coda’

Midday, Tuesday, April 29, 2025, Miami, Florida

“Write the book you want to read and can’t find.” –  Ilona Andrews

Writer’s Log: Stardate 2504.30

It’s been four weeks since I typed the last lines of the closing chapter in Reunion: Coda, yet I still can’t quite believe that I’m now part of the 3% of writers who finish the books they start. Even though I own both the Kindle e-book and the hardcover editions and have begun reading them, I still feel as though the past month has been a fever dream or a waking fantasy of a man who promised his now-deceased mother that he would write a novel someday.

As I’ve said quite a few times before, I started on this path when I was 10 or 11 years old, writing short action-adventure stories mostly set during the Second World War on a heavy, battleship gray Royal typewriter that was probably made in the early 1960s. I remember sitting in Mrs. Chambers’ Special Ed class at Tropical Elementary, my small hands tapping away at those keys, dreaming up heroic tales. None of those stories survive (unless Mrs. Chambers kept them as mementos), but if my memories of those early 1970s days are accurate, they weren’t very good because (a) I was still learning English as a second language, and (b) I hadn’t yet been taught how to write fiction.

Be that as it may, the intent was always there because I had fallen in love with the written word even before I learned to walk (at least, that’s what my mom always said). Even though I didn’t start writing stuff that was meant for publication until I was a ninth grader at Riviera Junior High School in early 1980, by the time I was 12 years old I already dreamed of being a published author. I didn’t know the particulars, but the desire was there.

“You can kill a book quicker by your silence than by a bad review.” ― E.A. Bucchianeri

When will I start feeling that sense of “Oh, geez! I did it! I published a story that not only I am proud of writing, but people are reading and enjoying it?”

Honestly, I don’t know, even though I got my first nudge in that direction just yesterday afternoon. That’s when I noticed, almost by chance, that a review had been posted on Reunion: Coda’s Amazon product page. It came from Amazon UK, which wasn’t surprising since the reviewer, Meg Learner, was one of the first to buy the Kindle edition when I published it earlier this month. To my delight, she enjoyed my debut novel so much that she gave it a five-star rating.

I guess I am waiting for more folks—especially those who haven’t yet taken a leap of faith to read one or both books in the Reunion Duology—to purchase, read, and review Reunion: Coda. I’m not expecting to suddenly find myself on the New York Times bestseller list or in the same company as Suzanne Collins or Stephen King, but I would love to be a bit more self-sufficient by doing what I love—writing—rather than seeking side gigs in areas where I am neither comfortable nor well-trained.

From where I sit, I need more sales and a bunch of honest reviews—both on and off Amazon—to feel that, yes, folks, I can write good and entertaining stories, and yes, people will buy my books. Congratulations are nice and appreciated, of course, but book sales and the resulting royalties feel more tangible and gratifying.