Dear Reader, Let Me Tell You a Story…About Where ‘Comings and Goings’ Came From

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Where Did You Get the Idea for Your Most Recent Book?

It’s funny how inspiration works sometimes. With my novel Reunion: Coda—which I finished and published less than three months ago—the journey from spark to story was anything but fast. (Amazon pegs it at 529 pages, by the way.) The seed was planted back in 2000, when April—someone I was hoping to meet but never did—read the unpublished manuscript that would eventually become Reunion: A Story. Maybe because I associated a sequel with her, I waited until 2023 to write Reunion: Coda. If you count that first flicker of inspiration, it took 23 years for the idea to grow into something real—though I barely scribbled a note until March of 2023.

But my most recent book didn’t come from some long-gestating plan. It arrived thanks to a question from my friend Juan Carlos Hernandez:
What will you write about next?

You know how it is—once you finish a story and put it out in the world, it’s not long before someone asks about the next one. I was—and still am—neck-deep in the slow, often frustrating process of getting Reunion: Coda into readers’ hands. So my honest response to Juan’s question was, “I dunno, man.”

And if I’m being 100% honest, I was okay with not knowing. After two years of writing and two cross-country moves between Florida and New Hampshire in a 10-month period, I was perfectly fine with an empty Idea Cupboard™ for the time being. Because once you know what the next story is, you don’t get to not write it anymore.

Still, Juan’s question lodged in my head like a wayward eight ball on a pool table, clinking around as I tried to reread Coda—not as the guy who wrote it, or the editor who knows every flaw, but as someone searching for a good story.

And then, on a sleepless Miami night three weeks ago, I found this passage late in the book:

I continue my walk, my eyes casually scanning the faces of the students.
One young woman catches my eye. She has the same blonde hair and bright, inquisitive blue eyes as Kelly Moore, a girl I met at a freshman party at Harvard…
I haven’t thought about Kelly in years, but the memories flood back, making me wonder if she remembers me with any fondness…
Maybe this is why Heineken became my beer of choice.

I put my Fire tablet down like it had just shocked me.
“This means something,” I said aloud. “This could be a story about Jim’s first time with a girl.”

I didn’t want to write another novel—not so soon. Two years on a single story had taken a lot out of me. I wasn’t about to start another 500-page marathon, especially since I’m not exactly Stephen King or Nicholas Sparks. If the literary world were banging down my door for the next big thing, maybe I’d be more inclined to chase a second epic. But for now, readers would get something smaller. Something shorter. Maybe quieter—but no less true.

That passage wouldn’t leave me alone. The idea kept circling back, insistent as an earworm. As I wrote in a recent blog post:

Kelly wasn’t loud, but she kept showing up—like a song you’d forgotten, until it plays again at just the right moment. And suddenly, you remember everything.

This short story became a companion piece—a moment of truth wrapped in memory, music, and the ache of choosing to stay when leaving might’ve been easier.

And that, Dear Reader, is how I wrote my most recent book.