Another Workweek, A New Month, and Another Season

Monday, December 1, 2025 – Orlando, Florida

Another Monday, another new workweek, another new month—and, meteorologically speaking, another new season.

(It’s also rent day, though thankfully my landlady is considerate and understanding of my circumstances. Compared to the steep payments I made during my ten months in Miami, this arrangement feels far less onerous.)

It’s a cloudy, cool-but-humid first day of winter here in Central Florida. As I write, the temperature is 74°F (23°C) under a veil of gray, sullen clouds that promise to linger. True to the subtropics, the “feels-like” temperature is closer to 84°F (28°C). Even though it’s the start of meteorological winter, the weather resembles early spring in Florida—humid, unsettled, and hinting at rain showers.

Mondays usually mark the start of a new workweek for most people, me included. Ideally, I’d be working on The Jim Garraty Chronicles, the omnibus edition that gathers Reunion: A Story, Reunion: Coda, and Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen between one set of covers.

When I conceived this project over the summer, I believed I could have the deluxe edition ready for a Winter 2025 release. After all, the stories already existed and had been revised multiple times. All I needed was to fix formatting glitches caused by Kindle Create and add exclusive front and back matter. I estimated a month to clean up the messy subheadings and another week or two to write an introduction, foreword, and afterword.

Then came the move—an unexpectedly chaotic transition from Miami to Orlando that left most of my belongings stranded in South Florida. Adjusting to a new living arrangement, while juggling errands to secure Medicaid and SNAP benefits from the notoriously stingy State of Florida, threw my publication schedule into disarray.

Much of my time has also gone into adapting the Garratyverse stories into audiobooks. My producers—Brandon Padilla, Bryan Haddock, and Stefan Lee—handled the narration and recording, but the marketing falls squarely on me. It consumes hours each day, and with only six audiobook sales so far, I sometimes feel more like Sisyphus than Stephen King.

Print editions have fared somewhat better. According to Kindle Direct Publishing, I earned $31.47 in royalties last month, which will be deposited later this month. Still, given the enthusiasm I saw in 2018 when I first released Reunion, I had hoped for stronger sales and more reviews for Reunion: Coda. The reviews that do exist are positive, but they’re few in number. For indie authors, public feedback—especially on Amazon or Audible—is vital. Reviews mean visibility, visibility means awareness, and awareness can lead to more sales and royalties.

That’s why I was especially grateful for a recent surprise. My landlady, who runs a home cleaning service, shared my books with one of her clients—a local author. I hadn’t asked her to do this (I’m far too shy to make such a request), but she did it anyway. To my delight, the author read Reunion and Comings and Goings and genuinely liked them. That kind of unsolicited kindness and encouragement is a gift, and it reminds me why I write: for connection, for resonance, for those moments when words find their way into someone else’s heart.

So yes, between worries about my stranded property in Miami and lower-than-expected sales, it’s hard to feel motivated to publish a third book before year’s end. But I’ll try to rally and make some edits to The Jim Garraty Chronicles. First, though, I think I’ve earned a late breakfast. Energy, after all, is the fuel every writer needs.