On Writing and Storytelling: A World I Didn’t Mean to Build (But Did Anyway)

Friday, March 27, 2026, Orlando, Florida

Hey there!

Here in Central Florida, another workweek is rolling to a close on a sun‑soaked, muggy spring afternoon that’s auditioning for summer. Right now, it’s a balmy 81°F (27°C), skies are clear, and the humidity’s flexing at 58%. The wind meanders in from the southwest at just 3 MPH (4 km/h), and thanks to the added moisture, it feels more like 92°F (33°C) — Mother Nature’s way of saying, “Don’t pack up those shorts just yet!” Today’s forecast? Mostly sunny, with highs likely topping out at 87°F (31°C). If you’re looking for shade, good luck.

Writing has been my constant companion for ages. Even if we skip my early, overly ambitious attempts at action‑adventure tales back in Mrs. Chambers’ Special Ed class at Tropical Elementary (circa 1972–75), I’ve spent most of my life chasing stories, scribbling, and learning the craft. My first byline? It graced the pages of The Ram’s Horn, the student newspaper at Riviera Junior High, at the home stretch of ninth grade in 1980. Soon after, my guidance counselor (with surprising wisdom) enrolled me in Newspaper Reporting and Editing at South Miami Senior High. I hadn’t picked the class myself, but I was hooked. Journalism became more than a course — it was my ticket to honing my writing chops, and I ended up majoring in journalism and mass communication in college.

Admittedly, I never finished college or landed a gig at the local paper. Still, most of my written work has been journalistic — primarily op‑eds — with a sprinkling of lively arts reviews online. Truth be told, I always dreamed of penning novels or screenplays (journalism was supposed to pay the rent and sharpen my prose), so I was a bit late to the literary fiction party. Better late than never, right?

As of this writing, my literary fiction output is modest. Since October 1998, I’ve written:

• Reunion: A Story (1998, a novella)
• Reunion: Coda (2025, a novel)
• Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen (2025, a novelette)
• The Summer of Two Movies (2026, flash fiction)

Although I never intended to create a literary world — the “Garratyverse” — centered on one character (Jim Garraty), the stories kept circling back to him. Not out of habit, but because he offered the clearest lens for the themes I kept wrestling with: memory, connection, the long shadow of adolescence, and the quiet ways people shape us. Jim became the through‑line, the anchor, the voice that made the work feel honest.

That honesty is especially true in The Summer of Two Movies. Of all the Garraty stories, it’s the one that sits closest to the bone. Roughly ninety percent of it comes straight from my own summer of 1977 — the twin gravitational pulls of A Bridge Too Far and Star Wars, the theaters I sat in, the emotional weather of that moment in my life. The differences between fact and fiction are small: our A/C wasn’t dying, and Jim at twelve is a slightly younger version of who I was at fourteen. But the emotional physics? Those are real. That’s why the story feels lived‑in rather than invented.

And maybe that’s the real surprise of this whole creative journey. I didn’t set out to build a fictional universe, but I’ve come to understand why writers like Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas kept returning to the worlds they created. When a setting, a character, or a theme becomes the place where your imagination feels most at home, you don’t abandon it — you explore it. You deepen it. You let it grow with you.

The Garratyverse wasn’t a plan. It was a discovery. And at this point, it’s probably where most of my creative energy will continue to go, not out of obligation, but because it’s the world where the stories feel the most true.

That’s part of why I’m putting together The Jim Garraty Chronicles omnibus — a single volume that gathers the four stories written so far, from Reunion: A Story all the way through The Summer of Two Movies. It’s a way of giving readers the full emotional arc in one place, but it’s also a way of acknowledging something I didn’t see coming when I wrote that first novella back in 1998: these stories belong together. They speak to each other. They form a kind of emotional biography.

And the truth is, I’m not done exploring that world. Not even close.

Right now, I’m planning a new novella, And the Horse You Rode In On, which goes back to Jim and Mark’s childhood — a thread I originally tugged on in Reunion: Coda but didn’t fully explore. It’s the story of the boys confronting Patrick Blanchard, a bully whose presence casts a long shadow over their early years. It’s not an action piece or a morality tale; it’s another look at how friendships are forged, how fear shapes us, and how kids learn to navigate the first real tests of loyalty and courage. In other words, it’s another piece of the emotional puzzle that makes Jim who he is.

If the Garratyverse feels real, it’s because I’m not inventing from thin air. I’m drawing from the emotional truth of my own life — the movies that shaped me, the friendships that steadied me, the moments that left a mark. The details may shift, the timelines may bend, but the feelings are the same. That’s the part that matters.

Again and again, readers say the same thing: these stories feel real — the emotions, the hesitations, the small acts of courage that turn strangers into people who truly see one another.

And like Roddenberry with Star Trek or Lucas with Star Wars, I’ve realized that this is the creative universe where I feel most at home. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s honest. Because every time I return to Jim Garraty, there’s another corner of his life — and mine — worth exploring.

So that’s where I am now — gathering the existing stories into The Jim Garraty Chronicles omnibus and sketching out the next piece of the puzzle, And the Horse You Rode In On. It feels fitting, really. After spending decades writing op‑eds, reviews, and the occasional screenplay draft, I’ve finally found the narrative space where everything clicks. Not because it’s grand or sprawling, but because it’s honest.

Jim Garraty isn’t a character I invented so much as someone I discovered. Every story reveals another corner of his life, another echo of my own, another moment that feels worth exploring. And as long as those echoes keep resonating — as long as the emotional truth stays alive — I’ll keep returning to this world.

Some writers spend their whole careers searching for the one universe that feels like home. I stumbled into mine by accident. But now that I’m here, I plan to stay awhile.

If you’ve spent time with any of these stories, thank you. And if you haven’t yet, you’re welcome to drop in whenever the mood strikes. Jim’s world is always open