On Steamy Days and Sluggish Muses

Monday, May 18, 2026 — Orlando, Florida

It’s early afternoon in my corner of Central Florida, and it is, in a word, steamy. The temperature outside is 89°F (32°C) under mostly sunny skies. With humidity at 47% and an easterly breeze at 11 MPH (18 km/h), the feels-like temperature is 94°F (35°C). We’ve already hit the forecast high, though if the weather weenies are right, a few scattered showers may drift through later and take the edge off.

Today is the first day of my workweek, and—as you can probably guess—I’m off to a late start. My usual routine is to write blog posts in the morning, take a two‑hour midday break, and then work on my literary projects until about 5 p.m. It’s the schedule I set for myself when I began Reunion: Coda three springs ago, and, surprisingly enough, it’s a routine I’ve mostly managed to keep despite the assorted curveballs life has hurled at me since I left the Tampa Bay area in mid‑December 2023.

Sometimes—like today—I find it extraordinarily hard to sit down at my desk and work on either the blog or whatever Big Project currently has me in its clutches. Maybe I had a restless night. Maybe I’m fretting about my current living arrangement. Maybe I’m discouraged by the shortage of book sales or fresh reviews on Amazon and in the blogosphere. Today, dear readers, I’ve managed the trifecta.

According to the schedule, I should already have posted an entry in A Certain Point of View, Too, eaten lunch, and opened Kindle Create to work on The Jim Garraty Chronicles. The fact that it’s now past two in the afternoon and I’m still at the blog tells me all I need to know: my mind is unsettled, my body is tired, and my morale is doing that slow, unpleasant sink that makes concentration feel less like a skill and more like a rumor.

I also suspect that the general state of the world in May 2026—political division, socio‑economic strain, cultural conflict at home and abroad, a shaky economy, and an unpopular war in the Middle East—isn’t exactly helping matters. Existential angst, as it turns out, is not especially friendly to the creative impulse.

Still, this oppressively hot spring day is not without its bright spots. Some readers have, thankfully, connected with the three published Jim Garraty books: Reunion: A Story, Reunion: Coda, and Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen. Even the related flash‑fiction piece I wrote earlier this year, The Summer of Two Movies, received a lovely write‑up from Pooja Gudka. Taken together, these reminders help counter the nagging suspicion that being tired, frazzled, and behind schedule somehow makes me a bad writer. It doesn’t.

And if any of these stories sound like your cup of tea, they’re available on Amazon in a variety of formats, including Kindle editions, paperback, and selected Audible editions. No pressure—just know they’re there if you’d like to spend a little more time in Jim Garraty’s world.