On Writing and Storytelling: All Quiet on the Writing Front…Unfortunately

Friday, August 28, 2026 — Orlando, Florida

Hi, everyone.

It’s early afternoon on a hot late-summer day in Central Florida. Right now, it’s 91°F (33°C) and sunny, but with 61% humidity and a southwest breeze at 7 MPH (11 Km/H), it feels more like 101°F (38°C).

I wish I could say everything is going smoothly, but honestly, it isn’t. I still haven’t been able to start another work of fiction. Over the past year, I published three books — Reunion: Coda, Comings and Goings: The Art of Being Seen, and The Jim Garraty Chronicles: A Life in Four Movements — after a difficult two-year stretch that included writing Coda and making not one, but two interstate moves in just 10 months. I’m still a little surprised that, after finishing and publishing a hefty novel in April 2025, I managed to follow it with Comings and Goings, my novelette about Jim Garraty coming of age in 1984 Boston.

And as if that weren’t enough, I spent another 10 months putting together the Chronicles omnibus, which I recently published on Amazon as both a Kindle e-book and a paperback. It may not have been as demanding as writing a first novel, but it came with plenty of challenges and took far more time and energy than I expected.

So, yeah — as much as I’d like to write at least one more work of fiction before the decade ends, my writer’s mojo is running low. I don’t like it, and I wish it weren’t true, but for now, that’s where things stand.