On Writing and Storytelling: Two Steps Forward…One Giant Step Back….

Wednesday, September 30, 2026 – Orlando, Florida

Hi, everyone. I hope your Hump Day — the last one in September, which feels impossible because I’m pretty sure July was last week — has treated you well. Here in the Eastern time zone, my Wednesday is already half gone; it’s almost 1:30 PM as I type this on a warm, sunny autumn afternoon in Central Florida. And yes, I’m calling it “autumn” even though the weather outside is still auditioning for a role as “Surface of the Sun” in a disaster movie.

I’m still annoyed with myself — genuinely, forehead‑tapping annoyed — for not rereading Reunion: Coda closely enough to remember exactly when and where Jim Garraty met his best friend, Mark Prieto, before I charged ahead with And the Horse You Rode in On. You’d think I’d remember the origin story of two characters I’ve been writing about since the Clinton administration, but apparently my brain has decided to store that information in the same folder as “Where did I leave my keys?” and “What did I come into this room for?”

Now, I did remember the year — 1975. I get partial credit. I established that way back in 1998 in Reunion: A Story, where I wrote that Jim met Mark in fifth grade, almost eight years before their last day at South Miami High. That detail has been canon for nearly three decades, so it’s basically tattooed on my frontal lobe.

But when I wrote Reunion: Coda between Spring 2023 and Spring 2025, I wasn’t thinking about future stories. I was just trying to land a long, complicated narrative with braided timelines, two love stories, and a side dish of friendship fiction. Backstory wasn’t something I approached with a spreadsheet and a flowchart. I simply asked myself, “Where did Mark meet Jim?” and answered, “In Mrs. Nabutovsky’s fifth grade class at South Miami Elementary.” Boom. Done. Next crisis.

That passing reference — tossed in with the casual confidence of a writer who assumes Future Me will remember everything — later became the seed for And the Horse You Rode in On. It tells readers (or is supposed to) that the boys met on campus while school was still in session.

I should have remembered that. I should have. But in my enthusiasm to start the new novella/novelette, the detail slipped right out of my head, and in the current draft, Jim meets Mark not at the start of the ’75–76 school year, but during the summer break beforehand.

Which means the draft I have in Word — no matter how vivid, evocative, or occasionally funny — needs to be rewritten. At least the first five or six pages. I might be able to salvage the part where Jim goes to Mark’s house on an errand for his mom, but the boys’ first meeting? That’s headed for the Great Digital Dumpster in the Sky.

Naturally, I’m not thrilled. I like what’s on the page now. It captures the mid‑Seventies nicely, and the boys’ dynamic already has some spark. And if I do my job right, I can probably save the best segment of the chapter without losing too much of the original material.

Still, it’s another case of two steps forward, one step back in this writer’s journey. At this point, I’m thinking of installing one of those airport moving walkways — the kind that promises to speed you along but somehow always breaks down right when you need it — because that’s exactly what writing feels like. You stride confidently forward, you trip, you curse, you rewrite, and then you get back on the walkway again, hoping this time it won’t fling you into a potted plant.