Thursday, October 22, 2026 – Orlando, Florida
Hi, everyone.
It’s a beautiful autumn day, or what passes for one here in the subtropical zone. As I write this shortly before midday, the temperature is 75°F (24°C) under sunny skies. With humidity at 61% and a northerly breeze of 11 MPH (18 Km/H), it feels like 81°F (27°C). It’s going to be a nice afternoon, too; the forecast calls for continued sunshine and a high of 78°F (26°C).
As the old beer commercial used to put it, it doesn’t get better than this, weather-wise.
Writing-wise? Well. That’s another story.
I haven’t made any progress with And the Horse You Rode in On lately. I’m still trying to figure out how to rewrite the novella’s opening chapter, even though I know how and when Jim Garraty and Mark Prieto meet as fifth graders in the fall of 1975. I established this in both books of the Reunion Duology, the core of The Jim Garraty Chronicles, so I’m sure of the time and place.
The trick, of course, is recreating what elementary school was like for kids in the aftermath of the Summer of Jaws, and writing Jim and Mark so they come across as actual pre-teens rather than pint-sized adults who happen to have homework.
I’ve mentioned in this blog that I already wrote one version of how Jim and Mark became fast friends. Sarah Garraty, Jim’s widowed mother, sends Jim to the house two doors down the street to give the recently arrived Dale Prieto some recipe cards she’d promised her the day before. That first draft has plenty of things to like, especially the easy rapport between shy, introverted Jim and the more outgoing Mark.
There’s just one pesky little problem: it contradicts established “facts” from Reunion: Coda.
So now I must show the boys meeting early in the 1975-1976 school year in Mrs. Nabutovsky’s classroom at South Miami Elementary School.
When I was younger, say, 35, when I was writing Reunion: A Story, and considerably cockier, this sort of reversal wouldn’t have seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. I’d identify the problem (Oh. I forgot that Jim and Mark met in class.), hit the reset button in my writer’s brain, and dutifully rewrite the material as soon as possible. Depending on the page count, this usually took only a few days. Then I’d move on to the next story beat.
But in 2026, I’m 63, living in less-than-ideal quarters, and juggling several things at once: writing new stories, marketing existing ones, not very successfully, and trying to survive in an unfamiliar city on a fixed income.
I know what I need to do to fix the opening pages of And the Horse You Rode in On. That’s almost the maddening part. The problem isn’t knowing what to do. It’s summoning the confidence, concentration, and clarity of thought to sit down and actually do it.
I can, of course, write well under adverse circumstances. I wrote an entire novel during a two-year period in which I moved twice under less-than-ideal conditions. Despite the stress and the unavoidable interruptions to the writing process, I published Reunion: Coda in April 2025.
I might have accomplished that goal in 2024 had I not had to leave Florida in the first place, but the fact remains: the novel exists. I finished the damn thing. And it’s available on Amazon or can be special ordered at Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, or even Book Culture.
So, yes, I know I can do difficult things.
I do think, though, that this new project seems more difficult than it ought to be.
Part of that, I suppose, is the lingering stress from that tumble in the Aldi parking lot that landed me in the nearby AdventHealth ER last month. I wasn’t seriously injured, thankfully, and my Medicaid insurance paid the larger $1,000 bill from the doctors who treated me on September 1. But I still owe AdventHealth more than $500 for the ER visit. I managed to get enough GoFundMe donations to cover half that amount, for which I’m grateful, but I’m still on the hook for the rest.
And, because apparently my writer’s brain didn’t have enough occupying its limited shelf space, there’s also my disappointment over sales of my five existing books on Amazon, particularly my four Jim Garraty titles.
Put all of that together, and you’ll understand why I’m not exactly bounding out of bed each morning eager to spend 20 hours a week on a new manuscript.
The question I keep asking myself is an uncomfortable one: Why should I put my body and mind through the stress of long hours at a writing desk, pouring my soul onto the page, or, more accurately, onto a computer monitor, if even friends who read a lot won’t read the stuff I’ve already published?
I’ve even given away copies of several titles, and I have yet to see much reaction on Amazon or in the blogosphere.
That hurts. I wish it didn’t, but it does.
Still, I’m going to fix that botched start to And the Horse You Rode in On. And I’m going to write the rest of the story. I’ll publish it, too.
Partly because hope springs eternal in this writer’s heart. Partly because, after all these years, Jim Garraty apparently still isn’t finished with me.
But mostly because I believe And the Horse You Rode in On is a good story, even in its present, amorphous state, somewhere in the cluttered back room of my subconscious.
I just have to coax the blasted thing out of there and onto the page.
But, cripes.
It’s certainly not getting off to an easy start.
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