The wait is over

When I moved to Poland over two years ago I expected it to be a writing paradise for me. I thought being in a new area, a new country, would drive my imagination wild and create a long lasting period of writing. Truth be known, I wrote quite a bit when I was in Krakow, but it wasn’t anything new storywise. There were no fiction pieces or reflections on my travels. Instead, the daily writing I did complete was journaling and nothing more. 

From the winter of 2022 when I completed Rusty Star, I won’t say I was blocked, but aside from a few instances where I wrote ten pages here and there for potential sequels to Rusty Star and the Marcus Files, there was nothing substantial. 

Granted, I would beat myself up on this especially in between my travels because I knew from the fall of 2020 to late winter of 2022, I wrote six books with an average word length of 80,000 words. We spanned the gauntlet from a spinoff series of my popular young adult series Luza with Seli a New Adult LGBT+ Romance Fantasy (that’s a mouthful genre-wise), all three books in the Marcus Files (my favorite remains The Thresher . . . I love that book and the cover) with Rusty Star thrown in for good measure. The book that got this writing period in motion was a memoir from my time teaching and living in Brindisi, Italy. 

I remember the writing process fondly as I had taken a long drive around the White Mountains and over to Mount Chocorua to take in the fall colors and the secret spots that leaf peepers and other tourists knew nothing about. After this productive ride, I settled in my house, to my writing nook, sat on my chaise, and dictated life in Italy, all 90,000 words within two weeks. Truly, it was a remarkable writing process. This was supposed to be the warm-up act before National Novel Writing Month.

I intended to write Seli first, but I promised some family and friends to reflect on Brindisi even though I found fiction better to my style and liking. Nevertheless, I used my microphone and dictated various stories from life in Italy. I was so pleased with myself, until I began to read over some of the dictations. The entire thing was a mess, a crazy absolute mess, that meant I would need to do another full draft, almost from scratch. 

Not wanting to lose motivation, I finished the book and put it aside. The other stories cried for more attention and as years passed I would return to Brindisi hopeful to manage and deal with the many revisions, but never getting farther than a chapter or two before the frustration fairy appeared and any sense of motivation. It was too discouraging and painful because I could tell this was going to be a story that didn’t flow smoothly like the creative process did with my other books. 

Fast forward to the present and I’m back on the case, working on the Brindisi memoir. I’m more than halfway done with almost 50,000 words in the can. Some of the chapters have been unruly as expected, but it’s been fun to revisit this period and to finally plug away at this unfinished project. Truly, I don’t want to write anything new until it’s done. 

The caveat would be, nothing else new, until the project is finished. This means I might have, okay, well the truth is I wrote a book in the first three weeks of January that got my creative juices in motion. This is another nonfiction piece, but this one focuses on my financial journey and how I went from living in debt to now a debt-free life based out of Morocco of all spots. The book has some valuable financial tips and stories about what I did wrong spending-wise over the years to get myself into a stupid financial situation before shifting to a more moderate lifestyle, one within my means. 

While everything is relative, I felt like it was a prudent story to write and share. With that 50,000-word draft completed, I wanted to give Brindisi its due. I don’t know if this will be as productive a year as I had back in New Hampshire, but we are off to a good start. For that, I’m grateful. 
I won’t jinx myself by saying anything more, but I wanted to give you an update on the writing part of my world. Between writing and films (travel vlogs at present), these are the two passions that I have pursued since I was in my teens. It’s nice to have more of a balance between the two, as opposed to all vlogging and no substantial writing. 

​I’ll keep you posted in the months ahead. Hopefully, by the next check in Brindisi and Me will be ready to go. In the meantime, enjoy your February and the remainder of the winter season.

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