General
Around the next bend…
This summer, as Rivers crossed the one-year milestone since publication, I observed with delight the inner sense of its being a thing apart from me.
The notion solidified gradually, of course, once I was no longer composing and revising – after being preoccupied with the project, at varying levels of intensity, for more than four years.
In the book, I wrote of my aim not to live in the past by digging into it. Rather, “I looked back in order to move forward.” It occurs to me this is another time to be careful not to get stuck in the retro view. Not only will there be a sequel to write, looking ahead at the moment is about finding this book its readership – to me, a wholly distinct exercise from the writing itself.
When I recall the initial brain-dump drafts, it’s astonishing to reflect on what the book eventually became. The core of the original vision never changed, yet the finished product is a far cry from what was in my head at the very beginning. A few times along the way, outside forces brought the work to a standstill, and returning to it required reorienting. I’ve finally embraced that my writing practice may always be like that.
Some writers say they can’t not write. Only when all the conditions are right is that true for me. I suppose this variance between writers arises both from individual persuasion and from being in what I’ll call different life-seasons.
While I’m clear on my immediate objectives and how to meet them, I’m not anticipating a time when Rivers-related activity will become self-driving.
I must have imagined at one time that it would. Sometimes you don’t really grasp your hidden hopes until they’re not met – true for personal productivity, reader response, and for much else.
All the sweeter when you’re pleasantly surprised by a hope realized.
I will, as the phrase has it, keep you posted here. (And by the way, I’ll keep using my other blog(opens in new tab) for longer pieces.)
Thanks as always for your interest.
(August 26, 2026)
Closing the book on Indie Bookstore Day 2026
The last Saturday in April, Sip & Story Bookstore and Mocktail Lounge welcomed me to help celebrate Independent Bookstore Day by signing copies of my memoir at their delightful little shop. I was joined by my son and his partner – and their Irish wolf hound, Grimm, who charmed book browsers and helped to make it a ‘fairy tale’ day.
A favorite sensation in my writing spot at home is when I’ve become so absorbed that, on finally pausing to check the time on my world map-themed wall clock, for a split second I’m not sure which is the long hand and which is the short. It felt a little like that at Saturday’s author event (despite there being no analog clock in view), in that hanging out and chatting with book lovers took me out of time – an engaging and fruitful way to pass a few hours.
My gratitude goes to the shopowners and everyone who stopped in and showed interest in Rivers.
(May 5, 2026)
On the cusp of spring…
I learned a new word this morning. A search for a synonym of ‘hibernate’ introduced me to the verb ‘overwinter’. To keep something alive through the cold season – yes, how useful.
Bears apparently prepare ahead of time for their winter inactivity. When it came to this author’s need to overwinter, though, I didn’t see it coming.
I’d expected long before now to post about how last fall’s book signings went, and to sum up the exciting year that culminated in the publishing of Rivers. And it wasn’t exactly inactivity that kept me from doing so – just non-author contingencies that had to take precedence for a while.
In that time, I’ve experienced the vacillating waves of satisfaction and self-doubt that creatives are sometimes warned to expect in the wake of a project going public. When I first conceived of the Rivers project, I thought of it simply as a worthwhile record for myself and loved ones. Along the way, I became persuaded that the old adventure could be of interest to strangers too. Jump-cut five years to an actual book actually in people’s hands.
In the process of shopping out the manuscript, one piece of feedback I received urged me to scrap my idea for the book’s structure and instead tell the story by alternating between Thomas’s inner perspective and mine. That would necessarily have made it fiction rather than memoir.
If it’s true writers in any genre (or artists of any kind) identify their work with their self, it must be all the more so with memoir. Here, it seems to me, we find the least distance between persona and product, between story and author. In offering it to an audience, then, we set ourselves up for both to feel unaffirmed. If we’re concerned we’ve misjudged the story’s appeal beyond our close circle, we think our author-talk sounds like playacting.
Thoughts such as those brought me back to a statement I made before I even wrote the book: it’ll be enough for me just to get it written. From the outset, its two-part design and the determination not to fictionalize were fundamental to the vision – leaving me unswayed by one potential publisher’s suggestions to the contrary.
Now, the cusp of the spring season has brought with it some affirming reviews and an upcoming author event to prepare for. Who knows what Rivers’ coming year may hold?
(March 27, 2026)
That which we never lose…
There’s hardly a more universal theme than pondering lost love and what might have been. A Confluence of Rivers’ unique contribution arises from the paper record through which I relived its story. Only during a brief window in the late 1990s did I bother to print email messages – when the episode Rivers tells of happened to take place.In the process of reviewing those old emails, taking copious notes on my laptop, I sought to identify and record key words and phrases I’d want to be able to find later. One day the thought struck that I wish I could make my memories themselves searchable.
I wished as well I could see the vaguely recalled screensavers that had set the story in motion. Since I still have the diskette they came on, several months ago I excitedly contacted a techie friend to see if he might still have the outdated type of disk drive for reading it. He promptly deflated my hopes by informing me the diskette’s innards, after so many years, would likely be too degraded to access the designs.
I knew it was a fanciful idea. Oh well, winsome, lose some. It’s incredibly fortunate the box of printouts itself survived – and crazy to realize what it took to get Rivers out in the world (as this essay at my other blog touches on).
Since its summer release, I’ve been a little stymied in getting to the promotional tasks that come next. That includes working with this site’s mailing list – apologies for the delay to those who’ve subscribed.
While I get on with that, I’ll leave you with this quote I’ve only recently come across which fits the whole Rivers project well:
"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose; all that we deeply love becomes a part of us." (Helen Keller)
(October 31, 2025)
Welcome, readers!
As a newcomer to independent publishing, I’d like to thank you for visiting my author website!
A Confluence of Rivers has been quite literally a labor of love, a long time in the making. I couldn’t be more pleased to finally make it available.
My aims for this blog page include offering updates about the book and other projects as they come along. More importantly, I hope you will feel welcomed and encouraged to interact if you find something interesting or meaningful.
Contrary to popular advice, my public-facing author work won’t lean heavily on standard social media outlets. I’m no influencer, but I do love to connect! I believe this will be the best place to start.
A note about this site’s Comments policy: reader comments won’t automatically post. If you don’t see yours after a few days, you can reach me via the Contact page. Well, feel free to do that anytime – ask me anything or share what moves you. (Whether you subscribe or contact me, please check your spam folder if you don’t see a response.) It could be that a topic you raise will make it into a future post.
More soon – from you and me both, I hope.
(July 4, 2025)