Perhaps the title is a little out of touch with the rest of the world. Most people would likely argue that the world slowed down in 2020 and then fast forwarded in 2021 as everyone desperately tried to catch up. It would probably read better if I had substituted the ‘the’ for ‘my’, because finally, my world has slowed down.
I touched briefly in my last update (over a year ago) that I was attending grad school. In fact, I was attending grad school, working full-time and working part-time for a few months. It was all good fun. But now I’m, thankfully, graduated with a Master’s degree, have left both of my old jobs for a new one, and have found myself with an abundance of free time that I have mostly used to catch up on my reading and old tv shows. Oh, and I’ve done some writing, too! (I also spruced up my website in case you hadn’t noticed).
Yes, writing. You read that right. I’ve been making some decent progress, not to toot my own horn or anything. Not to give anything away, but I made myself cry while writing a recent passage. It’s hard, guys, knowing what’s going to happen before it happens.
“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.”
Neil Gaiman
I’m currently working on the third draft of a story I started two years ago; after the publication ofJust Down the Street, Across the Ocean, and before I started grad school. I’d love to update you on details such as the length or wordcount, but, honestly, I do not know because I am writing it by hand in a beautiful journal given to me by a couple of writer friends. When it’s full, I’ll start typing it up and sharing excerpts, I promise. But for now, just know it’s very different than my debut novella. Or I think it is anyway. How would I know, really?
Lastly, if you’ve made it this far, I want to say thank you for reading this. And, also, thank you to many of you for the encouraging words. I’ll never stop being surprised by people commenting that they can’t wait to read my next book. Really? Are you sure you mean my next book? You are all awesome!
With that being said, feel free to drop me a comment and let me know what you guys have been up to. Develop any new hobbies over the last couple of years? Read any good books? I’d love to hear from you!
It’s been awhile since I have posted any updates. As some of you may know, I started grad school back in the Fall and, unfortunately, have not had much time to update my website. Or write for that matter. During the past two semesters, I have thought about it often and have longed to work on my novel (which I failed at completing before I started grad school).
Thankfully, I’m in-between semesters now and, with the pandemic, have had ample time to continue work on my novel. To that end, I wanted to post a short story that I’m removing from my novel that has no other home. The story that I will be sharing with you was meant to be the prologue for the novel, but upon re-evaluation I felt that it no longer belonged. I still love it, however, and wanted to share it with you all. Proof that I have been writing! Haha!
So, enjoy this short story that is probably too short to even be called a short story. Hopefully, I will get to update you all at least once more before Summer semester begins!
A Story Without an Ending
The man with no shoes ran every morning. I saw him every day, Monday through Friday, on my route to work. It was a long stretch of road, there was often traffic and I would just sit in my car and watch him jogging past all the cars until he took a right into the sheltering neighborhood. Seeing him was the highlight of my morning and if there was ever a morning that I was running late and would miss him, it would put me off. I never took a picture or recorded him, I never put him on social media, though of course the thought crossed my mind. But then I would think, would they understand him? This man who just needed to go for a run, rain or shine, without his shoes?
I moved. A new city. A new job. There was no man with no shoes jogging his way along the highway during my new commute. I knew he was where I had left him. I had left but he was still there, diligently trekking along. Nothing had changed in his world. Everything had changed in mine.
Two years after I moved, my job sent me and another coworker to a seminar. Eight hours to sit in a conference room and listen to someone drone on about something I could care less about. My manager was excited for me to get the training and I was excited for a whole day that I didn’t have to spend at the office.
When my coworker and I arrived, we were ushered to a small, dingy conference room. It was so cold I could see my breath and I could certainly see the bucket in the middle of the room catching the slowly dripping water coming from the ceiling. I sniffed and the undeniable odor of mildew hit my nose.
“At least they have tables. The last one of these things I went to we had to sit at desks like we were in school,” said a male voice behind me.
I quickly spun around and noticed a gentleman clipping a nametag to the pocket of his shirt that read “Allen.” My eyes moved from the nametag to his face and I suddenly found myself speechless. It was him. The man with no shoes.
My eyes darted to his feet. Shoes. Well-worn loafers, in fact.
“You like them?” he asked.
I tore my eyes from his shoes and glanced back at his face. He was grinning and his kind eyes were resting on me.
“To be honest, I’ve had these shoes forever. Can’t find it in me to buy new ones. I don’t like shoes. I try not to wear them when I can get away with it,” he shrugged and started to move past me, “Unfortunately, these things have a dress code.”
I was about to follow him when he turned back around, “I know you saw the nametag, but I like proper introductions. My name’s Allen,” he said and stuck out his hand.
I returned the smile and took his hand, “Judith.”
“Nice to meet you, Judith,” and before I could reply he turned back around and took a seat at the front of the room.
My coworker leaned into my ear and whispered, “That was weird, right?”
I lowered my eyes and shrugged, “Where do you wanna sit?”
We took a seat in the middle of the room, somewhere we would get lost in the sea of faces, but also somewhere that I could keep an eye on Allen.
The Presenter introduced herself and made us go around the room to do the same. Allen volunteered to start and I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat.
There was nothing extraordinary about his introduction – “I’m a manager for a company that sells fleece blankets. Don’t ask me why a fleece blanket company is based in Florida, the owners like the irony I guess,” the whole class laughed. “We ship blankets all over the country. My god people love blankets. Honestly, how many of you own a fleece blanket?” the entire class raised their hands. “See? All you fine people are keeping me employed. Isn’t life funny?” he grinned over the entire class before turning back to the Presenter who, returning the grin, took the cue and moved on to the next person in the room.
The rest of the introductions went by quickly and without flair. When my turn came, I glanced at Allen to find him attentively watching me, like he had watched everyone. In my quick glance, I thought I had noticed him wink at me. It did nothing to change my boring, standard, introduction that didn’t make anyone laugh and no one remembered as soon as I stopped speaking. When I was done, I snuck a glance back at Allen and found that he had also moved on to the next introduction. I was slightly disappointed in both myself and Allen. I’m not sure sure what I expected; maybe a joke at my expense or possibly, probably, most definitely, for him to stand up, kick off his shoes, and announce, “I run without shoes and you can’t stop me,” as he ran himself right out of the conference room. That didn’t happen and, instead, he listened to the rest of the introductions and politely paid attention to the Presenter. The Presenter whose presentation I already forgot.
I’m not exactly sure when, but at some point during the presentation I made my mind up to ask Allen to lunch. I knew it might be a slight annoyance to my coworker to have a third wheel and a stranger no less, but there was nothing in that moment I wanted more than to spend time with him. At that point, when I decided to invite him to lunch, I think I may have vaguely realized that I was obsessed with this man. This man who I knew, though didn’t really know, was the man with no shoes. It wasn’t until much later that I realized how badly I needed to know for sure that I was right.
As soon as the Presenter announced that it was time to break for lunch, I made my way across the room and around the bucket to Allen. He smiled at me as I approached the table and, collecting his things, he stood up and waved.
Waving back I asked, “I noticed that you were alone and was wondering if you’d like to join me and my coworker at lunch today?”
The smile on his face spread wider and he replied, “I would love to.”
My coworker and I rode together. The spot that we had picked out was only five minutes away and we rode in relative silence. I thought she might ask me why I had invited Allen to join us, but she knew I was relatively outgoing and would occasionally make friends with strangers when we went out together. She must not have sensed that this was any different; even if it seemed glaringly obvious to me.
By the time we had gotten our food and found where he was sitting, he had already finished eating half of his lunch. I couldn’t figure out how he had gotten so far ahead of us, but before I could ask he asked first, “How long have you ladies been in Florida for?”
“I’ve lived here my whole life,” my coworker replied.
“Ah, a native. You don’t meet too many of those.”
“I’ve been in Florida for almost eight years.”
“Eight years, huh? What brought you here? School?”
I had just taken another bite of my sandwich, so I responded with a nod.
He rubbed his chin.
“Well, I double that. I’ve been here for sixteen years. I moved here from Michigan. It’s so damn cold there. You gotta wear shoes all the time. And the worst kind of shoes, boots. I remember it clear as day when it was that I decided to move down here. I had just gotten home from work in the middle of January and tore off these big clunking boots. My feet were still so cold that I immediately sat down and wrapped them up with a fleece blanket. My wife came with a cup of hot tea and I told her, ‘Lorraine, we need to move somewhere warm. My feet are too cold here and I don’t think I can take it anymore’ and right when I said that, I kid you not, I noticed the tag on the fleece blanket that said ‘Made in Florida.’ The very next day I called the company to see if they had any openings and then a week later I was moving my family down to Florida and throwing those boots in the garbage,” he paused to take a sip of his water and then continued, “My wife, well, she liked the cold. After a couple of years in Florida she decided she couldn’t take it anymore and moved herself and the kids back to Michigan. I never visited them up there and now they never ask me to.”
My coworker and I quickly exchanged glances.
“I’m sorry,” we both responded.
He shrugged, “I used to feel sorry for myself, but then I gave a dead man my shoes,” and then he slowly wiped his mouth with his napkin, let the napkin fall from his hand to his plate, and stood up from his seat.
“Well, ladies, I’m gonna get a move on,” he said as he grabbed his tray and started pivoting toward the door.
My coworker and I exchanged quizzical glances, he hadn’t finished his food and we had another thirty minutes before lunch was over.
As we watched him walk out the door, my coworker muttered, “Judith, this is why you don’t talk to strangers.”
I ignored her and watched Allen as he left the restaurant. Once he was outside, he stepped to the side of the entrance, slipped off his shoes without bending over, and then walked away.
That was the last time I saw the man with no shoes.
The cover, synopsis, and publication date have FINALLY been finalized. Guess what? You get to see it all first! Check it out!
The main character, Katherine, takes a break from her average, boring life; a life that has slowly drained her of the energy and happiness she once knew. A neighbor’s broken sprinkler inspired community gossip and disapproval, making Katherine question what her life has really come down to and where it is going. Out of nowhere, she quits her job and travels to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a writer and to find a part of herself that is missing. Will Paris have the answers she’s looking for or will she further lose herself?
Just Down the Street, Across the Ocean is NOW AVAILABLE on Kindle!
Making the decision to self-publish my novella, Just Down the Street, Across the Ocean, has been one of the most freeing decisions of my life.
I finished the first draft of my novella exactly three years ago (January 2016) and it has been nothing but a long, tenuous journey since. I’ve edited and rewritten it so many times in the past three years that I’ve lost count. Back in January 2018 I told myself that enough was enough and I was going to finally self-publish; and here we are, a year later (and a couple more rewrites) and I’m finally doing it. (It doesn’t matter how long it takes do something, right? As long as it eventually gets done? Right? Right?!)
Rather than focus on my writing journey for this first post, I thought I’d share with you just a couple things that I want you to know about Just Down the Street, Across the Ocean.
Inspiration. I wrote this story to have an excuse to go to Paris. Ok, not really, but it sure gave me a great excuse to go back. This may be cliche (oh, it definitely is), but Paris is my favorite city and I knew I needed to write a story to pay homage to the birthplace to so many pieces of art and works of literature. I am well aware that this is not unique. It has been done hundreds of times and probably will continue to be done a hundred times more. But rather than get bogged down by all the different takes of Paris by all the different authors, I find them invigorating. It was a community and a collection I wanted to be a part of. Just Down the Street, Across the Ocean isn’t “just another” story that takes place in Paris, it is an addition to the ever -growing series of love letters that authors have dedicated to that beautiful city.
The prose. Look, I hate being told what to do. I especially hate being told how I’m supposed to imagine the appearance of a character five chapters after the character has been introduced. Too late, man, Becky is short with brown hair now and there’s nothing you can do about it (not even mentioning her golden locks every chapter until the end of the book). One of my biggest annoyances as a reader is when I would come across a book that contained too much description. Unless the exact number of freckles on Becky’s face is a metaphor for the number of months it will take to get her life together, why is it important to me? And I know a lot of people love prose that is full of detail and description, and that’s ok. I’m just not one of those people. So, I approached my story with the question – how can I be as ambiguous as possible and still get my point across? To no one’s surprise (just kidding, I was floored), the first draft was far too vague. After many rewrites, here is some of the ambiguity that remains and why:
Character description – there is none. It was important for me for readers to be able to imagine my characters to look however they wanted. No one in the story cares about whether the main character in the story is tall, short, fat, slim, muscular, brunette, or blonde, etc., why should you? In this story, the appearance or build of each character adds nothing. I imagine each character a certain way and you will imagine them your own.
Character names – there is one. The main character, Katherine, is the only character who gets a name. Every other character is referred to as the role that they play in her life.This was essential because it hones in the focus even more so on her character development. It was meant as a statement, “this story is about Katherine, what she is going through, and what she would always inevitably go through no matter who the other people in her life were.”
Let me be clear, this is an experiment. I have no idea whether it will be successful or not. I’ve had many people tell me to add more, but, being my stubborn self, I have argued against it. Will I ever do it again? Probably not. Writing a whole story and only referring to characters by their roles was hard!
That’s it. I don’t want to give too much more away, but this story was a passion project for me. I’m incredibly excited and overly nervous to finally be releasing it out into the world. With the publication of this novella, I’m freeing up headspace for my next story and, I guess also kind of just as importantly, achieving a lifelong dream of becoming a published author.
Rachel Potts 