My latest fiction attempt isn’t flying off the pages lately. Maybe it’s because Mark Pacer, my main character, is stuck, too.

With the help of a friend, he overcame the early stages of grief (Thy Dross to Consume). He has family; he’s not alone.

Still, he’s just going through the motions lately. Coping.

My idea is: shortly, someone is coming into his life to shake him up. He’ll have to decide some things.

I’ve left Mark in the late 1980’s time wise. Maybe I’m coping myself with this fictional return to that in-between era. It’s a return to that time immediately before my life changing decision that took me around the world. Both the world and I changed after that.

In this return to that in-between time, the Soviet Union already is changing. The U.S. President is an older guy, conservative. Is he too set in his ways to handle potential changes? Is the country he leads too set in its ways?

Mark is serving his latest U.S. diplomatic stint in Canada. It’s nice to live in a country with western values again. But maybe it’s a little boring after the Middle East?

Something is going to happen to shake him up. I’ve got the idea, but it’s still fluid, seeking its course.

Though he’s not yet middle-aged, Mark has traveled to the outskirts of a Dante-an dark wood.

Someone from the past enters his life again. His children are growing and asking hard questions. Finally, his work involves him in the first tip of an iceberg coming into view—the refugee crisis that later will turn into a flood.

What does he do now?