That’s  what I’m following right now: three main writing paths.

First is the technical paper I wrote about in my last post here. Last Thursday-Friday I made good progress on it, though I didn’t finish it. I hope to get it in today. I worked on the paper over this past weekend, adding a good amount of text to what I already had. Yesterday I found the couple of missing data points, added them to the mix, and recalculated my results. I’m pleased with the way it turned out. Hopefully IECA will give me grace, and not kick me off the conference schedule.

The second path is my next non-fiction book, Documenting America – Civil War Edition. Last weekend I completed three chapters. Two of these I had started late last week, but they were in an unfinished state as I approached the weekend. I was able to finish those two, start a third, and finish it. I now have nine chapters complete (subject to editing, of course).  That’s between 1/3 and 1/4 of the book. My next step in it is research into the Battle of Battle of Shiloh, which takes me up to April 1862. The three chapters after that already have research started, though not far along. I hope to complete three chapters a week for this, which will see it done in seven to eight weeks, and thus published before the year is out.

However, I may slow down on that briefly, as I pick up Headshots again. I have received feedback on the full book from two beta readers, and on part of the book from another. This is plenty to allow me to look closely at those comments and see what edits are needed. One I already know, expressed by all three, is that the reader gets hit with too many characters in the first 14 pages or so. Somehow I need to either add other scenes without characters, which delay character introduction, or in some other way reduce/delay names. It will be a challenge.

One beta reader said a couple of things were incongruous. Too many murders, and them being unsolved makes the police/FBI look incompetent; and not enough media attention to a couple of items. Adding scenes of media attention won’t be too difficult. I’m not sure what to do about the murders. I don’t mean to make the police look incompetent. It’s just that the Mafia is good at hiding their tracks. Still, I can have some shooters picked up and be kept in lock-up. That I can do.

So, this week will be a mix of 1) completing my paper, 2) trying to continue with progress on DA-CWE, and 3) making major progress on Headshots edits, which I hope will be final edits. Then, since one beta reader said there were numerous typos, despite my two rounds of editing that included proofreading, I obviously have to do another.

Fun times ahead.