I’ve made other posts about the novel I’ve been writing. The Teachings is the third novel (chronologically) in my Church History Novels series, though the fourth one written. I’ve been working on it for well over a year. I think it was in the fall of 2019 that I put the first words on paper—or in the computer, rather.

I pulled off it for a while to work on other things. I wrote and published “Tango Delta Foxtrot“, the fifth short story in my Sharon Williams Fonseca series. Before I came back to The Teachings, I also published a family history book, Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney of Ipswich. Those were distractions, I guess, while I was trying to figure out The Teachings.

The problem was making The Teachings compatible with the history of the First Jewish War, which is the time setting for the book. I kept getting bogged down in the war history, reading and re-reading my copy of Josephus’s writings, making copious marginalia and separate note sheets, writing perhaps a dozen outlines of war events and how my characters might interact with them.

It was sometime around July last year that I figured it out. Busyness prevented me from hitting it hard for a month or two, but I think it might have been September that I got back to writing it. The words flowed, and the book came together. I think it was in early February this year that I finished it. Three editing passes, two beta reader reviews, and incorporating comments on the first three chapters by the Scribblers and Scribes of Bella Vista, my writing group, and I called the book done.

The cover was made by Sophie Braun. She is a college student who is very busy this time of year. But she got the e-book cover done and it looks great. I took that cover and pulled together a print-book cover, which is what is published at present. When semester ends, Sophie will turn it into a real cover.

Now, I need to figure out what to do next with my writing. That will be a post for the near future.