Casting About

The Centennial book is done. I have my copies in hand. Full distribution starts on Sunday May 22.

Ack! It’s almost 11 a.m. and I’m just now getting to writing my blog post for today. Something must be wrong with me.

Yes, something is wrong with me. I’ve been too busy. It began last Thursday, when a Zoom meeting about our upcoming church Centennial celebration was still going strong after 2 1/2 hours, and I hit a wall. I couldn’t go on. I abruptly ended the meeting, took a break, and a few hours later got back to the task we had been working on—now alone. Yes, I still work better alone than with someone else.

Not the final cover, but some thoughts I had on a draft. The artist is working on it.

Friday and Saturday are blurs to me now. I know some heavy yardwork and a daily walk were involved. I had a number of e-mails about the Centennial, also about There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. Saturday evening was taken up with study to teach Life Group on Sunday morning. Sunday was the usual church, Life group, fast-food takeout. Then we went to the high school graduation reception for our neighbors’ daughter. Through a comedy of errors (which included my not understanding the invitation), that took us a while to even get there. Back home, tiredness set in and I didn’t get a lot done during the afternoon. In the evening I went back to the Centennial work I have been tasked with, and got a little more done.  I also did some in-depth critiquing of a piece send by a member of our critique group. This morning, the first thing I did was finish that critique and e-mail it to her.

Back on TNSTATT, we must finalize the book cover, create the publication files (e-book and print book), decide whether it will be on Amazon only or go “wide” to other publishers. I think it was on Friday that I got most of the final formatting done. Today I re-read a couple of the later chapters and made a few edits. I declared it done around 8:15 a,m. and began the final formatting. This includes such things as adding in a listing of my other books which, for some reason, is never up-to-date. I spent time getting it up-to-date, and creating a system for keeping it up-to-date henceforth.

I have another hour and a half of work on the print book, then an hour or so on the e-book. Then I will be ready to work on something else. What will it be?

I ought to get back to the second of two Bible studies I was writing, as described in this post. I had pulled off the second while waiting on feedback on the first. But last night I learned that the man I sent it to for review never got the e-mail. I re-sent it last night, confirmed he got it, and so now I wait. I may get back to that. The Scribblers & Scribes meet this Thursday evening, and I’d like to have something to share. But what? I’m not sure they will want to review and critique pages of a Bible study.

Or, I may start on something completely new. I don’t want to go into too much detail. Tentatively titled Tales Of A Vagabond, it would be the start of an autobiography. I actually started it when I realized I needed to write my blog post.

Whatever I ultimately do with Tales Of A Vagabond, I know that finishing the two Bible studies will be my next main writing tasks. But after that, what? I’m kind of itching to do some work on a genealogy book about one of Lynda’s ancestors. My two partly-complete and temporarily-abandoned Thomas Carlyle books are starting to look attractive again.  There’s always the next Documenting America book, for which I have completed the research. If TNSTATT takes off, I may hop right on Book 2 in that series.  I just don’t know.

That’s not really the full list. I will be taking time soon to pray about this and see if I get some divine direction. The problem is, God has never given me such specific guidance. He usually leaves it up to me, and I have learned to pray that he would direct my footsteps as I make the best decisions I can. I suspect this will be one of those times.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *