All posts by David Todd

Engineering, Health, self-publishing, Suite 101

Things I Don’t Understand

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How my blood sugar can be 122 before a late supper, 127 at bedtime (3 hours after supper), take a higher Lantus dose as recommended by the doctor, do nothing for the next 5.75 hours but sleep and pee (not at the same time), and have my morning blood sugar 165. What’s going on? Do I have a very slowly acting metabolism? Did I have a stressful dream I don’t remember?

Why the note I just posted to Facebook shows up on my profile but not in my news feed.

Why Google chose to de-rate Suite101.com in their last algorithm update, so much so that I make almost nothing there now.

Why I procrastinated getting abstracts in for the Feb 2012 erosion control conference so that now I have only two days to get ’em done.

Why this company I work for (actually just the chairman) thinks I can write a bio paragraph for some project they are going after without knowing anything about the project or the form of the proposal.

Why my e-short story and e-book have each sold only three copies. Actually, I know the why to this one: the lack of promotion to make them stand out from the Kindle clutter.

Why I still have that desire to be published by a traditional publisher, knowing the odds of that ever happening.

Why almost no one in my family give a rat’s whisker about anything I write.

Why my rheumatoid arthritis seems to be getting worse as I lose weight.

Why my beta readers totally failed to do what they said they would do on Documenting America. I had zero beta reader response before I went to e-publish.

Why I can’t concentrate on engineering today.

Writing

A Challenge to Traditional Publishers

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I offer this challenge to traditional publishers (the NY Big 6 plus the major CBA houses): If you want to serve your readers, you need to be giving them more choices, not less. I know you are rejecting a lot of good books, books of high writing quality and excellent story-telling, all because you don’t think they will sell. I have heard this multiple times from agents and editors: “Your writing is great! I can’t sell it.”

Okay, then, open a new imprint—call it Breakout Books, or something similar. Use it to e-publish that next tier of books that you really want to paper publish but don’t think you can make money on. Figure out how to do it on the cheap. Produce good covers, but don’t agonize over them in committee. Mini-edit the book, rather than apply sequential story, line, copy, proof-reading; make it just good enough. Ditch all publicity except catalogue listing. Heck, that’s pretty much how it is anyhow, right? Get the book to the market in 4 months instead of 24. Price them competitively with indie books.

Do this for about double the number of books you publish in the traditional way, or maybe for any book the acquisitions editor brings to the pub committee (indicating the book has obvious merit), but which doesn’t pass the committee. Try this for a couple of years. These books will have the backing of a major house, the vetting by an agent and acquisitions editor, a little attention by the ones readers consider gatekeepers, and thus might attract the traditional audiences of your house. Do it for books you really like but aren’t sure will sell.
You might be surprised at the results. You might find a few books that will self-fund their subsequent paper production. The ones that won’t sell will have minimal overhead expense, no warehousing expense, no distribution costs, and almost no returns.

You would be serving your readers, I believe. I don’t see how you can go wrong, and it might just save your rapidly shrinking businesses.

miscellaneous, Writing

Insert Witty Storm Metaphor Here

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This weekend I wrote what I wanted to write, not what I thought would lead to publication. As I had time, I worked on the passage notes to A Harmony of the Gospels, and completed several of them. Unfortunately I looked ahead and saw just how many of these are left to be written. It might be fifty pages of writing materials.

It’s pouring outside right now. I’m searching for a witty storm metaphor to insert here, but haven’t one. It poured last night. People may have seen news reports about tornadoes in our area. Some were spotted in our county, but I’m not sure they have been confirmed. Joplin was devastated, as you might have read. That’s just 45 or 50 miles north of us.

I’ve been reading a book I picked up at the thrift store, titled The Templar Revelation, and it’s turning out to be awful. From 1996, I think this is one of the books from which Dan Brown drew material to write The DaVinci Code. It is not well written, it is not documented. I’ve invested several days of my reading life into this, after 50 cents of my budget, hoping it would get better, or would become more substantive as I got past the introductory chapters. Not so.

My next article for Buildipedia is due Thursday. I think this will be an easy one, on erosion and sediment control.

I’m currently fighting with my home owner’s insurance company, Nationwide, over how they jacked up the rates on me because I turned in claims last year, and then billed me 12 percent more after the renewal was complete. Just got off the phone with Kelly of Nationwide, a nice man who bore my wrath with dignity. But I will not stay with his company nor with my agent who made a mistake on the renewal. Goodbye, Nationwide. It was a nice 15 year relationship up until last August.

My quarterly doctor’s appointment is tomorrow. Hopefully he’ll give me three more months. I’m not apprehensive about it at all. Now that I’m checking my blood sugar I know exactly where I’ll be at this appointment. I’m hoping he’ll take me off my blood pressure medication. It was marginal that I should be on it in the first place. About a month ago I checked it at the blood pressure check station at Wal-Mart (I’m sure not the most accurate machine). It was 87/59, so I began breaking my pills in half. Last Saturday it was 81/69. Let’s hope it’s low like that tomorrow.

I’m back to this after a ninety minute hiatus. Had a couple of phone calls, ate lunch at my desk, read some writing blogs. I called Friday’s post “miscellaneous”, but this one is more so. Maybe that reflects my state of mind. I need to latch onto a project and run with it. With the Wesley study aside, I suppose it will either be improvements to Documenting America and expanding it’s published locations or completing A Harmony of the Gospels or getting back on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People and seeing if I can finish that.

Meanwhile it seems the worst of the storm has passed, and no witty metaphor has come to mind. Will post now.

Engineering, flood studies, Writing

Miscellaneous Friday

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This has been a killer week, emotionally and physically, but more so emotionally. Where shall I start?

The knowledge that my John Wesley small group study won’t be needed by my church for the foreseeable future was a gut-wrenching blow. I probably over-reacted, since I can still write it and see what else I can do with it. Still, it was an emotional setback.

Yesterday I was hoping to get my Bentonville flood study back out to FEMA, Revision 5. But the remapping after the remodeling after the remapping after the remodeling after the corrupt informal submission to FEMA was rejected after the formal Revision 4 submittal came back from FEMA with yet more comments showed that some additional remodeling was needed. Both I and the CADD tech lost time yesterday due to meetings and computer problems, so I didn’t get the latest map till 4:00 PM, which showed ten cross-sections still needing work to get the map and the model to match. I worked on that till 6:30 PM, thinking I had them all done except for one, which I was convinced was a map problem. This morning the CADD tech convince me it was a model problem. I had that corrected and she had the map corrected and the annotated flood map produced by 11:00 AM. The entire report is now ready to go; I only have to stuff the maps and CD in pockets bound in the report. So it goes out by FedEx this afternoon, making the Monday deadline. Just barely.

Not getting the re-mapping until 4 PM yesterday, with it showing still much work to do, about caused me to lose it. I did throw a notebook across my office, and pounded the desk a few times, so I guess I did lose it in a sense. But I pushed on through. Another deadline met. Now back onto the third floodplain project, thence to the fourth and fifth. Someday I hope to get back to my training tasks.

Actually, this afternoon I think I will. I like to use Friday afternoons for miscellaneous stuff, such as: getting caught up on daily timesheets; getting caught up on daily activity logs; cleaning the week’s accumulation of stuff off my desk; seeing what correspondence needs to be done. In some ways Friday afternoon is the most productive time of the week. This afternoon, I think I’ll write a new construction specification section. There’s a certain product for permanent erosion control that we use some, but for which we don’t have a decent construction spec. Yesterday I saw a competing product advertised in Erosion Control magazine. I think I can produce a pretty good spec section in that time. That would be writing. I like that.

Tonight I may just read. I should write, I know. I should decide what to do next. Documenting America needs some editing, and it would be nice to have that ready to go about the same time as the permanent cover comes in. That could be any day now. In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People needs to be finished. Lots of work there, and I’ve been thinking about it lately. Also of late I’ve had a desire to get back into my Harmony of the Gospels and finish the passage notes and the appendixes, as well as correct a few typos. That’s a non-commercial project, and so hard to justify from a career standpoint, but it’s enjoyable, so I may go in that direction for a while.

Also among miscellaneous tasks is the article I have under contract for Buildipedia. I’d like to get that mostly written this weekend, well ahead of the next Thursday deadline. And, abstracts for next year’s Environmental Connections conference in Vegas are due next Friday. I have three that need work.

So my writing and work lives are really both in miscellaneous states right now. At least it’s raining today. Glorious rain, that shuts down construction sites and prevents noon walks, that fills ditches and detention ponds and creates floodplains. How it always lifts my spirits. Now if it will just rain tomorrow and allow me to do something other than clean the gutter helmets.

Wesley, Writing

The Roller Coaster Continues

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So yesterday I stood down, from writing my John Wesley study. Because our church is going a different direction with adult Life Group curriculum, and it won’t be needed any time soon. I estimate at least a year, maybe two. I’ve been working on this off and on since January, and close to full time since mid-April. Actually, I began planning it close to a year ago. And remember, full time for me and my writing means all of the very few hours that are spare after work and church and household, etc.

I know, I know. If the study is a good one, it should have a market other than my Life Group class, so I should continue writing the book. And not having a September deadline means I can spend more time with it and make a better book. All true. And yet…

…that’s not what I was working toward. I laid other projects aside to work on that one, planning to begin teaching it around September. Rather than feeling a reprieve from a deadline I feel as if I wasted a month.

On the other hand, as I sit in my office, writing this blog post when I should be doing umpteen things for my employer, having no windows at eye level to see what’s happening in the world beyond, I can hear water draining through a downspout just outside. It’s raining! I love the rain, so that’s a bit of a boost to my disposition. It also means I won’t be able to take my walk on the noon hour, so I can use the time to work on the Wesley book.

Oh, wait….

Wesley

Stand Down

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That’s a military term. “Stand down” means to back off, to decrease your level of preparedness, to go from a war footing to something below a war footing. I understand that NORAD was on a war footing from early in the Cold War until a day in 1993, after the Soviet Union had disintegrated, at which time the order came, “Stand down.” Thirty or forty years of war condition went away in a two word command.

That’s what I’ve sort of did yesterday. I received an e-mail from our associate pastor who heads up the educational activities of the church, including Sunday school (life groups). He said we would have a meeting of adult class teachers on a certain Saturday in June, at which time they would be unveiling the curriculum for the coming months. He didn’t reveal when that curriculum would start, or how long it would run.

Our class was in the midst of a study, a video series by Rick Warren and Chuck Colson called “Wide Angle: Framing Your Worldview”. It is six video lessons, but each lesson had three parts. We were taking our time with it, doing one part a week. Only five weeks into it, that made thirteen weeks to complete the series.

We interrupted that, however, to do our all-church study, “Ashes to Fire”, running from Ash Wednesday to Pentecost. That will finish in June. We figured thirteen weeks was covered after that, through Labor Day. I was working on my study, Essential John Wesley, for that time, and having to rush to have it ready—if I could even have it ready. But now, we will have other all church curriculum. How long will that run? I don’t really know, and in an exchange of e-mails the associate pastor didn’t give me any hints. I think it’s safe to say it will run at least through the summer, maybe longer. The need for the Wesley study is thus pushed back till at least December, and maybe much farther.

So yesterday I stood down. I laid the Wesley study aside, and won’t pick it up again (except to finish the one chapter I was on) until after the teacher’s meeting. That doesn’t mean I have nothing to write about. I’ll hop back on Documenting America, correct the few typos I’ve found, decide on a proper cover, and upload it to Smashwords. I’ll also figure out the CreateSpace platform and create a physical book out of it.

In a way it’s good to lay aside the Wesley study. While I feel that is an important work, it has turned into a more time consuming project then I expected. No doubt that’s of my own doing. A little space between me and it will be a good thing. In a month I can look at it again and make some decisions, unpressured by having to have it for teaching on a certain date.

Writing

A Million Words

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Among the reams of advice available to writers is something like, “You need to write a million words before you can make it as a writer.” Now that seems rather arbitrary. A million is a nice round number, but why would a round number such as that be the number that designates a certain level of expertise? Why isn’t it 955,000 words, or 1,243,000 words?

I’ve also seen it stated this way: It takes 10,000 hours working at something to become an expert in it. Again the round number, but this isn’t exclusively for writing, but about any endeavor. Want to be an expert chef? Prepare to devote 10,000 hours to the trade. Want to be a floodplain engineering expert? Spend 10,000 hours dealing with all aspects of floodplains.

While 10,000 is still a round number, it seems less arbitrary than 1,000,000 words. In terms of a normal work week of forty hours, and a normal work year of fifty weeks, 10,000 hours works out to five years. I’m sure some things take more. Surgery comes to mind, and maybe rocket science. But still, the 10,000 number looks good. Doing the math, 10,000 hours and a million words works out to a hundred words an hour. As a net figure, considering re-writes, edits, craft study, art study, industry study, etc., that seems a valid number.

Of course, the type of writing and the ability of the person writing those million words will have an impact. Write a million words of garbage and you won’t be any more of an expert at writing than you would if you spend five years engineering floodplains the wrong way. So the words in the writer’s apprentice period must have increasing quality. The writer needs to be improving both craft and art with those many words, not just shoving out the same drivel as at the start.
A while ago I realized that I was probably at those million words, maybe a bit over. This would not even include the many words I’ve poured into business letters, technical reports, construction specifications, and marketing materials. Here’s what I calculate.

155,000 – Doctor Luke’s Assistant
15,000 – In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People
40,000 – Documenting America
101,000 – articles at Suite101.com
15,000 – articles at Buildipedia.com
70,000 – miscellaneous articles and essays, most not published
15,000 – poetry (economy of words results in few of ’em)
300,000 – poetry critiques
340,000 – An Arrow Through the Air posts

That should add up to 1,036,000 words. I don’t think I’ve really counted everything. I think I’m 150,000 or so higher if I could think of everything else. Of course, a lot of that wasn’t intended and doesn’t really count as creative writing. And, does the time spent on prose count for fiction, and the time spent on fiction count for prose?

All of which could probably be chalked up to idle chatter, filling out a blog post at the end of a Friday workday, preparing for the weekend and return of my wife tomorrow. It’s an indication, though, that I’ve stuck with my writing over a number of years. Hopefully it’s beginning to pay off.

Oh, just remembered! 10,000 words for Seth Boynton Cheney: Mystery Man of the West.

family, Writing

Planning and Scheming

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In early June two events take place in the Chicago area that are a lure for us to make the 10.5 hour drive there. Of course, with our son living there, attending grad school at the University of Chicago, we didn’t need too many excuses. Still, the pull to make the 3.5 hour drive to Oklahoma City to see grandbabies is just as big of a lure, and the less cost and time means we make that trip much more.

The two events are the Publishers Row Book Fair and the Write To Publish Writers Conference. The book fair is in downtown Chicago, on June 4-5. We went to it a couple of years ago (or was it three?), and had a great time despite intermittent rain. Numerous publishers and booksellers set up shop on city streets and hock their wares, mostly used books, but some new as well. Some writer organizations were there, such as the Romance Writers of America. I know Lynda got to meet one of her favorite romance authors and get her purchases signed. Some readings were included. I got to talk to a couple of publishers, both of which turned out to be dead ends.

That year, on the same weekend, was a large art fair in the Hyde Park area of the city. We went to the book fair on Saturday and the art fair on Sunday. We bought on Sat. and looked on Sun. Both were interesting.

I attended that writers conference back in 2004, the first national conference I attended. I haven’t been back since, partly because it’s on the expensive side. It’s held in Wheaton on the Wheaton College campus. I think it’s a beautiful campus, though in 2004 a lot of construction meant we were dodging and weaving on odd paths and not exploring the campus. I learned a lot at that event, and have been wanting to get back to it, though our trip to the book fair a couple of years ago did not include conference attendance. This year it’s June 8-11.

This year is different. We actually have three events to attend. On June 11 Charles will receive his doctorate, a PhD in Philosophy. Last week he successfully defended his dissertation, so the degree will be conferred and he’ll be “hooded” on the 11th. It’s been a long haul for him. He earned his masters at Tufts University in 2003, and might have finished his doctorate a couple of years ago had he not had to work to make ends meet. We’re happy for him. In a future post I’ll say what his disertation title is and maybe describe it. I read one of his papers derived from the same subject matter. Actually, how about I just link to his website and let you look it up.

So that’s the main reason for the trip. Knowing we were going, I applied for a scholarship to the writers conference, and was one of eight to receive one. I doubt I would have applied had we not been going to Chicago anyway, but I figured why not. So I will be attending that with all expenses paid (except transportation). I have an evening event on the 7th with the other scholarship winners. So we’ll go up early and attend the book fair as well, make a long trip of it. If the art fair is also on, perhaps we’ll drive up on the 3rd, attend the book fair on the 4th, the art fair on the 5th, the writers conference the evening of the 7th through the morning of the 11th, and graduation on the 11th. Lynda will stay with Charles, not with me at the conference.

Planning and scheming are in progress. It would be nice to have a print copy of Documenting America in my hands to show everyone. Maybe I could even lure a publisher into picking up future volumes in the series. Although I’ve decided to self-publish, I haven’t completely given up the dream of being judged worthy of acceptance by a legacy publisher.

Documenting America

The Sacred Calls of Country

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As I write in my Documenting America series, I read much in historical American documents that does not ring a bell as having been covered in my history classes. Why is that? Is it simply a matter of time—too many decades passes since freshman year at URI? Maybe they were covered and I just can’t remember. Is it that my interests have changed? Rather than merely wanting to pass a class, I want to know the history of this great nation. History was a favorite topic for me, but the needs to pass the class often precluded the joy of mere study. That pendulum has swung, never to return.

Is it the experience of years? Maybe I now know that a history book covering one semester can’t possibly hold everything that’s important. The historian, or the history book writer, must sift through mountains of material to result in a manageable amount for the purpose at hand. Or is it perhaps the perspective of hindsight? Forty years of watching the USA in action, observing politics and all that politics affects, and five years of living in the Middle East gives a man a perspective markedly different than a student.

For any or all of these reasons, or perhaps for reasons unstated, I find myself drawn to these original documents out of America’s history. My entry point was James Otis’ court argument concerning the Writs of Assistance. This took place in 1761, a full fourteen years before the Revolutionary War broke out, fifteen before we declared the thirteen colonies to be independent, twenty-two before the treaty that established the USA in the roll call of nations, and twenty-eight before we had a working, sustainable government in place. This was, in my judgment, the opening step in our march to independence. While only a part of the argument is extant, what we have is a great example of legal and political rhetoric, and inspiring to this American, and should be to many others. I give this short quote to illustrate:

The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a…man are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country.

Magnificent.

So how come this wasn’t covered in my history classes? Why have I not, for forty if not fifty years, put James Otis on the pedestal next to Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin? Is the fault that of the student, the teachers, or the history textbook writers? Who knows?

The bigger question for me, having found this among a treasure trove of documents now available in the Information Age, is will my book(s) make a difference? That only time and sales will tell.

family, Writing

The Last Five Days

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Yesterday afternoon when Ephraim got up from his nap he asked for “Grandpa Todd” to play with him. And last night he wanted Grandpa Todd to read him stories and put him to bed. Unfortunately, Grandpa Todd had left Oklahoma City as soon as Ephraim was put down for his nap. The four day weekend was over.

It was chock-full of activities. On Friday I took a day of vacation and drove there with my mother-in-law, Lynda already being there. Once in OKC we stopped first at the library of Oklahoma City University, where I accessed a certain periodical needed for my Wesley research, which I had electronically looked for in other places but found there. That was a half hour. Then it was on to Richard and Sara’s house for the family activities. On Saturday we celebrated Ephraim’s third birthday, with a family and church folks party. It was a madhouse, but fun. All the Oklahoma people had their ears glued to the radio for the Thunder vs. Grizzlies game.

On Sunday Ezra David Schneberger was dedicated, not by his pastor-father, but by the District Superintendent. I knew this DS and his wife from my brief single days in Kansas City, back in 1974-75, but we hadn’t seen each other since. It was nice to be reacquainted. Then after church we celebrated Mother’s Day by going out for Indian food. We figured most restaurants would be jambed, but this ethnic one would have seats available. It did, and the food was good as always.

Monday I took another day of vacation and we hung around until 2:15 PM, then drove back. In the morning Ephraim and I went for a walk, about 30 minutes, during which time he found many treasures to take home. Then I gave Ezra a bottle (pumped breast milk), and held him a long time outside, constantly moving him to help him work on his balance and exercise his arms and legs. He finally fell sound asleep and we didn’t hear from him for a couple of hours. I’d have held him longer if I wasn’t called in for lunch.

In still moments I read some in a technical paper for work, and about 30 pages in the first volume of John Wesley’s Journal. This was all introductory material, not the journal itself. Talked with Richard, talked with Sara. Simply enjoyed the time.

So I know all of you wondered why I let five days go by without a post. I should have prepared a post or two ahead of time and scheduled them, and will try to do better the next time I’m to be gone. I didn’t totally forget about writing those last five days, just subjugated it to family needs.

Of course, I told Ephraim when he went down for his Monday nap that I wouldn’t be there when he got up, and that I wanted to read him a story and see him to his bed. “NO! Daddy do it” was his reply. That’s okay. A three-year old has to learn lessons of opportunity. And he’ll learn them, and I’ll have lots of other times to read him stories.