I have been away on a working vacation from February 17 until today. I attended the annual conference of the International Erosion Control Association, where I delivered three papers, met a lot of the leadership, and attended my first meeting as a member of the Professional Development Committee. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday were all business. The other days were driving and vacation.
Before leaving, I took time to write a few posts for the blog, and scheduled them to post about every two days. I also wrote one from there and posted it for later appearance. I like that feature of Blogspot, something I never used before, and which turned out to be incredibly easy. It lets me keep the blog fresh while being unable to write and post.
During the trip I had a fair amount of reading material with me, but found less time for reading than expected. I had volume 4 of the Annals of America, which is my first source for documents for Documenting America. I read the first item in the book, a report from 1797 by Moses Austin, father of Stephen F. Austin, of a trip he made from Virginia to the Ohio River valley and even to St. Louis and a little beyond. The document was fascinating, and I have written two chapters from it, one during the trip and one today, typing both of them this evening. The book is now up to 29, 275 words, so is still coming along.
I also had a notebook with various writings of John Wesley in it. I read some in that, both on the trip and today, but found it more difficult reading. Still, I have pretty well identified some material that will form the basis of a chapter in my Wesley small group study, so the reading, if limited, was profitable.
The week ahead looks very busy from a writing perspective. I have to prepare and send an invoice for some writing I did, the first of those I’ve had to do. That’s a tomorrow noon thing. The editor for Buildipedia asked me to try to move forward an article I thought I could take till next week to do. That’s a tomorrow evening thing. Despite some new troubles at Suite101 concerning changes Google recently made in their search engine algorithms, I’d like to write at least two articles this week for Suite. They will be Tuesday and Friday things.
And, while away on the trip I learned from Facebook posts that a woman in our church is a writer, excited about recently having sold some of her writing. I contacted her, and she is interested in seeing a writers group formed at church. I know of five others who in one way or another have either written things or have expressed an interest in doing so. This will be a Wednesday thing, I think, to see what can be done about organizing this group, with an eye to begin meeting maybe in April.
So the week looks full, and I hope on Saturday I can make a report of incredible productivity. Of course, I’ll be writing here before then.
My e-short story, “Mom’s Letter“, has sold one copy since I listed it not quite two weeks ago. Yea! That sale was to someone I know, a former colleague in the poetry wars on Poem Kingdom, years ago when we were moderators together there. Poppy also wrote a nice review for it, an honest review, not a fake one. I’m grateful for that.
Due to having been away from home for an engineering conference, combined with a little vacation, I haven’t been able to do anything to create a buzz for the story, except for one post here, one on the Suite writer forums, and one post at Facebook. I need to get to a few other places and do some posts. A few more sales would be nice.
On this trip I’ve managed to write one chapter for Documenting America. The document I reviewed has also given me fodder for at least one more chapter, maybe two if I want to. Once I type that chapter in I should be at 28,000 words. So that’s edging ever closer, and publishing it before the end of March is possible, though possibly rushing it.
The sun is shining. I’m on vacation, and by the view through the windows it appears a gentle breeze is blowing. I should be outside, walking the campus or sitting by the pool, reading. Perhaps I will. I’ll set this to publish tomorrow, actually, and fool all my readers (all ten or so of you) as to my whereabouts.
Work has pretty much consumed my waking time this week. I’m at a convention/conference–well, it ended today. I presented three papers on erosion control: two one-hour presentations, and today a half-day class. This was too much, and until noon today I had little time to do much outside of present my classes, wind down, and prepare for the next class. I attended no other classes, other than a full-day course on Monday. Tuesday afternoon would have been free, but I had to put together the PowerPoint for today’s class.
I’m glad it’s over. Three papers in two days is too much. I put a lot of energy into the presentation, just as I do for my brown bags at work. The time to wind down and relax a little doesn’t give much time to do other brain-intensive things, such as write or research. Sunday I managed to complete one chapter (in manuscript) in Documenting America. I’m going to generate one more chapter from the document, but I think not tonight. Tonight I want to do a little bit of Wesley research. Haven’t done any all week. I may only read an hour, maybe less, but I need to do it. I think I have enough brain power left for that.
My cold pretty much ended on Sunday or Monday, minor residual hoarseness persists, but that will be over soon. I’ll be anxious to get back to researching and writing, perhaps by Sunday afternoon or evening. Looking forward to it.
I’m committed to writing this small group study, maybe titling it “Essential John Wesley”. But how to structure it? For previous studies I’ve written, for each lesson I made up a simple sheet, two-sided, a mixture of text and graphics, but not a lot of reading. This seemed to work well. The class had no homework, not much to read. These several were all Bible studies, so relied heavily on the scripture.
Not so with the Wesley study. Obviously the Bible will be a big part, but so will Wesley’s writings. My goal is to help the class know Wesley and appreciate how he impacted England for 60 years and the world since then, and how he is important to our religious heritage. So in addition to the Bible, I need to work in some of his writings. But how?
At present, I’m thinking of doing this pretty much like I’m writing Documenting America, but with a twist. For each chapter, maybe 15 to 20 in all, I think I’ll have the following.
That’s the plan. I’d like to have the total word count somewhere around 25,000 to 35,000, which doesn’t seem too far off some of the small group study books I’ve seen. That would be 1250 to 2500 words per chapter. I’m not sure all will be equal.
Anyhow, that’s what my thinking is right now. I’m in the midst of my research of Wesley’s writings, and may change my mind as I go along.
As research for my Essential John Wesley small group study (and, by the way, that’s not a firm title; not sure what I’ll call it), I went searching for a bibliography of his works. Through the wonder of Google books and its advanced book search function, I found several. One I looked at today and printed is The Works of John and Charles Wesley: A Bibliography, by Rev. Richard Green, 1896. It includes 291 printed pages, including index, excluding front matter. It is a listing only of works by these two men, not about them.
This is the only Wesley bibliography I’ve looked at so far. I’ve looked at a lot of titles, and most of them indicate they are bibliographies of works by and about John and/or Charles. I’ll want to look at one or more of those, but for now the Green Bibliography will suffice. It lists 417 printed works. As I haven’t been all the way through it, I’m not sure if this includes compilations or issues of the Arminian Magazine by individual numbers. I saw that it had at least one year of those listed as a bound compilation. How much of that was written by Wesley and how much was by others I still have to research.
This is a great reference. For each work it gives: the full title page (the words thereon, not a facsimile), the name of the publisher, the date of issue, and all known editions in the 18th century. For many various annotations are included. Sometimes it’s what a biographer said of the publication. Sometimes it’s something Wesley said in his journal or an outgoing letter. Sometimes it’s the editor’s commentary, such as when he had a hard time identifying date, edition, printer, or whether the work is truly accredited to Wesley.
Some of that is for the work of the scholar, of course, which I’m not holding myself out to be. I love reading Wesley’s works and reading about him, but I seriously doubt I would ever have the time needed to become a Wesley/Wesleyan scholar. I will be satisfied if I can really pull of this small group study. My pastor thinks it’s a good idea. Between him, our youth pastor, my son-in-law, and on-line references, I have plenty of material, maybe too much. The trick will be to quickly digest all of this into a reasonable series of lessons, and then to write whatever I’m going to, and figure out how to disseminate it.
For sure the adult life group I co-teach Sunday mornings will become the trial group for this. I don’t know how well they will take to it, or even if they will agree to doing it. Still, that’s my plan. Stay tuned for more information.
Almost every year I have a summer cold and a winter cold. I thought maybe I would miss the 2010-2011 winter season, but unfortunately it’s here. It started as a tickle in my throat on Sunday. Normally my colds start in my head, not in my throat, so I was hoping it was nothing more than a sore throat. Not so, however. Last night the tickle was worse, and I woke up this morning barely able to speak. During the day it got better any time I didn’t have to speak, worse when I had to speak.
Now, tonight, it’s moved to my head as well. Stuffy nose, pressure behind the eyes, tired feeling. I’m sure it’s not flue; it feels like every one of my previous 50 or so colds, just that it went from throat to head instead of the other way.
So, I’m going to take it easy. I’ll cut back some on my computer time, meaning I’ll post here a little less frequently. But I will post as I get the chance.
The last three days has brought me just that—a bounty of photographs. Old ones, family ones.
On Monday we received a package in the mail from Lynda’s cousin Robyn. She had been in touch with Lynda via Facebook and e-mail, saying she had some Cheney family photos passed down from her mom. Given that I function as the main family historian, she thought we should have it. Also included were some papers: a souvenir marriage certificate for their common grandparents, a deed, and some other things.
One of the photos is a view of the Cheney ranch, south of Fowler, Kansas. It shows men on horseback or on foot, women on horseback, and four children, probably boys, atop a shed; twelve people in all. You can see a number of outbuildings, including a large barn, a stone shed that is still standing, buildings that show in other photos, and I think the homestead house in the background. In the foreground are cattle in a barbwire corral.
I already have a copy of this, but it is only a photocopy of it. And, either on the original or on the first photocopy, someone wrote what each thing was and drew arrows all over the photo! Not smart. This one is clean, the top right of the photo being damaged, but it shows only sky and could probably be restored. Other photos include siblings, uncles, scenes. At least one other photo is one I’ve never seen before, and I’ve never had a real one of the ranch scene.
On Tuesday I received a phone call from my nephew, Chris. He was contacted by a man in England. That man had photos of our family (though I don’t think he’s related) that were in the possession of my grandfather’s oldest sibling, Mabel Todd. The photos sent so far are of the two brothers who came to America, and one wife (not my grandmother, though that’s supposedly coming. Actually, the one I’m calling a wife of the brother of my grandfather is not identified, but it’s by the same photographer who shot the brother, so it makes sense. I don’t know if more photos are coming or not, but I think so.
It’s amazing what’s out there for your family history is you only look. This contact from England was out of the blue. Chris wasn’t even researching Todd genealogy at the time, when up pops the e-mail: Hey, I’m in England, I’ve got pictures of your family; want them? That’s called a random act of genealogical kindness.
Now, when I issue the next edition of Seth Boynton Cheney: Mystery Man of the West, I’ll have a decent quality photo to include of the ranch scene, not that old one that was barely viewable. And if I ever write a book about the Todds, I’ll have a bit more to go on.
Now, someday, I hope to organize everything. I had an antique dresser that’s close to full of photos. Some are ones we took back in our constant picture taking days; some are accumulated Todd-Vick-Sexton family. In a couple of binds I have Cheney-Stephens family photos, also needed organization and better preservation. Oh how I need to get to all of that and not leave it to my children when I reach room temperature.
Documenting America, Volume 1, is coming along very well. I’m up to 26,300 words, en route to somewhere between 35,000-40,000. I have 26 or 27 chapters, planning on about 32 all together, though I may have my word count in just 30.
Before I decided to do this as an e-book, I was preparing it to be newspaper columns. In fact, as I’ve mentioned before, the first four were published by our local newspaper as part of a guest editorial program. I received good, if limited feedback. I stopped submitting them when the editor in charge of the program left, even though the program continued. I kept writing them for a while, accumulating eighteen separate columns, though a couple of them probably weren’t really done. When it was a newspaper column, I aimed to have 500-750 words.
Now that I’m doing it as an e-book, I have no restriction on word count. What was an individual column is now a chapter. The only limit is how many words I would consider to be “history in sound-bite sized chunks.” I consider that between 1000 to 1250 words. So I’m expanding those eighteen chapters to full length, as well as adding columns. I think I have seven or eight more to expand. I found, as I worked through many documents, that they deserved multiple columns/now chapters. I thought I’d do them widely separated, then decided to do them in pairs. So I’m adding chapters within the eighteen already written as well as at the end.
It’s time, I think, to get this in the hands of some beta readers. I’ve contacted some by e-mail, receiving positive responses, but I need a couple of more people. A beta reader could be another writer, or an industry pro who has a critical eye. Or, they could come from the target audience, the people I hope to sell books to. The things I’m interested in are:
So, if anyone has any desire to be a beta reader for this project, let me know by posting a comment, or e-mailing me at norman_d_gutter at yahoo dot com.
