This morning, when I should have been writing a blog post, I worked on a financial spreadsheet. Now in my 11th month of retirement, knowing what our financial condition is at present, I had never made any projections into the future. This morning, in about an hour, I was able to build a nice spreadsheet to make those projections. It’s not done yet, but it’s close. I need to enhance the formatting, and maybe add another bell or whistle or two, but I’m pleased with the progress I made. It was long overdue.
Now it’s evening. I had a busy Monday with taking the wife to a doctor appointment, doing a couple of errands while she was busy. At home I changed out our modem, which was two generations old. I walked to the post office and mailed a copy of Acts Of Faith to a former pastor.
After that I read, finishing C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. I’ll be writing a book review of it soon. I did a little research for teaching AOF, and have somewhat relaxed in the evening. Through this I had no time for original writing. Yet this evening I anticipate some reading for research in a future book, or maybe in the Leader’s Guide for AOF.
I wanted to start another book, something closer to pleasure reading, since all my recent reading has been or still is in support of my current works-in-progress or future planned works. I also wanted to grab something off my reading pile, which is on a bookshelf in my closet. I went in there and found the perfect book: Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Readers of this blog will know I love reading letters (though I haven’t written about that for a while). I don’t know a lot about Rilke, so I’m looking forward to knowing more about him through his letters.
I guess, since I consider myself a poet of sorts, I can’t say this is completely a read for pleasure. I’ll see where this leads me. As always, I’ll report back with a review.
It’s Friday, so a regular posting day. And, it’s the first of the month; time to blog about achievements and goals. Here are the goals I set at the beginning of October, and how I did on them.
Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Almost made this. I missed last Monday.
Finish the short story “Tango Delta Foxtrot” and come close to finishing the editing process. Shared the first scene with my writing group, for critique later. Didn’t work on this at all. Other writing wound up taking precedent.
Attend writing groups on the 9th and 16th. Yup, did this. I enjoy going to my writing groups.
Finish the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith. As of this morning I’m a little more than halfway done with it. This is doable, though might be a stretch. If I get it written, publishing will be in another month. I am very close on this. I think it’s just a chapter and a half of new writing to do, then go back and format it for e-book. I had a snag thrown at me on this, concerning how much I need to write about the second part of each chapter. My thoughts right now are to finish it as intended, then perhaps go back later and expand it.
Issue my first newsletter. It may be shorter than I want, and may not have as many items as I planned, and for sure won’t have a lot of subscribers, but, hopefully, it will go out. I did not do this. I’m not sure why I hesitate, but I do.
Continue an aggressive reading program, at least an hour a day. I’m in the midst of two books, one in print and one e-book. I should finish both and start one or two more. Yes, I continued this reading program, and perhaps expanded it a little. Some of it is for research on my next church history novel.
So, all it all October wasn’t a particularly good month for achieving goals. I’ll try again in November, though with much family coming for Thanksgiving, achieving any goals may be difficult.
As always, blog twice a week on Monday and Friday. I may have to write some ahead and schedule their posting.
Attend writing groups. One group is considering adding a second meeting in the month, so it might be three instead of two meetings total for the two groups.
Finish Tango Delta Foxtrot. I think this is about two hours of writing. Surely I can do that.
Finish reading in two books that are research for The Teachings. This is quite doable. I’m not reading all of Josephus—just enough to know about a certain action in Jerusalem at the beginning of the war in 66 a.d.
Finish the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith. This should be doable, in the original concept only. I’ll be working toward publishing it in December, most likely as an e-book only.
I think that’s it. I may be able to accomplish a couple of other things. If so, I’ll report on them on or around December first.
Sad to see this die. I still have the sheet of the signatures of those who gave it to me.
I’m much engaged these days in trying to finish the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith. This has given me more trouble than I anticipated. I’m making progress, now down to the last three chapters of the first draft. I’ll finish one of those today and get started on another. Perhaps I’ll have it finished by the end of the weekend and will make a start on editing. I know that, as I progressed through the chapters, I changed the information I was putting into the Leader’s Guide. I’ll have to decide if I need to make many changes to the earlier chapters.
My post today will be somewhat brief. We made a trip to Texas in early October for a grandson’s birthday. It was just a week, but an event took place back at our empty house that I see as significant. Our downstairs clock stopped working. It’s batter powered, and of course I have to put in new batteries from time to time. I was working in The Dungeon, where the clock resides, and on the first day back noticed it had stopped running.
No problem, I thought. I’ll change the batteries. Alas, we were out of AA batteries. I put them on the shopping list, and promptly forgot to get them at the store even though they were on the list. Then I forgot to put them on the list for the next week. Finally, on my third trip to the store after our return, I got the batteries.
It took me almost another week before I cut open the package, took three batteries downstairs, and put them in the clock. And…nothing. The clock didn’t start. No problem, I thought. I took the batteries out and cleaned the terminals on the clock. Although the old batteries I removed looked okay, perhaps they had left a corrosive film that was preventing the new batteries from working. I put the new batteries back in and…nothing.
I double-checked to make sure the new batteries were in the correct way. They were. I came to a conclusion: The clock had quit working.
The clock is 36 years old. It was a gift to me on the occasion of my leaving Saudi Arabia to end my expatriate life there and return to the States, along with Lynda and our two pre-school children. It was from the Pilipino men I worked with. I had bonded with them, and they gave me this as a result.
The chimes kept me on track in The Dungeon, but, when set on loud, could also be heard through much of the house.
The clock chimed, beginning at 6:00 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. One chime on the half hour, the number hours on the hour. From it’s location downstairs, we could just hear it where our reading chairs are in the living room. If the TV was off, that is, we could hear it, and I found it to be a comforting sound. I don’t know how much our guests who stayed in the guest bedroom downstairs liked it, sounding off louder for them at an early hour when all they wanted to do was sleep in.
It will be sad to discard this clock. It’s a link to an era, our expatriate life. It survived the journey home (since our shipment was already sent we had to carry it in our luggage through Europe to Rhode Island to Kansas City to Meade thence by car to North Carolina), at least one big fall off the wall (when hit with a ball thrown for the dog), more years in storage, and moves in Arkansas until it came to a permanent place on The Dungeon wall.
Throwing it away is breaking that link to our expatriate life. I know, it’s nearly 36 years since we returned from Saudi and over 29 years since we returned from Kuwait. We have many souvenirs of those times. Still, this was special. Sad to see it go, but nothing lasts forever.
Wednesday night I taught a class at church, on 1 Timothy 5:26 through 6:11, which includes the part about the love of money being the root of all evil. I used the illustration of going to the Middle East to pursue a better job for more money, and wondered if chasing the dollar like that was the right example to show for my children. Then to myself I wondered if, 38 years after going there, and 29 years after our return, if it wasn’t time to let this part of life go, to quit using examples from that. Just as disposing of the clock is sad, so is making a further break with my life from several decades ago, but it’s time.
I’ll remove the batteries from the clock, but will put it in the garage for a while. Who knows, maybe these batteries, brand new from Wal-Mart, were bad. One can always hope.
Well, this weekend was certainly different than last.
I don’t know that I ever formally announced this book on the blog. Maybe I’ll do that on Friday.
I have a list of blog posts I intend to write on. The problem is, each on the list takes a fair amount of forethought. I can’t just open the post box and write about rugged individualism, for example, without some research.
So, that list of posts is going to have to wait. I’ll just write about the weekend, as I did last Monday. Friday afternoon, as we were waiting for company to arrive, I received a message to say my order from Amazon had arrived. Great, I thought. That’s my copies of Documenting America: Making The Constitution. Went to the front door—to find nothing. Checked the notice again and saw that they went to my old office in Bentonville. E-mailed the receptionist there, and sure enough that’s were the package was. Even though company was en-route, Lynda and I hopped in the car to go fetch it. Took an hour in craft fair weekend traffic.
We had a good time visiting with our company, one of Lynda’s cousins. Talked all evening then again Saturday morning, and they were off to their next stop. Just as they left a light rain began falling. It continued for an hour or so, making everything outside wet, too wet to do the outside work I had planned for the day.
Confined to inside activities, I did paperwork tasks for a while, such as updating the checkbook and budget, as well as organizing the miscellaneous receipts and filing them. Food for meals was already prepared and waiting (meaning leftovers), so there was nothing else to do but read and write. Well, I suppose I could have cleaned, but that will be a next week task. The carpet in our main living area is desperately in need of shampooing. A day of vacuuming and dusting prep work, then maybe tomorrow I’ll begin shampooing. Well, if we have all the supplies, that is, which I believe we do.
It’s selling well in person. ‘Twould be nice to have some on-line sales as well.
Sunday I taught Life Group, Chapter 1 of Acts Of Faith. I sold the last three copies of it but have more on order, hopefully to arrive on Wednesday. Sold 26 of them from my order, but still no sales on-line. Alas. I napped some Sunday afternoon, continuing to read in Mere Christianity, and in the evening in my research into the Didache. The day concluded with another storm line and, after going to bed, a phone call from the county alert system saying we were in a tornado watch area. That soon passed, and I went back to bed and slept well.
Oh, yes, walked 2 1/4 miles on Saturday and 3 miles on Sunday. My weight is down a little, and my blood sugars have been nicely under control.
Today will be a writing day, as storms overnight will make it too wet to work outside. Tonight we eat with my cousin who moved to Bella Vista, and get to know him and his wife some. Hopefully I’ll be one or two chapters further in the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith.
The view from my ladder, five steps up. The limb looks large in this photo, but that’s deceiving. It was only 3 to 4 inches diameter.
After writing about a difficult weekend last weekend, I had a good week. That blah Monday turned out to be restful, and I recovered. It was almost as if my day of rest was Monday instead of Sunday. I hope they all won’t be like that as I teach this lesson series. I teach again this Sunday, so we’ll see how it goes.
I did some good work on the Leader’s Guide for Acts Or Faith. It’s far from finished, but I feel much better about it than I did even five days ago. I took my notes prepared for teaching last Sunday—the Introduction to the book—and worked them into that chapter of the Leader’s Guide. I went on to two more chapters, and am now well-along on Chapter 11.
I attended critique group Wednesday evening. We had five writers present, no visitors. Four of us shared, and we had good discussions. I shared the first four pages of “Tango Delta Foxtrot”, the next short story in my Sharon Williams Fonsesca series. I’m 2,000 words into it, heading to somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000. I hope to work a little on that in the days ahead.
I began a new activity in my daily routine: an hour or so of yard work in the late morning. Perhaps I should say I resumed that activity, for I was doing that last spring. After the late-August storm, I worked on the wood lot north of our house, clearing away the debris left after two large trees fell. Now it looks almost like a wooded, leaf-covered park. I’m now doing the same with the woodlot on the south side. This had two smaller trees down, and much deadfall from normal tree life. This is actually a much bigger job. I’ve spent four mornings on it.
On Wednesday, with all the large limbs removed, I decided to get up on a ladder and cut away a broken limb on a tree close to the house. I’m sure certain family members would be aghast at my leaning a ladder against a tree I was cutting on and then getting five steps up on that ladder. But, it was just a 3 to 4 inch limb, nothing major Having only a small, folding pruning saw that would fit the place where I wanted to cut. I got it done, taking frequent rests. It was a task accomplished that make me feel good about my work.
Speaking of tasks accomplished, on Wednesday I had this comment on my Facebook author’s page.
“Preserve The Revelation” is terrific! Each book in the series stands alone. So many authors constantly “explain” what happened in the previous book or you won’t understand the story, which I find irritating. Watching for #3 publication!”
Good feedback on this. Though fourth in the series chronologically, it is the second published, in March 2017.
It’s great to get positive feedback, especially from one who’s now reading a third book of mine. This spurred me on to work a little on the third book in the series (numbers 1, 2, and 4 currently published; she’s reading #4). For over a week I’ve been reading for research and making good progress, learning a lot. Wednesday, after reading that comment, I spent an hour making an outline of book #3, tentatively titled The Teachings. It stands at just a notebook page in length, but it’s a start.
I don’t intend on writing this book until I finish “TDF”, and perhaps one more short story in the Danny Tompkins series. Perhaps a December start is most likely. Between now and then I’ll search my various paper piles for two or three pages of notes I made earlier this year on the book, each time starting from scratch. I’ll see what my earlier thoughts were and whether I remembered them and worked them into my outline.
Speaking of various paper piles, we have company coming today for an overnight stay, one of Lynda’s cousins and her husband. The clean-up of the house and yard started yesterday, and will consume much of today before they arrive. The paper piles have to go, along with other clutter.
So, I end this. I hope all who read this had a good, productive, satisfying week, and will experience the same in the weekend ahead. See you in my post on Monday.
Of course, in retirement weekends aren’t supposed to be all that different from weekdays. But Saturday I did some heavy yardwork, continuing to clear brush and downed trees from the lot south of us, making it look a little more attractive. That was after I had updated the checkbook, updated the budget spreadsheet, and filed receipts, etc.
After this work I got to read a while in the sun room. I may have napped in my chair a little. But soon it was back into the main house to get supper ready. Then the evening was consumed with preparing for Life Group on Sunday while watching television and doing crosswords. I think I had a little time to read in an e-book.
Sunday was up at 6:00 a.m. to do my main study for Life Group teaching. We began in my book yesterday, Acts Of Faith. The class went well, but I expended a lot of energy in teaching it. I felt washed out by the time we got to worship. After that it was to Wendy’s to get lunch to bring home, then to Braum’s for milk, then to Wal-Mart for prescriptions that weren’t called in for my normal trip on Thursday.
After eating I unloaded clean dishes from the dishwasher, added dirty dishes to it, and washed dishes that don’t go in it. Then fix a side dish to take to Life Group party. I sat a little while during the cooking, but not much. Around 3:30 p.m. I left for the party, was there until 7:30 p.m. It was a good time, except I ate way too much and felt sluggish afterward. I brought a plate home for Lynda.
I sat in my reading chair and promptly fell asleep, whatever on TV being totally uninteresting.
So, I did no writing and no reading yesterday. I guess that’s fitting for a “day of rest”. Hopefully it will take only a day or two to recover.
Will this be my only poetry book, or will inspiration to write more ever return?
This morning I awoke at about 4:30 a.m., did a restroom break, went back to bed, and couldn’t sleep. This has happened before. Normally I go right back to sleep after being up in the night, but sometimes, only on the later in the night awakenings, I don’t fall asleep. At 5:30 I decided lying there with disjointed thoughts was silly and got up. Throwing on a long sleeve shirt, slipping my feet into my aging and almost done-for slippers, I took my mug of water and headed for the sun room to read.
No coffee, you ask? No, I don’t like to take coffee before I weigh and take my blood sugar, and I wasn’t ready for the latter. So I went to the sun room and started to read in Jack, a life of C.S. Lewis by George Sayer. I had loaned this book to a friend and asked for it back recently, as I wanted to read it again. I say “again” as I’m not 100 percent sure I read it before. I think I did, well over ten years ago, about the time our Life Group was studying The Screwtape Letters. I’ll know if I read it before if, in the last chapter, I find a certain scene there. If this is my second time through it, it’s quite fresh and enjoyable, given the time lapse since the first reading.
The windows in the sun room were still open, and it was cold. I regretted not pulling on jeans and my inside jacket. The temperature was to get down to 40 overnight, and I was sure it was that low. Outside, the air was stirring. Breezes came and went. The rustling in the adjacent wood was almost constant, though never strong. Occasionally it came through the open window before me. Why didn’t I shut the window? And the one to my side? Why didn’t I go back to the bedroom and get dressed more properly? For one, I didn’t want to risk waking Lynda. Also, I much enjoy being slightly cold. It was easier to pull a blanket over my legs and chest and enjoy the coolness.
I read with good concentration and made much progress. Shortly after 6:00 a.m., Lynda opened the door. We had a brief conversation. I got up, weighed, took my sugar, got dressed, got coffee, and went back to the sunroom and reading, while Lynda went back to bed for a while. I returned to my reading, but with a little less concentration. Thoughts of poetry began to take some brain space away from the words on the page. Oh, my comprehension was still fine. It’s just that I’d like to be able to write poetry again.
Poetry is probably an affectation for me, not something I should spend time on. When I wrote quite a bit of poetry over a decade ago, I enjoyed it. I don’t know whether I produced good poetry, but it was the type of poetry I like to read, so it was good for me. In my mind I’ve outlined six additional poetry books, and have listed their potential titles on the page. I know the order I’d like to write them in. Yet, I have no inspiration beyond that.
I’m not going to force it. I have too much else to write, both works-in-progress and planned, to devote time to poetry without inspiration. I like to say that poetry comes either by inspiration or perspiration, and probably requires both. I’m going to wait, however, and not apply the perspiration in hopes that the inspiration follows. I think the opposite order of things is better.
I need to get the Leader’s Guide for this done, but it’s progressing painfully slowly. More perspiration needed, I think.
So what will my day consist of, now that the sun has risen enough behind the dense cloud cover to show light through the trees outside The Dungeon windows? I hope to finish a chapter in the Leader’s Guide to Acts Of Faith. I made some progress on it last night. I hope to write a scene in “Tango Delta Foxtrot”, and get that to the halfway point. I have a few short-term stock trades on, a couple of which will come to a conclusion today; I’ll have to pay attention to them, though all looks good right now.
I have some engineering work to do. I went by the office of my old company yesterday and picked up two project for review. One, I’m fairly sure, is small and I can possibly complete in less than two hours. The other may be larger; I won’t know for sure till I get into it. Plus I have construction reports to review. I anticipate spending three or four hours today, and as much as needed tomorrow to complete these tasks. It will cut into my writing time, but the money is good, and it’s also good for me to keep my mind engaged in engineering work.
One other thing I may do today, time permitting. II might create the computer folder and files for my next book. Tentatively titled The Sayings, it is book 3 in my Church History novels series. I plan on starting it next month, but it, too, is taking up gray cells. I need to get a few things on “paper” so that I don’t lose them. Plot threads are coming to mind. Specific scenes are coming to mind as I read for research. I’m not sure I’ll do this, but perhaps it’s better to get it done and see if I can free up that brain power for the real tasks at hand.
So, it’s going to be a full day for sure. Some exercise would be good as well. I would say that this is a day when I have truly “awakened the dawn”.
The Kindle e-book was published on May 6, 2019. Other versions also available.
So far this year I’ve published three books. I’m midway through a fourth, the Leader’s Guide for my recently published Bible study, Acts Of Faith. I anticipate having that written in about ten days and published in about three weeks. That may be a little optimistic.
The only piece I’m working on at present is a short story, “Tango Delta Foxtrot”. I’m about a third done with that. I should be able to finish, edit, and publish that by sometime in November. Thoughts for another short story are rolling around; not sure if I’ll go to that next or not.
Written 2000-2003, I didn’t publish this until 2012.
So, it’s time to begin research for my next full-length book. I’m not quite sure, however, what it will be. It will almost certainly be either the next in my church novels series or the next in my Documenting America series. Most likely it will be the former.
I’ve published books 1, 2, and 4 in that series. They are:
Adam Of Jerusalem, about Quelle, the gospel source document
Doctor Luke’s Assistant, about writing the gospel of Luke
Preserve The Revelation, about writing the gospel of John and the Revelation
Though first in the series chronologically, it is the third published, in May 2019.
Sandwiched between those two is a book I’ve tentatively called The Teachings. It will be about the writing of The Didache, which is a book usually titled The Teachings, or, as a longer title, The Teachings of the Apostles. Scholars are divided on when it was written. It is mentioned in church documents of the early 4th Century, though it was lost until discovered in an Istanbul monastery in 1887.
But as to the writing, some say it could have been as early as 50 A.D.; some say as late as 200 A.D. From what I’ve read, while no consensus has been reached, an earlier date seems to be more favored at present. That would put it between the writing of Luke’s and John’s gospels. That allows me to have both Adam and Augustus as main characters in the book, a father and son collaborating. Here’s how I see the series at present.
Adam Of Jerusalem, Adam ben Zachariah researches the teachings of Jesus, prepares a document that becomes the source for Matthew’s gospel. Dates approximately 33-39 A.D.
Doctor Luke’s Assistant, Augustus ben Adam assists Luke in writing his gospel. Adam plays a bit part in this by reference only. Dates 64-66 A.D.
The Teachings, Adam and Augustus both work on preparing a document that summarizes what the apostles teach about the Christian life. Dates 66-75 (approximately) A.D.
Preserve The Revelation, Augustus and his sons assist John writing the gospel of John and then the Revelation. 95-96 A.D.
I started a plot thread in Adam Of Jerusalem that wasn’t in Doctor Luke’s Assistant, that I need to pick up in The Teachings. I’ve figured out how I’ll do this, though not all the details. I think it will all tie-in well, even though the books were written out of chronological order. In fact, I see a way for the plot thread to jump over Preserve The Revelation and be finally resolved in a future book that will deal with documents after the Revelation.
As to the research, I read the Didache again yesterday, and a ten page document that evaluates it. I also read in a book that discusses the theology of the Didache. I’m not sure how far I’ll go in that. It’s probably not necessary for me to fully understand its theology for me to write about it and work in some intrigue and relationships.
October will likely be a research month, as I finish up my two small works-in-progress. Writing may commence in November, though possibly I’ll wait until December, based on many things I have going on.
Last month I resumed monthly post of setting goals. Time for me to check in and see how I did, and to set goals for October (it’s not too late for that).
Blog on a regular Monday and Friday schedule. I’ve done fairly well at that this year, and I’d like to continue it. Yes, I did this. I don’t think I missed a day.
Complete publishing tasks for and publish all versions of Documenting America: Making The Constitution. I’m close. The covers are the big holdup. Got this one done! I was almost ready with it when I posted goals, so I was pretty sure I’d finish it.
Complete publishing tasks for and publish all versions of Acts Of Faith: Examples from the Great Cloud of Witnesses. I’m almost through with edits, but I can see this happening. Yes, I got this done too! I went through much consternation about the cover, but in the process of doing so learned much. So, book #30 is published. Well, some of them are short stories.
Write a short story in my Sharon Williams Fonseca series. I have a sheet or two of notes of what I’m going to do next, if I can only find them. Nope, not done. In fact, I started it on Sept 30. As of today I’m 2016 words into it, thinking it will be 4000 to 6000 words. I’ll roll this goal over.
Critique 2-3 poems at the Absolute Write Forums. I’d like to keep my foot in poetry somehow. Maybe this is the way. I regularly went to the poetry forum at Absolute Write and read new poems posted, but didn’t find any I thought I could do any good on. I’ll keep trying.
Attend writers groups on the 11th and the 18th. Done. Enjoyed both of them.
Complete reading three items and begin two or three more. Finished the three, and started two others, as per my goal.
Prepare my first newsletter for release about Oct 15. And figure out how to make it happen. I started this, but didn’t finish. I made up a list of what will be in it and have some of it written. I may make my Oct 15 goal.
Speaking of October goals, here they are.
Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
Finish the short story “Tango Delta Foxtrot” and come close to finishing the editing process. Shared the first scene with my writing group, for critique later.
Attend writing groups on the 9th and 16th.
Finish the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith. As of this morning I’m a little more than halfway done with it. This is doable, though might be a stretch. If I get it written, publishing will be in another month.
Issue my first newsletter. It may be shorter than I want, and may not have as many items as I planned, and for sure won’t have a lot of subscribers, but, hopefully, it will go out.
Continue an aggressive reading program, at least an hour a day. I’m in the midst of two books, one in print and one e-book. I should finish both and start one or two more.
That’s it for this month. I’ll check back in the first of November.
Mal and Penny, with the two pastors (and their wives) he’s most recently served under.
Yesterday was a special day at church, as our long-time minister of worship, Mal McCawley, retired from full-time ministry. Mal’s been at our church eighteen years—this time. He was here in the late 1980s, then came back in 2001, making for over twenty years in all. Including other churches he served at it’s over 30 years of ministry.
To say Mal was our minister of worship is an understatement. He’s fulfilled many roles as an associate pastor. He did whatever needed doing, in a proactive way, but also understanding that he served at the pleasure of the lead pastor. In tributes made yesterday, he was described as demonstrating perfectly “how to lead from the second chair.” Look around, see what needs doing, and do it. Do your assigned tasks, but realize the One who you really serve may have more for you to do.
Mal, God bless you as you move into this next phase of your life. I hope you enjoy your retirement as much as I’m enjoying mine.
