All posts by David Todd

book reviews, Mark Twain

Book Review: The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain

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Mark Twain, truly an American writer, wrote many short stories through the years.

I began reading Mark Twain’s complete short stories over eight years ago, as I’ve reported before on the blog. I started on them, found them too intense to read continuously until done, so put it aside. Picked it up again after a few years, put it down. I then established a pattern of getting it out whenever I finished another book and reading a few stories in it before I started a new book.

The brought me to 2017, with only one story left to read. The problem was, it was 80 pages long. “The Mysterious Stranger” looked too daunting to tackle. That’s not a short story, I thought: that’s a novella.

But I knew I needed to read it, or have another unfinished book hanging around. I finally started it on May 23 and finished it on May 28. So, the whole volume is read.

For my review though, I just want to concentrate on that last story. It’s fresh on my mind, and it’s…odd. The mysterious stranger is named Satan, and he claims to be an angel, the nephew of the more famous fallen angel of that name. He materializes in the forest, in Germany to three teen boys, and enchants them. They feel happy in his presence and sad when he leaves.

Satan tells them man isn’t the highest animal, but the lowest. The problem is man’s “moral sense,” which causes him to apply right and wrong to his actions. Most of the time, though knowing the right, man chooses the wrong.

Other animals don’t have that problem. They don’t do wrong because they have no concept of right and wrong. They just do, and have whatever natural consequences there may be.

Satan shows no concern for man. He seems willing to kill them, which gives him pleasure because it saves them from years of dealing with right and wrong. He tells how everyone’s life is fated to be something, based on a whole series of minor choices, one choice leading to another. He will cause a person to change a minor action, which might lengthen or shorted his or her life by decades.

Twain tends to paint Satan in a good way. His words always seem to be not only soothing but also logical. It makes me wonder if Satan is giving us Twain’s views of Christianity, which can only be characterized as disdain. Methinks that is the case.

So, was I enriched by reading “The Mysterious Stranger”? Or reading Twain’s stories as a whole. For sure I was. I wanted to read them, not only to help me in my short story writing by reading the one of the masters, as well as for my efforts to go back in time and read things I’d skipped for years. I’m glad I did it.

Although, I’m not sure they qualify as stories that were so good I need to read them again. In fact, I’m not going to keep the book I read. It’s a mass-market paperback. The covers came off, and the pages are beginning to crumble, all since it was printed in 1983. I have books from the 19th century that are in better shape than this. No, I won’t keep it. The stories are all in public domain now, and I can easily access them if I ever want to read them again.

America, holidays, miscellaneous

Lunch on Memorial Day

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Proud to have had a dad who served his country in a war.

I just got home from going to the nearby assisted living facility where my mother-in-law now lives. With the wife out of town, I’d be the only visitor she would have. They had a Memorial Day “picnic”: inside the dining room, but with picnic fare of either hot dogs or hamburger, baked beans, potato salad, past salad, Fritos, and simple desserts. A tasty meal and I felt satisfied when done.

The company at the table was the best part, however. Across from my mother-in-law was Harriet. I didn’t catch her last name. I asked her where she was from, and where she’d lived, and she replied “all over the world.” She and her husband were farmers, but took assignments on the mission field for the Reformed Church of America. He did maintenance work at mission stations. When I mentioned we had a couple in our church who did the same thing in Papua New Guinea, she said they also had been in PNG.

Across from me, and arriving late, was a woman who introduced herself as Rosemary Mondale. A hundred years old, but looking much younger, I asked if she was related to the former vice president. She said her husband was Walter Mondale’s brother. She then told us about the inauguration in 1977, how they were on the platform with the Supreme Court justices. I didn’t ask Rosemary which of Mondale’s three brothers she was married to, but I suspect it was Lester Mondale. I’ll ask her if I see her on my next trip there.

To my right, arriving a little later, was Rich, wearing his Vietnam Veteran hat. After thanking him for his service, we had a good conversation about his time in Vietnam and his life. He said he was glad he went. He was one of the early USA personnel in Vietnam. He said he was in Saigon on a three-day pass when the overthrow of Diem happened. That event was November 1, 1963. Rich and his companions barely made it to the hotel in downtown Saigon being used for military staging. A 50 mm shell came through the wall near where he was. Otherwise, they were safe, and from there made it back to base with no problem.

I told Rich my dad’s story of service in WW2. This was a point of connection between us. When we first introduced and I noted his Vietnam service, he asked me if I was in the military, Vietnam era. I told him how I was just a little too young to have served.

I was back home about two hours after I’d left, adequately fed (but not overfed), and feeling blessed to have eaten with these three interesting people—and with my mother-in-law, of course.

Adam Of Jerusalem, Church History Novels, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Mark Twain, miscellaneous, reading, Short Stories, Writing

Writing, Blogging, and Cleaning, Oh My!

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Lots of activity going on in my household right now, considering I’m the only one there right now. My mother-in-law is now in an assisted living facility near us, and my wife is away for a couple of weeks, helping our daughter and her family move. I was there the last couple of weekends with her. Their truck loading days are today and tomorrow. I would go and help, but with my shoulder not yet fully healed, I decided not to.

So, batching it, what have I been up to?

Writing, for one thing. I’m back on Adam Of Jerusalem, first book in my church history novel series, and the prequel to Doctor Luke’s Assistant. I wrote three evenings this week, adding about 4,000 words to what I had before, and last night getting to the first plot point. While I’ve known for quite a while the story I want to tell with this book, I wasn’t sure what scenes I would have, or how I would get that story told. Despite that, my writing speed is good. Well, last night was a little slower. I added only 1,000 words, possibly because I wasn’t feeling well. Went to bed early.

Another thing occupying my time—so far in just a small way—is blog maintenance. By that I mean I want to go back to old posts and clean up the categories those posts are tagged with. Some I didn’t tag at all, while others were tagged in a way that doesn’t make sense given how my blog has progressed. This is busywork, but I think needed. I have way too many categories and would like to trim it some. Hopefully after this work, the number will be.

Third, I’m doing cleaning in the house. This has been the slowest of the three things in the post title. I’m getting a little done every day. I ironed some shirts that came out of the wash a month or more ago with wrinkled areas, but I haven’t yet put the iron and ironing board away. I disposed of a pile of mail, but haven’t yet filed the things that need filing. I’ve cleaned one or two things off the kitchen table each day, but it’s still a mess. I’ve made a good start on decluttering all my paper, and have tossed many, many sheets, yet still have piles of paper where there shouldn’t be.

Through all of this, I’m still trying to lose weight, and have spent a lot of time walking, most days at noon and some in the evenings at home. I’m at my lowest weight for three or four years, though still have 35 pounds to go to get to the upper end of my target weight range. Ate properly Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week, then kind of lost it last night. Back on track today, I think.

So what do I have in store for this Memorial Day weekend? Writing for sure. By the end of the day Monday I’d like to be a minimum of 7,500 words further along. I believe that’s achievable.

I have more cleaning to do. I’ll progress through that slowly, but by the end of the day Monday: the kitchen table will be clean; the kitchen floor will be mopped; the unfinished piles of decluttering remainders will be gone through and trashed or stowed. Also, all the oak pollen strings will be swept, raked, blown, or by hand put into a pile, and moved to the compost pile. A few weeds will be pulled as well.

I also hope to go through a minimum of 100 of my oldest blog posts not yet touched and clean-up the categories. I did 25 the other day. I believe 100 should be no problem.

For what it’s worth, I plan on some reading for relaxation. I’m on the last 70 pages of Mark Twain’s short stories. I hope to finish that this weekend as well. I believe that’s possible.

I’ll report back with a blog post, probably on Tuesday instead of Monday, and let you know how I did.

Adam Of Jerusalem, Church History Novels, Documenting America, Writing

Hoping for Some Intense Work Time

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I mentioned some time ago, in a couple of different posts, that we—that is, my wife and I—had some major life decisions to make, and that those being left unfinished was weighing down on me. Slowly but surely those life decisions are being made; we are moving beyond them.

So, what that means is I’m about at the point where I can begin to concentrate on writing again.

Last night I was able to spend about an hour on the next volume of Documenting America. I’ll need about two weeks of that kind of research to be able to program the book, knowing how many chapters and what will go in most of the chapters. I won’t write anything on it until I finish my current book.

Which is Adam of Jerusalem, prequel to Doctor Luke’s Assistant, and the first in my church history novel series. It’s been at least a month since I added anything to it. I’d love to get in a pace of at least 7,000 words a week.

All of these life decisions are not yet made. I’m going to be calling on one of them as soon as I post this. But enough has been decided that I now feel good about things.

miscellaneous, Writing

Overwhelmed and Late

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Yes, that’s how to describe me of late: overwhelmed by life events, and late making posts to this blog. I won’t go into details; they wouldn’t interest you anyway. Let’s just say that, until several major life decisions or events take place, being regular with my blog appears to be difficult. Such as missing posts yesterday and last Friday.

At the same time, I’m not finding much time to write. I’ll get back to it eventually, but for right now, writing has to take back stage to simply living.

At the moment, I can’t see the trees for the forest.

book reviews, poetry

Book Review: Beyond Words

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Some time ago I bought Beyond Words, a book of poetry by internet friend, Poppy White-Herrin. After the purchase, I let the book sit a couple of months before digging in. Then, I read the book slowly, one or two poems at a time.

Available from Amazon, it is a book well worth having in your poetry library.

In fifty-seven poems, Poppy tells us a story. Oh, the poems aren’t necessarily “linked” into a story, but I sense they are linked nevertheless. You’ll find quite a bit of angst in this book, angst over a relationship that has gone bad.

Or, maybe, it’s about a relationship developed then shattered. In the poem “Fantasies of True Love”, coming early in the book, Poppy closes the poem with this stanza:

Dreams of you like stars glistening in the night,
dangling among the darkness overcasting.
Soar through the clouds unto heaven
where true love is everlasting.

In these excellent lines, I sense hope. Maybe it’s not a current relationship, but rather the dream of one.

Two poems later, in “I Am To You”, we sense the relationship may be going bad in these lines:

you cannot abandon me
to wither in sunlight
for I am your need
to receive bounty.

Not much further in the book, in “Love in the Winds of Rapture”, we are still seeing hope:

Now I know your faults, yet I am still beguiled.
I see the flare of love in your reflection by the light of my own,
it leaps to high winds of rapture, making its presence known

Alas, right after this poem, the next two, “Lukewarm” and “Release” turn the story around. The first gives us this:

We walk between youth’s fire
and the bitter cold of old age,
embrace what seems like defeat.

and the second gives us this:

Let me go,
please…

I don’t want to fly away,
I simply need to breathe.

I love those last two lines, which say much in so few words, giving the reader lots to think about. And we’re only 15 pages into a 57 page book at this point.

Did the poet mean to tell a story? Did she mean to give the progression from starry-eyed love to “embrace what seems like defeat”? Was it all planned out for maximum effect on the reader?

Or, did this all happen by accident, the poet choosing poems from her larger collection, poems intended to gain an editor’s notice and lead to publication, with the story being unintentional? I would never ask the poet this question. Better to let me, the reader, ponder what the poet wrote, what voice her narrator uses, and let the poems speak to me as they do. Who knows: maybe the next time I read this book the poems will speak an entirely different message to me.

With all my reviews, I always askif the book is a keeper, and will I ever read it again? Yes to both questions. I have a shelf of books of poetry in the downstairs library annex (a.k.a. the storeroom). I keep them there because no one but me will likely be interested in them. Poppy’s will be on the shelf, along with Frost, Wordsworth, Thomas, and many others. Perhaps I’ll pull this out again in five or ten years, and again enjoy these poems in a variety of forms, along with some excellent free verse.

Who knows the message it will say then?

Adam Of Jerusalem, America, Christianity, Church History Novels, Documenting America, research, Writing

Researching on Two Tracks

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At the moment, I’m not doing any writing, though I might write some over the weekend. While waiting for the proof copy of The Gutter Chronicles, Volume 2 to arrive, and while I do a small amount of marketing on that, I’m researching. And, I’m researching two different things.

My novel-in-progress, Adam of Jerusalem, will be the first in my church history novel series. I already have #2 and #4 written; about time I went backwards and wrote the prequel. It will be about a man named Adam, who is from Jerusalem, who wants badly to be a scribe in Israel. He came to that career choice somewhat late, and is ten years older than his fellow scribes-in-training. He receives an assignment to gather the teachings of the recently crucified Jesus, with the intent of using them to discredit His followers. He does this with diligence.

What Adam is preparing will become what has become known as the source document for the gospels of Matthew and Luke, the so called quelle, or “Q”. Scholars since the 1820s have theorized that there was some kind of written document that both Matthew and Luke relied on, in addition to the earlier gospel of Mark, to write their gospels. The trouble is, no copy of Q has ever been found. That, and for various technical/textural reasons, a large fraction of biblical scholars believe Q never existed. My reading has convinced me that more scholars think it did exist than think it didn’t exist.

I read a lot about this over a year ago, as I was beginning to program the novel. But, that was somewhat long ago. I felt that I needed to re-read some of that, and look at a few other scholarly thoughts about Q. That’s one thing I’m doing now, in preparation of getting back to my writing.

The other thing I’m doing is reading source documents for my next non-fiction book, Documenting America – Making the Constitution Edition. In past years I’ve read some of the Federalist Papers, those wonderful articles by Jay, Hamilton, and Madison defending the then-as-yet not adopted Constitution. I’m sure I’ll be making good use of them in my book, but I wanted to expand from there.

My intent for the book is to cover the period from the adoption of the Articles of Confederation in 1778 (or was it 1781? Gotta lock that down) to 1789 when the Constitution was ratified and became the law of the land. In the appropriate volume of The Annals of America I have found some excellent excerpts of related documents, and lists of additional sources I can track down and use, many of them out of copyright and thus easier for me to find and use.

My problem with research, especially the type I’m doing on DA-MCE, is that it can become a nightmare of over-researching, of trying to find that one more document when I already have four of five, of just reading on for enjoyment instead of stopping when I find what I need.

Yes, research is enjoyable to me. It’s like unfettered learning; improving my mind because I want to, not because I have to.

Tonight, my main task is to document what reading I’ve done in the Annals and begin to plan chapters of the book. I’ve already read six to ten documents, and made decisions on what to use or not; time to get that documented. Then, tomorrow night, I get back to reading.

Unless, of course, I get another case of Sideline Syndrome, and just have to get back to writing again.

Adam Of Jerusalem, Bible study, Documenting America, non-fiction, The Gutter Chronicles, Writing

My Current Writing Activities

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So, with my suspected hacking dealt with (see my addition to my last post), I can get back to other things, such as telling you all about my writing.

I created and made the cover for this one; so, if it doesn’t work, I’ll gladly take the blame.

I published The Gutter Chronicles, Volume 2. It went live on Amazon last Monday, live on Smashwords last Tuesday, live on Barnes & Nobel (via Smashwords) on Wednesday, and will soon be available in print. I submitted it to CreateSpace yesterday. This morning I got the e-mail saying my cover needed to be tweaked. I was able to do that today, and I believe it will be approved. Next, I’ll review it on-line for formatting, while at the same time ordering a proof copy. I don’t want to publish it without going through a physical proof copy. This isn’t a real book release post. I’ll do that when I get the print copy out there.

So far it’s sold: 1 copy, from a faithful reader who liked the first volume. Next, I’m going to send an e-mail to our CEI people in Arkansas, finding out how many people want a print copy. I’ll send out a couple of FB posts with the same message. With those, I’ll also see if anyone wants a copy of Volume 1 at the same time. I’m hoping to get 50 to 60 sales that way, although that’s probably optimistic.

Besides that, I have two main works-in-progress: Adam of Jerusalem, a prequel in my Church History Novels series; and Documenting America: Making the Constitution Edition. Both are begun.

With AoJ, I started writing it. This was back at least three months ago. I completed three chapters, and set it aside to simmer a while. The simmering time is up, and I anticipate getting back into the writing before long, certainly within a week.

With DA–MCE, I’ve been reading for research for the last two weeks, or a little longer. I’m reading in The Annals of America, getting an idea of what source documents are available, and refreshing and expanding my knowledge of the events of those times, 1783 to 1789. I’m learning quite a lot, and enjoying it.

From here on, I’ll work on the two simultaneously. When I feel like writing, it will be AoJ. When I feel like researching and reading, it will be DA–MCE. I think, in a month or two, one of them will prove to be the more enjoyable and will start to get more of my time. Although, my plan is to finish and publish AoJ first.

I have a couple of other things I’m doing as well. I’ve been brainstorming my Bible study Sacred Moments, and may try to expand that for publishing—not right away, but the brainstorming will continue. Then, I’ve been reading for research in one of my Thomas Carlyle projects, the Chronological Composition Bibliography. I have no plans for this except to read a little here and there, just to keep my mind sharp and not lose sight of the project, which I estimate is 60-70 percent complete.

So, there you have it. Hopefully in a week I’ll be able to report the print version of Norman Gutter’s activities is available. In a month or two I’ll let you know how other projects are going.

miscellaneous, technology woes

And Maybe Again

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Yes, I just logged on to write a blog post to go live on Monday (writing on Sunday afternoon), and I couldn’t. It didn’t recognize my new password. So I tried a password reset using the WordPress link, and I was able to reset it and gain access. This is different from the last two times, when I couldn’t change it.

I don’t know why some bad guy out there has decided mine is a good site to steal. It’s non-commercial, so they won’t hijack ad revenue. It’s not a popular site, so they won’t be able to make money off it. It’s not anything that should interest anybody.

We’ll see what happens. I’m going to let this post sit a day, and then decide if it’s worth saving this website or not.

Edit April 30, 2018: I now think I’m wrong about being hacked again. I checked my password list at home, and the password I had for that site was different than what I typed. I don’t remember changing it to this other password, but I must have. No matter. Now I have a very, very hard password, something I won’t be able to memorize.

technology woes, Writing

I was Hacked Again

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Yup, same thing as in January. Someone, a bad person or people and/or their bots were able to change my user name and password, locking me out. Spent almost an hour and a half between chats and phone calls and got it restored. However, that shoots my plans for the day. Tomorrow I may try to do the blog I was going to do today.