Category Archives: Bible study

Bible study, Documenting America, History, letters, poetry

A Quiet Week?

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Initial sales of Run Up To Revolution are not bad. That’s not bad for me. Which means next to nothing as opposed to nothing.

Last week was busy. Two medical tests. Three doctor appointments. Two writer meetings. Plus a private meeting with a writer in one group. All of these appointments save one were in Rogers, a twenty mile drive each way. A couple of appointments I was able to have somewhat close together, but with some “layover” time between them. I had time to spend in Barnes and Noble and the Rogers Library.

I did almost no writing last week. Instead, I worked on the two special projects I have going on. That took up much of my time, but I made major progress on both the letters transcription and the critiques scanning and saving. I can see light at the end of both of those tunnels.

But on Friday I did some editing of A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 8. Just the first chapter, through Word’s text-to-speech function. After having left this alone for a while, it felt good to be back at it. I’d like to edit a chapter a day using this word processor feature. That would have me finishing the editing pass during the first few days of May.

Then, what? I’ll either have finished of just be finishing my two special projects at that time. It will be the start of another busy time, something I’ll explain later. My plan has been to start on Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week, hoping to finish it (first draft) in about ten weeks. That would be followed by editing and publishing Vol 2 and moving on to Vol. 3. Completing Vol 3 will let me move ahead with publishing all eight volumes.

But I’ve started to brainstorm what to do with the Documenting America series. This is my highest selling series (can’t say best-selling, because it’s not even close to that level). Perhaps it makes sense to write the next book in that series.

But what will it be? I had intended to write next about the abolition movement in America—something I’ve read some on, but which I’d like to know much more about. I have plenty of documents available to read, but I believe I’ll have to find more than I have to make a full book.

Lately, however, I’ve been reading in Thomas Paine’s writing. I already read Common Sense, which is about the American Revolution. A couple if shorter writings dealt with America under the Articles of Confederation. I’ve now moved into his Rights Of Man. To my surprise, the first twenty pages are all about Paine’s thoughts on the French Revolution and his countering the arguments of Edmund Burke. It’s not, so far, a treatise on the rights of man.

But this got me to thinking. Maybe the next volume I write in this series should be on the government of the colonies before the adopting of the Constitution. This was the time of the chaos of the Articles of Confederation, which defined our government during the Revolution and the six years after it. I have some sources for this period, though I think that, just as with abolition, I would have to find others.

Which would be better? Abolition captures my interest, but the Articles of Confederation, what I’m tempted to call the First American Government, seems to be something that has been written about much written about it. If I can find enough source material, it might be something that will stand out and will be more interesting than writing about the Revolution.

If I stick with my writing plans, I won’t wrote the next DA book until sometime in 2025. But that means I should start now to identify and start reading sources. I know that for Abolition I will have plenty of sources to choose from, but I’m not sure that will be he case for the Articles.  So I think some of my work this week, if the time materializes, if to start listing sources for both of these.

Why both?  Because whichever of these is next, the other will be after that, Therefore none of my research and reading will be lost. It might just be delayed for writing a book.

Bible study, Health, holidays, Writing

A Special Weekend

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I’m writing this Thursday afternoon, March 28. I’ve had a busy day. Devotions. Stock trading accounting. Writing in my work-in-progress. Stock trading. Writing a letter to my #2 grandson. Weekly trip to Walmart for groceries (mainly). Quick swing through the bank drive-through. Dealing with a minor insurance issue. Working on plans for a trip east. Lots of bits and pieces.

This weekend will be a three-day weekend. Tomorrow, Good Friday, is sort of a holiday. I have my work planned out. Trading accounting. Write 1,200 words in my w-i-p. Some yardwork. Filing of financial papers. Scan/e-file as many genealogy papers as I can; maybe some writing papers. Putting things back in place after the work in the house. Updating the checkbook and budget. Begin doing our personal income taxes. Cook some banana bread. Yes, lots to do.

Next Monday will be my regular post, which, being the 1st of the month, will be my progress and goals report. I will have a special post on Sunday, not a normal posting day. It’s a special 50th anniversary for me that I want to tell you about.

Then, next Tuesday, I will have a heart catheterization, hopefully as an out-patient. This is preparatory for me to have my genetically defective/abnormal aortic valve replaced. I don’t yet know when that will be. The heart cath is needed for the doctors to know if they can replace the valve in a minimally invasive way rather than by open heart surgery.

All of which just talks of the busyness of life. Friday will be busy, as will Saturday. I’m hoping to carve out a little time for Bible reading and prayer. I’ll start the days with that.

 

Bible study, critique group, goals, miscellaneous

Busy Days

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Rocky and me, our for our early morning walk.

I usually try to have the posts for the blog go live around 7:30 a.m. on Mondays and Fridays. Usually I try to write these a day ahead so that I don’t have to rush them on posting day. But here it is, nearly 8:00 a.m. on Friday, and I’m just writing today’s post.

This week has been very busy as we are dog-sitting again. Our neighbor’s dog, Rocky, has been with us since Saturday. He’s a good dog, but he gets homesick a lot. At his house he goes outside without a leash to do his business. At our house, if we let him out without a leash he will hand around a few minutes, then run home. We then have to go uphill, pass the three wooded lots between our houses, and find and fetch him.

Still, it’s been good to have him here. He’s older now, and I figured out this morning that we may be walking him more than we need, for he didn’t come right out of his nighttime kennel and run to the door. I think I will walk him less today. When we came back from a long walk a couple of days ago, we passed some neighbors out on their porch and stopped to chat for a while. I told them one of us was worn out. The other was a dog.

It’s been good to get my steps in every day. My weight is down (helped by a little sickness on Tuesday) and I’m very close to reaching a major milestone on weight loss. Look for an announcement soon.

On the second walk today, three deer were grazing. Caught two of them in this shot.

Rocky goes home tonight and, despite the work involved with his care, we will miss him. Because of the early morning walks, twice I encountered a herd of around eight deer grazing in the lot north of us. Never would have seen them under normal circumstances. Alas, I didn’t get my camera out in time to snap a picture before they scattered.

Meanwhile, in other news, the water/mold remediation work inside the house is finally done. Two men were here yesterday to re-install the built-in bookcase. All water damaged areas have been removed and replaced. Corrective actions have been made in three areas to keep it from happening again. The painting is not yet done, for we will have Rocky’s owner, who is a professional painter, to do that, hopefully soon. But today I will start putting books back on the shelves. We’ve already put some stuff back in the master bathroom.

I’ve also been able to mostly keep up my writing schedule. Monday through Wednesday, I completed one chapter in the Bible study I’m writing. Yesterday I planned out the next chapter and edited the gospel harmony it’s based on. Today I will try to write one section in it. By the time my writing is done tomorrow I hope to have two more sections done, which is actually a little ahead of the weekly schedule I’ve set for myself.

As far as my special projects are concerned, I’ve fallen a bit behind on them. I’m transcribing letters from our years in Saudi Arabia, intending to put them in a book. But I found a folder with eight items in it from our Kuwait years. The last few days I worked on them, typing and formatting them. They will have to go into the book on the Kuwait years and I’ll have to republish it. All for family, of course. The project of scanning genealogy papers and e-filing them has fallen on hard times. Perhaps I can get back to that in a few days.

No, the taxes! I forgot I still have our taxes to do. Got the business taxes done and in before the March 15 deadline, but still have to do our personal income taxes. I suppose I will have to start on that tomorrow. Alas.

 

Bible study, Documenting America, goals, letters

February Progress, March Goals

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It didn’t work as a Kindle Vella book. Maybe it will as an e-book and paperback.

End of one month, beginning of a new one. Time to record my progress and goals. First, February progress.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. I managed to do this, despite the stroke. It helped that I had written one post early. Alas, I did a poor job responding to comments made. I hope to rectify that today.
  • Attend two writers meetings. I only made one of the two. One was the Thursday after the stroke, and though I could have gone, our leader strongly suggested (i.e. forbade me) to attend so close to the stroke.
  • Make major progress on Volume 8 of A Walk Through Holy Week. Based on January progress, I might be able to complete the first draft in February. UPDATE: Probably only 60 percent. I did make progress, but not near as much as I wanted. I would say I’m a little over 50 percent done. I lost two full weeks of writing while waiting for my touch-typing ability to return closer to normal.
  • Finish all publishing tasks for Vol. 1 of AWTHW, both e-book and print version. Just missed getting this done. I finished editing on Wednesday. Publishing tasks remain. Also waiting on a beta reader, but I was late getting it to him. That won’t hold up the publishing.
  • Make a couple of new ads on Amazon. Maybe one for There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel and one for A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 1.  Did not get this done. Just seemed too hard to do and do well with other things going on.
  • Continue transcribing our letters from Saudi Arabia. I did this, albeit significantly slower than I’d hoped.
  • Continue reading in some source for the next Documenting America book. I did this, but not as much as I thought I would. More on that in another post.
I’m looking to tweak the covers for this series some.

Now, time for March  goals. I’m a little hesitant to make them, given that I have home repairs to superintend and medical appointments to keep, but here’s a stab at them.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
  • Attend three writing group meetings.
  • Make major progress on A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 8. I hope to be about 90 percent done with it by month’s end.
  • Publish Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution. Very doable by early in the month.
  • Make website changes as a result to the new publication.
  • More source reading for the Documenting America series.
  • Consider changes to the covers for the AWTHW series, though still encompassing my granddaughter’s artwork.

I feel like there’s a couple of things missing, but will conclude this post for now. I can always add to it if all goes well through the month.

Bible study, Health, Writing

Progress After Stroke

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As I mentioned in a very short post on Jan 29, I had a stroke on Jan 27, at 10:08 in the morning. I got to the Urgent Care ER in about 45 minutes, had the clot-buster shot in less than 2 hrs. Was transported to hospital for the mandatory 24 hr observation after receiving the shot.

Here’s the cover for the e-book of “To Jerusalem”.

While in the hospital, my impairment symptoms improved. After the 24 hrs, I passed all the tests, including the final CTscan and physical, occupational, and speech therapy, and they let me go. I spent the rest of that day and the next going from bed to recliner to couch. I slept much. From Saturday morning to Monday I lost 4 pounds as my body fought the trauma. No snacks might have helped too.

As of now, my symptoms are greatly reduced. My speech is back nearly 100%. I can tell I still have a little trouble forming some words. My right hand is much improved. I can now touch-type normally, though not as fast. I’m doing maybe 40 words per minute instead of my normal 60 or so. A sticky keyboard is adding to the difficulty.

And my drooping right eyelids seems better. When people looked at me, they couldn’t see the droop, but it was there. It affected my reading a lot at first. Slowly it’s been better. Yesterday’s reading, of an 11 pt font, I was able to do without much trouble. I can still tell it’s not quite back to normal, however.

Through all of this, my writing tasks have been few. I was within a couple of hours before the stroke hit of publishing To Jerusalem, which is Volume 1 in my A Walk Through Holy Week Bible study series. As my strength, energy, and desire came back, I was able to finally get to the publishing tasks remaining. I published the ebook on Feb 8 and the paperback on Feb 11. So far I have one sale.

I returned to working on another volume in that series, Vol. 8, on Tuesday of this week. It felt good to be back in the saddle. My typing is more or less at the speed my mind is working to put words together. I’m getting less written in a typical writing session than I did before the stroke, but perhaps my productivity will return with a little more time.

So, that’s my story. I have more health items yet to come, but they will be the subject of later posts.

Bible study, Christianity

My Latest Book: To Jerusalem

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Here’s the cover for the e-book.

It seems a long time since I published anything. My last book was The Key To Time Travel, published in June last year. Since then, I worked on three different books, two in my Bible study series and one in my Documenting America series. I published the latter one on Kindle Vella, and recently began the work to publish it as a stand-alone book. Hopefully that will be ready for publishing before the end of February. After that, I have a completed short story to release soon, maybe in March.

But, right now, I completed the publishing tasks for To Jerusalem, which is Volume 1 of 8 in my Bible study series, A Walk Through Holy Week. It covers the period from the banquet in Bethany, six days before the Passover, to some of the teaching did on Tuesday of Holy Week.

My granddaughter, Elise, did the artwork for the cover series. Her work is acknowledged in the book. This was version one of the art.

The book is organized into ten chapters, with the idea that this could a series of ten small group lessons leading up to and perhaps going a few week after Easter. Our own adult Sunday School class has been going through this series for several years, one volume at a time (though is six parts rather than the eight volumes of the final series). The class seems to have enjoyed it.

The book is available, both as an ebook and paperback, at Amazon.

 

American Colonial History, Bible study, Documenting America, expatriate life, goals, letters

January Progress, February Goals

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UPDATE: Everything below I wrote last Friday, in anticipation of where I would be at the end of the month. I didn’t know I was going to have a stroke on Saturday. More on that in a future post.

I didn’t really set goals for January. It took me so long to think through what my goals for all of 2024 would be that it was well into the month before I could even think about monthly goals. So I’ll state some goals as if I had made them, or pull them from my annual goals.

  • Attend two writers group meetings. One meeting was cancelled due to weather. I attended the other.
  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. I accomplished this, with a meaningful blog on all days.
  • Get to work on A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 8. I started this on Jan. 22, a little earlier than expected. As of the end of the month, I’m more than 50 percent done with it. So far the writing has flowed easily. UPDATE: I’m not 50 % donel
  • Finish editing and publish A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 1. I finished the editing around Jan. 10th and got to work on formatting for publication. Bogged down a little on the cover, as I had to first create a template for the whole series. The e-book template was done on Jan. 26. 
  • Begin reading in a source for the next Documenting America book. I did only a little of this. I enjoyed what I was reading—about debates in the Boston newspapers in 1774-75. But I wasn’t sure, from the little I read, that this was the right subject for the next volume.
  • Finalize and publish the latest short story in the Danny Tompkins series. Nothing done on this.
  • Begin transcribing the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia. I’m hoping to start this in February. I started this in January, around the 15th. I’m not sure why; it just seemed right. As of now, I have completed all the letters for 1981 (a partial year), and made a small start on 1982. Lots more to go. UPDATE: I still have 6 or 7 letters to go.

So, all in all a good month. What about February? Here’s what it looks like to me.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
  • Attend two writers meetings.
  • Make major progress on Volume 8 of A Walk Through Holy Week. Based on January progress, I might be able to complete the first draft in February. UPDATE: Probably only 60 percent.
  • Finish all publishing tasks for Vol. 1 of AWTHW, both e-book and print version.
  • Make a couple of new ads on Amazon. Maybe one for There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel and one for A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 1.
  • Continue transcribing our letters from Saudi Arabia.
  • Continue reading in some source for the next Documenting America book.

And that will do it. My typing is impaired by the stroke. Still not ready to pound the keys at a rapid pace.

Bible study, home improvements

Not A Normal Week

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The damaged area in the living room, after the built-ins were removed.

Last weekend, the closer it got to Monday, I knew it wasn’t going to be a normal week.

First of all, it was a week with no appointments outside the house. Lately it seems that every week has something: one of my writing groups meetings, a doctor appointment, something. No, wait, I did have one appointment. Monday night was supposed to be a dinner meeting for Life Group teachers at church. But the weekend forecasts for Monday said the day would start out icy. Sunday evening I was pretty sure it would be cancelled. Sure enough, it was. So a week with no appointments.

But I knew it would be a busy week, because, after much delay, contractors were scheduled to be at our house. One contractor was to replace our gutters. The other was to do remediation work on places on the house that have water damage. The house is about 38 years old. We’ve lived here for 22 of those years. We have done nothing much to it.

Great precautions taken to contain any mold or other contamination.

Last October we had a contractor replace the flooring and railings of our upper deck. That revealed some damage to the doors to the deck, more on the doorframes. We got to looking around and saw damage at another place, inside the house wall adjacent the deck. I also knew that some damage had occurred on the other side of the house, in a void space off the master bathroom.

I called out a mold detection specialist. He found a little mold, and a little moisture where there shouldn’t be any, but not any big problems. Still, it was enough things found that he recommended we get a remediation contractor to address three areas.

First, I checked with my homeowner’s insurance company. They sent a man out and he assessed it. A couple of days later I got the answer: long-term damage, not an insurable loss. Whatever this cost, I was going to have to pay for it myself. Off to find a contractor.

I had a little trouble finding a contractor who could do the work. One came by and assessed it, but I didn’t hear from him for another week. I finally reached out to him. He said he didn’t think he would be able to fit me in with his workload. I resisted saying, “It would have been nice if you’d called me a few days ago.”

Meanwhile, the guttering contractor was having trouble with his equipment. After many calls and texts to him, he pushed the schedule for his work out into January.

I found another remediation contractor, who came out to assess. I actually liked him better than the first. He saw things the first hadn’t, and was able to explain things to me in a way I understood. I told him he had the job. But it was now just a week or two before Christmas. He told me he should be able to start mid-January.

Let me fast forward through Christmas, our week-long trip to Lake Jackson, Texas, and two modest snow storms in the midst of a week of single digit temperatures. The guttering man gave me a date, had to move it a little due to weather. Now he is scheduled to be here Tuesday the 24th (I’m writing this on the 23rd).

Meanwhile, the remediation arrived here Monday the 22nd, a little late in the day due to morning icing. The three-man crew got to work on the damage area in the living room. The removed the build-in bookcase, removed obviously damaged sheetrock, and built a containment area. The next day they did the same in the master bathroom. In both cases, it appears they found the source of the water, and have a plan to stop it plus repair the areas. One will be fairly easy, the other difficult.

I’m not happy about the money I’m spending. But when a house approaches four decades old, I suppose you have to expect to spend some money to keep it in good repair. Yes, I hate to spend the money, but am happy to finally have answers and a good start on corrective measures. A good part of this is the plumber (who needs to repair one area), and a roofing inspector (to check out two areas) have been coordinated by the remediation contractor.

But the week has also been not normal was because of the writing I got done. On Monday the 22nd, I began work on Part 8 of my Bible study, A Walk Through Holy Week. My co-teacher and me will begin teaching this on Feb 4, and I wanted to get ahead of this. Each chapter is divided into seven sections. On a normal day for previous volumes, I have been completing an average of 1 1/2 sections per day.

But Monday, I wrote three sections in just my normal amount of writing time. Tuesday I completed another three sections. This is an amazing production. They need editing, of course, but that is a great start—even as I got the contractor started, occasionally interacted with him, and listened to his sawing and other activities. At the end of Tuesday, I was amazed at the progress. That will allow me to finish the chapter on Wednesday as well as get back to publishing the first volume in the series.

It’s now Tuesday evening, and I’m writing this for Friday posting. Hopefully I’ll find time to edit this before then to fill in what happened on Wednesday and Thursday. But even without that, I can confidently say it has not been a normal week.

And I guess that’s a good thing.

Update, Thursday evening: Work inside on the damaged areas has taken place every day. Our master bathroom is closed off from us, the counter removed, some of the cabinetry removed, and more holes cut in the diagonal wall. The good news is that the water damage appears mostly confined to the dead air space behind the diagonal wall. The floorboards there are rotted and will need to be replaced. They don’t yet know about the framing—some of the bottom framing may need to be replaced. But the lateral extent of the water damage is contained, and that’s a good thing.

So things are progressing, a little slowly perhaps, but progressing. I hope the plumber comes tomorrow to check out the leak source. The repair man is supposed to be here Monday to review everything and give an estimate for all the putting-it-back-together costs.

Is it money well-spent? Darned if I know. No, I suppose I do know it’s well spent. When we sell our house in our future downsizing, we will have an easier time of it.

Bible study, Documenting America, expatriate life, family, goals, holidays, Writing

A Roaring Start to 2024

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Dateline: Monday, January 15, 2024, Martin Luther King Jr. Day

I was about ready to leave The Dungeon and go upstairs, grab my sledgehammer, and fix the modem that way. Fortunately, our internet came up before such drastic repairs were needed.

It’s my regular blogging day. But I woke up this morning to find we have no internet. Thus, I can’t get to the blog to type in a post. I’m writing this on my computer, and will post it whenever the internet comes back to us.

Actually, it has been a horrible weekend for technology. Friday evening our cable kept going haywire. Picture breaking up, sound breaking up, occasional total loss of signal. We suffered through and saw a few things. Wound up streaming something via Amazon Prime, which worked. Or was that Saturday? The days are running together.

Anyhow, called Cox. They said they would have a technician out between 3 and 5 yesterday, and said it might involve a $75 charge. We had internet all day yesterday, but no cable.

The Cox tech was a no-show. But it snowed yesterday, a little over 2 inches, and the temperature never got above 1°, so I kind of understand why the tech didn’t make it. A call telling us that would have been nice. Alas, service providers of every type have ceased being proactive in communicating with their customers in this age of easy communication. Will it do any good to call the office today, on the holiday?

My post today was to be about January being off to a good start. I am one or two days away from the last editing pass through A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. Granddaughter Elise got the cover art done. So either tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll begin publishing tasks.

The first week of the year, while in Lake Jackson, I had a conversation with Elise about the next book in The Forest Throne series, and she read the prologue I wrote based on our prior conversations. She loved it, reading it aloud while our daughter was in the room and putting much drama into the reading. So a good start there on a project just a little down the road. Also, youngest grandson Elijah wanted to have a conversation about the fourth book in the series, which will be about the youngest child in the Wagner family. That book is planned for about four years from now. But we had the conversation and I got some ideas on paper. I may type them up and see what that future book will look like.

Sven months of letters from the Saudi years. The ones on the left are transcribed. The ones on the right to be done. It’s a big project.

I began transcribing the letters from our Saudi Arabia years. This was one of my realistic goals. On Fri-Sat-Sun, I typed five letters each day. I’m going to limit myself to five a day so as to keep the project from overwhelming me as the letters from the Kuwait years did. I have no idea how many total letters there are. As I look at the piles, it appears to be about 300, which is close to double the number in the previous project. But as we had no typewriter (or computer in 1981-83), the letters will likely average a little shorter.

I did a little reading for research for the next book in the Documenting America series. Not much, but a little. What I read, however, makes me wonder if I’m on the right track with this volume. I’ll discuss that more in a future blog post.

I also have made a good start on an author interview for a future blog post. Possibly today I’ll be able to pull my interview questions together and send them to him.

Well, our internet just came up, so I will wrap this up and post this. I’ll have to leave The Dungeon to go upstairs to see if the cable TV is up. I’m not optimistic. But I’m still optimistic in general about 2024. I still expect to see those realistic goals met. But we will see.

Bible study, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Documenting America, letters

Writing Goals for 2024

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If you’ve been reading my last few posts, you know I’ve been hesitant to set goals for 2024. My problem is having too many projects in different stages to work on all of them. So I laid out all the projects I’d like to work on if I had infinite time. This is just projects that have taken up some of my brain power in the last two years, not things that are in my writing ideas folder, actually folders, both paper and computer folders.

I’m still not sure of this, but I need to set goals. So here they are. I’m dividing them into two sections: Realistic Goals, and Wouldn’t-It-Be-Wonderful Goals.

Realistic Goals

  • Finish editing A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1 and publish it. I’m targeting the end of January for completing this.
  • Pull Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution from Kindle Vella, and publish it as a print book and e-book. This will not be a large project. I’m targeting February for completing this.
  • Write A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 8, simultaneously with teaching it. That should be February through April. Publishing will be delayed until the rest of the series is published.
  • Write A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 2 and publish it. This, I hope, is a four-month project, or maybe a little more. This should be a fairly easy project to complete, because I’ve thought much about it and done a fair amount of planning.
  • Get to work on A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 3. I’d like to say “and finish and publish it,” but I’m not yet sure if my other projects will be completed on schedule.
  • Make final edits to my short story, “To Laugh Again”, and publish it. I suspect this will happen in odd moments during other projects. This should be in the first half of the year.
  • Write and publish the next book in the Documenting America series. I hope to decide what the subject of the book will be by the end of March, and to write the book the second half of the year.
  • Begin transcribing the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia. I’m hoping to start this in February, though more realistic is in the second half of the year. Part of the problem is I don’t really know how many letters there are, so I don’t know how big the project is. That’s why I can’t plan on when I will finish it.

So those are the Realistic Goals. Now for the Wouldn’t-It-Be-Wonderful Goals.

  • Update The Candy Store Generation for the last several election cycles, and re-publish. I’d like to do this by July.
  • Work on the John Cheney book. By the end of2024, I’d like to have the full structure of the book known, and several chapters written. If I do work on this, it will be in odd moments, multi-tasking while watching TV. I have no goal for when to publish it.
  • Work on the Thomas Carlyle bibliography. As with the John Cheney book, this is for off hours, multi-tasking. Again, I have no goal regarding publishing.
  • Work on One Of My Wishes, a new poetry book. Since at present I have no inspiration for writing new poetry, I’m not sure if this will ever happen.
  • Outline the next book in my Church History Novels series. I won’t say any more about that right now.

So that’s it. Lots of plans, lots of hopes, lots of effort and efficiency needed to come close to all of this.