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.
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”.
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.
Since Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the great cloud of witnesses I included in Acts Of Faith, and since I didn’t read a full biography of him in preparation for writing that half-chapter but rather relied on snippets of information gleaned from a couple of places, I decided I should read a biography of Bonhoeffer. I figured, if what I had already written was somehow off the mark or lacked vital information, I could add it and re-publish the book. So I looked in my library and, sure enough, found a suitable book.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Opponent of the Nazi Regimewas written by Michael Van Dyke, published in 2001. It is part of Balfour Publishing’s Heroes of the Faith series, comprised of [then] 44 volumes. A short biography at 205 pages. In fact, it really isn’t biography per se. Rather, it is more creative non-fiction, for it contains much dialog between Bonhoeffer and others, dialog that could not possibly have been preserved to be able to reproduce in a book such as this.
That didn’t affect my enjoyment of the book. It was simple, meant to be understood by almost anyone. It didn’t go much into his early years. Starting at World War 1, the book describes an aristocratic lifestyle for the Bonhoeffer family. In the opening chapter, Walter, the oldest of the Bonhoeffer siblings, was killed fighting in France. This set the tone for the book.
The Bonhoeffer home was strict, Christian, and loving. Dietrich was studious from the beginning. He went to university and excelled there. Always a Christian based on his childhood memories, he still found a need to have an encounter with God, and for God to become personal for him. As the book says:
The one thing missing from Dietrich’s life during these pears of intense theological and philosophical study, though, was a warm heart of true faith. He was learning everything that had ever been said about God, and yet he never spoke to God himself. He never prayed or read the Bible in order to hear what God was saying to him personally. Growing up in a highly intellectual atmosphere, he had absorbed the assumption that expressions of religious fervor were something of the ignorant masses did. It was the province of those who lived according to their hearts, not according to their minds.
Bonhoeffer eventually found that experience with God. It was, perhaps, less emotional than some people experience. He came to believe that:
Christianity was the daily experience of God, both individually and corporately, to the furtherance of God’s glory alone.
Most of the book deals with Bonhoeffer’s relationship to the Nazis after they came to power. He tried to get the church to see that Hitler and his accomplices were evil and that the church should oppose them. He lamented that instead the church either embraced Hitler or acquiesced to the Nazis’ impositions on the church. He spent much time in theological studies and reflections trying to figure out what the correct response of the church and Christians should be to someone like Hitler. Bonhoeffer was a believer in non-violent resistance in the mode of Gandhi. How would that work against the Nazis?
Then World War 2 came. Bonhoeffer was of age where he could be called into the service. His brother-in-law was a member of an organization, the Abwer, that allegedly conducted counterintelligence but essentially was working to overthrow the government, either by a putsch or by assassination. Bonhoeffer joined. The violent intentions of the organization troubled him, but he went ahead with it. This is what eventually caused him to be sent to prison and, ultimately, executed.
The part of the book dealing with Bonhoeffer’s time in prison was very good. Interrogations, dealings with other prisoners, prison letters, relocation to different prisons. It’s all there.
At some point I will want to read a more comprehensive biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but for now this will do. I’m not sure if I’ll keep this in my library or not. My wife may want to read it, so I suppose I will keep it for now.
In a recent postI wrote about my hate affair (no love to balance it) with creating book covers. The saga continues. I received the proof copy of Acts Of Faithon Friday. To my pleasure, it was perfect. The cover was perfect. Everything was centered, the colors were good, the text was correct and nicely spaced. It was suggested that I make a tweak to it, changing the cover on the spine and changing the font on one block of text. I thought that would cause a slowdown, so I decided not to and just clicked “Publish”. That was Friday afternoon. And then I waited.
This is what I uploaded. Still waiting to hear if it works.
The wait is for a live body at Amazon to check the files. Typically this takes less than 24 hours. You get an e-mail, either it’s good and the book is published, or it is not accepted and you need to figure out what is wrong with it.
That e-mail came Saturday at 09:50 a.m., but I was outside doing yard work. I saw it when I can in around noon. And the verdict: “We checked your files and found issues you need to fix before your book can be published on KDP”, Sigh. They further said, “Resize your front cover so that the image or background on the front cover extends far enough beyond the edge. Add an extra 0.125″ (3.2 mm) along the top, bottom, and sides of your cover. This prevents manufacturing issues when the cover is trimmed.”
I was hoping to work on the Leader’s Guide for AOF that afternoon, but instead I worked on the cover. Since the proof copy was so good, I couldn’t see what was wrong with the cover. I checked my calculations of the size, which were correct. I went ahead and slightly enlarged it. But it’s more complicated than that. The front cover is a layer that sits on the background and is aligned with the edges of the background. Beneath that is an image size. At least, I think that’s how it works. Don’t ask me. I’m still an amateur with graphic arts software.
I looked the thing over, and realized everything wasn’t quite in alignment, but couldn’t tell what was wrong. I checked the size of each layer and they seemed to be correct. So I exported it to PDF, uploaded it to Amazon, checked the on-line book reviewer. It all looked good, so I clicked “Publish”, and went into waiting mode.
This morning (I’m writing this on Sunday), at 09:34 a.m., while at church and about to start our Life Group class, I received the e-mail: “We checked your files and found issues you need to fix before your book can be published on KDP” for the identical reason. One more sigh.
After Life Group, after church, after getting lunch and milk to take home, I went to The Dungeon—once again not to write, but to fix the darn cover. I decided I would invest an hour to fix it, then I’d just find a professional and hire the tweaking done.
I spent about 15 minutes checking the layers, checking all sizing, determining I didn’t know what the problem was. I thought maybe I should just use the Amazon cover building program, but found it was complicated. I searched Amazon for help, and found a way to talk with someone. I then spent a very not-so-pleasant 45 minutes on the phone with an Amazon rep. She was difficult to understand, and ultimately couldn’t help me. She sent me an e-mail of what the cover dimensions should be, which confirmed my calculations.
I had spent my hour, but decided maybe the thing to do was to try one more time, re-building the cover from scratch. I knew what I wanted, I knew the size, so it went quickly. In fifteen minutes I had all the elements in G.I.M.P. file except for the text on the spine. The first time around I created the spine text in PowerPoint and uploaded it to G.I.M.P. I wasn’t real happy with that. So, I decided to try once again to understand how to get the print tool to do what I want.
My problem was getting the text to center vertically in the text box. Horizontal centering is no problem, but I couldn’t see how to center it vertically. I had previously watched a YouTube tutorial on book spines using G.I.M.P. I watched it again, and they said nothing about vertical centering. I noticed he sized the text to the size he wanted, then pulled the limits of the box to match the text size, then aligned the box where they wanted it on the page. I looked at another tutorial, and they did the same thing. I decided I’d better do that.
I opened the text tool, changed the font type and size, selected bold and center, then typed the text and spaced it horizontally in the text box. Then I resized the box to match the text. I rotated it 90 degrees clockwise, and centered it vertically and horizontally on the background. Everything looked good. You can see the results in the illustration above.
One last task was to flatten the file into one layer before exporting the cover to a PDF. That was all done, and I uploaded it to Amazon, checked it in the previewer, and, once again, it looked good. I clicked “Publish” for the third time, and now, for the third time, I wait.
I’m simplifying it somewhat. I created the spine box and deleted what was obviously incorrect several times. I made the other tweaks of color and font, and now have them correct. At several times I had long waits, up to three minutes, while Amazon processed files. I used that time to look at the proof copy, and discovered two errors in the Table Of Contents and one error in a chapter subtitle. I made those changes and checked it in the on-line previewer. This was along with the final cover upload.
As I said, now I wait. It’s possible that an e-mail will arrive before this posts at 07:30 a.m. on Monday. If so, I’ll edit it with the verdict. I’m feeling optimistic. I understand G.I.M.P. a lot better. I understand how to work with layers much better. I feel fairly certain that the next time I go through this it will be much easier. All except choosing artistic elements that look good. Now that’s going to take a long time, if ever.
“Acts Of Faith” is now available for sale as an e-book on Amazon. The print book and e-book at other retailers will soon follow.
This week, Acts Of Faith: Examples From The Great Cloud Of Witnesses went live on Amazon as an e-book. The print book proof is supposed to arrive today. Assuming it checks out as good, I need to swap out the cover for one with a few tweaks, then I’ll hit “publish” and it will be live, too. My first published Bible study.
Although this is my thirtieth item to publish, in some ways this one is making me feel more vulnerable than all the others. It’s kind of like when I published my first (and so far only) poetry book, Daddy-Daughter Day. That was my eighteenth book to publish, and it made me feel very vulnerable at the time. I remember it as a strange feeling. I had novels and short stories and non-fiction books out there for people to buy and either like or tear apart. Why did poetry make me feel so at risk? Perhaps because I’m not trained as a poet. All I know about poetry I learned through my self-study, late in life. What if I mess it up, if my poems are garbage? Poetry is heightened language, with rules that aren’t needed in prose. All this combined resulted in my feeling vulnerable. I hesitated several months before hitting the publish button.
Although this seems a long time ago, I remember how I felt vulnerable publishing this.
Now I’m feeling the same thing with Acts Of Faith. This isn’t my first Bible study. This is actually my ninth Bible study to prepare from my own research. The other eight I’ve already taught (or co-taught) from my notes to the adult Life Group I attend. One of them, Entrusted To My Care, is being taught right now from my notes in another group. For that study I happened to make more extensive teaching notes, which I gave them to the other teacher. Four weeks in to the fourteen-week study, she says it’s going well.
So, I’m no stranger to Bible studies. Why then this feeling of ill ease?
It’s probably the same thing as with poetry. I’m an amateur in this field, a layman playing against a host of trained clergy, teachers, professors, evangelists. Look at all the Bible studies published that have become popular. They are published by those who could be called professionals. Is there room on this field for an amateur to step up and make an impact?
I didn’t take any of those other Bible studies the next step and turn them into publishable products. When I prepared Bible studies and taught them to our group that’s been together for a long time, if I made a misstatement as I taught, I could cover it over with a joke and keep right on rolling. Now, however, if I have a mistake in my book—and I would think that, as a layman, I’m more likely to make a mistake than a professional—it’s out there in print for everyone to criticize. Yes, and that makes me feel vulnerable.
But is that bad? In a recent sermon, our pastor talked about this. He said that God made Himself vulnerable when He came to earth and faced the same temptations as we do. One of pastor’s key points was, “Vulnerability deepens relationships.” He added that we need to be willing to make ourselves vulnerable. If he didn’t say it outright, he implied that being vulnerable is necessary to do effective work for the kingdom of God.
That sermon came as I was in the midst of publishing tasks for Acts Of Faith but had not yet hit the button. I had some but not all of the publishing files created. Didn’t have the covers finished. I was at the point where I could easily have decided to stop publishing it, shrinking back into my comfortable world of fiction, etc. But the idea of making myself vulnerable as a way of doing great things for the kingdom of God pushed me forward, and hit the button I did.
What’s to become of Acts Of Faith? I have a somewhat captive audience in my Life Group, and should have ten to fifteen sales there. I know of another five to ten people locally who will want a copy. That puts me a little over average for my sales. And, who knows? Perhaps this will be my breakout book.
Last week I put the finishing touches on Acts Of Faith: Examples From The Great Cloud Of Witnesses“. That’s not to say it’s perfect, but I think it’s in good shape. I’m pleased with it as it is. On Thursday, I think it was, I formatted the book for print, completing that in a few hours.
As reported in my last post, I set about trying to make a cover for it, and failed miserably. But fortunately I had the earlier cover for it and was able to take that, make a few modifications, and I had a more acceptable cover. People I showed it to thought it was acceptable. On Saturday I set about making the cover wrap for the print book. Here’s what I came up with, still subject to a little tweaking.
Here’s the print book cover. I’m not claiming it’s great, but I think it’s acceptable. It also starts a theme that I can use for future Bible studies if I publish them.
Yesterday I uploaded all this to Amazon for the print book. For the third straight book the files I uploaded, both book interior and the cover, met Amazon’s technical specifications and they said I could order the proof copy. I did so, and it should arrive Thursday or Friday. By that time I’ll have the print cover changed with any tweaks needed. I e-mailed the basic cover to my critique group, Scribblers and Scribes of Bella Vista, and will show them the full wrap when we meet on Wednesday.
So, yesterday I also began the work on the e-books. This is the opposite of my normal order. Usually I do the e-books, which I find easier, first, then do the harder print book. Since I’m under a tight deadline for having the print book available I didn’t want to delay that even a day, so I changed up my normal routine. I finished the Kindle version interior yesterday. The cover is, I think, all ready. Later today, after I complete a few chores and errands, I’ll upload the e-book. As soon as it’s approved I’ll publish it. That could be later today or, more likely, tomorrow. Then it will be on to the Smashwords edition.
It’s kind of exciting, but also kind of scary. I’ll write about that in a future post.
This trial cover does what I want, but looks awful.
Work progressed very well on my Bible study, Acts Of Faith. I wrote it in a little over a month in June-July this year. I found a couple of beta readers, got some comments, did several rounds of edits, and wrapped it up early this month—sandwiched in between getting Documenting America: Making The Constitution into print.
This week, on Wednesday, I called it a wrap and began working on publication files. Then Wednesday night I thought of one more thing I wanted in the Introduction. I did that Thursday morning, yesterday, and called it a wrap again. I went back to building publication files. By the end of the day I had the print edition files complete, all except for the cover.
I had done the cover on Tuesday-Wednesday. Or rather, let me say I did a cover on Tuesday-Wednesday. You can see it here. It’s awful. My thoughts as I began pulling it together were:
Since it’s quite possible I’ll prepare more of my Bible studies for publication, it would be nice, with this first one, to create some sort of graphical branding. I looked at a couple of printed Bible studies we have here at the house, and at some other books that are parts of series, and though the colored band with the words “A Bible Study” in the band would work, preferably across the top.
I thought maybe the other words on the cover, the title, subtitle, and my name could also be in bands. So I put them in the same color bands of the same style.
Then I played with the background color and texture and came up with something.
Then I thought, how about putting some of the names of those covered in the book on the cover, somewhat randomly, as if in a “cloud”. I did that, finding a font I liked. I decided to make each one a little bit more or less opaque and putting them on top of each other. I liked that effect.
Better? Perhaps, but still not good.
Then I looked at it all, and it was terrible, as you can see from image of it I put in above. Bad colors. Bad contrast of graphical images. A couple of friends whose advice I trust agreed with my assessment. Alas, I don’t know how to make it better.
I had played with a cover earlier, which I posted here. That was just a trial, to have something to show. However, it’s probably better than what I came up with this week. I like the cloud effect of the names on gray, so I clipped that out of the new cover and pasted it in the old in the space reserved for a graphic. You can see how those two work together. I think I like this a little better, but I’m still not sure it’s what I want.
A few extra touches make it look a little better, perhaps.
Sigh. I may just go with a generic black cover with white or yellow lettering, no graphic, and not worry about whether it looks good or not. Just so long as it doesn’t look awful. Or, maybe I’ll have to just find a professional and turn it over to them. I’ve contacted one, and am waiting on hearing back.
I used to do goals posts regularly. I’ll do it this month and see what comes of it.
One thing I’ve been doing in the evening is going through old posts on this blog and adding categories to them. My son helped me set up my website in June 2011. Part of that was creating this blog. I already had a blog over at BlogSpot, titled “An Arrow Through the Air”. He did the work of porting all those posts over to this blog.
I intended, at first, to run both blogs. This one would be my writing blog; that one would be for more personal stuff. I did that for a while, but soon saw the pressures of life wouldn’t allow me to do both. So, I abandoned AATTA and concentrated on this blog. Eventually I renamed this one to be An Arrow Through The Air. The old one still exists. Every now and then I make a minor post there just to keep the account open.
A few months back I went to the back pages of this blog, I forget why. I noticed that all those posts from the old blog came over but none of them had categories. The all show up as “Uncategorized”. That’s not a major problem, but…oh, wait, I remember now. I was trying to find a post I did back in 2008 on a certain subject, went to that category, and didn’t find the post. That’s when I learned none of the categories had stayed with the posts as they ported over.
So, slowly, as I have a night in front of the TV where I can’t really do anything else, I’ve been going back through the old posts and adding categories. It’s actually a tedious job but I feel that it needs to be done. As of last night I had completed all the posts for 2008. Looks like I have two and a half years still to go.
One thing I noticed was that in 2008 I made a monthly post about my goals for the month—writing goals mostly—and then an end-of-the-month post showing how well I’d done. That was almost a journal, of sorts. It made me think I ought to do that occasionally. So, here’s my first goals post in a long time. Perhaps on Sept. 30 I’ll come back and make a post of how I did.
Blog on a regular Monday and Friday schedule. I’ve done fairly well at that this year, and I’d like to continue it.
Complete publishing tasks for and publish all versions of Documenting America: Making The Constitution. I’m close. The covers are the big holdup.
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.
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.
Critique 2-3 poems at the Absolute Write Forums. I’d like to keep my foot in poetry somehow. Maybe this is the way.
Attend writers groups on the 11th and the 18th.
Complete reading three items and begin two or three more. As of this morning I’m halfway through two books (each around 260-280 pages) and a third through a 60 page article. I should easily finish all these with no problem. I don’t know what I want to read next, but I’ll start searching my stacks before lone.
Prepare my first newsletter for release about Oct 15. And figure out how to make it happen.
That’s enough, I think. See you all on the 30th with a report.
