Category Archives: Bible study

Bible study, Carlyle, Church History Novels, Documenting America, Genealogy, goals, poetry, The Candy Store Generation

2024: Possible Writing Projects

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In my last post, recapping my 2023 writing work, I said that my next post would be goals for 2024. But before I set those goals, I want to take a moment to think through all the writing projects I have going. Some are actually in progress, some are close to the surface, others were started and buried in the past. Still others are nascent, just starting to come together in my mind. They may never get beyond the idea stage, but they are there. I need to talk through this, think about what I can accomplish given life constraints. Bear with me though this thinking-out-loud post.

So here are the projects worth putting in the mix for actual goals for 2024.

  • Finish editing A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. I’m almost there right now.
  • Write Parts 2, 3, and 8 of A Walk Through Holy Week. Publish Part 2.
  • Pull Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution into book form and publish it as a stand-alone book.
  • Reasearch (and possibly write) the next book in the Documenting America series. I have two possibilities for what the next one will be. Both need reading for research.
  • The next book in the Church History Novels series. I’ve identified what it will be and have brainstormed the plot. But nothing is yet on paper.
  • Transcribe the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia—maybe just half of them this year.
  • Next book in The Forest Throne series. I have made a minor start on it and discussed the plot with my granddaughter, who is my consultant on this volume. But this is unlikely to happen in 2024, unless it’s late in the year and after much other work is completed.
  • Begin the Alfred Cottage mysteries. I have made a minor start on the first volume and have planned out the series.
  • Update The Candy Store Generation for recent data and republish. I think this is about a two-week project.
  • Flesh out One Of My Wishes, a hoped-for poetry book. I made a start on this and have it half done. But the hard part remains.
  • A genealogy book. I’m torn between two books in the Cheney family. One has much research done and is mainly writing left. The other requires research from scratch.
  • One of the two books about Thomas Carlyle I’ve started. One I think I could have done with a month of intense work. The other I started and laid aside so many years ago, I’m not sure where I was on it, though possibly 60 percent done.
  • And last, take some time to decide what to do about a tentative project, Nature, The Artwork Of God. I’ve been thinking about this for a few months. It seems like it would be a good book. In some ways it’s a bit scary to think I could write a book that blends science and religion, so I’m going to take a long time to ponder this. I think that at most this year I’ll complete some reading research and flesh out a table of contents.

I’m not saying all of these are things I’ll work on in 2024. I’m just trying to figure out what are real prospects for this year. For sure I’ll be pondering these projects over the next few days, as I have been for nearly two weeks, and will have some firm goals for the year set in my next post.

American Colonial History, Bible study, family, Health, home improvements, non-fiction, self-publishing, Writing

2023 Recap

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It may not be selling, but at least my grandkids are reading it and seem to like it.

2023 was a strange year for writing. In some ways my output doesn’t seem very significant. But, then, the year brought many other things that pried me away from writing. We made six trips for family matters, Lynda had her heart irregularities leading to a pacemaker implant, home improvements led to the discovery of water damage that is taking much time to arrange for contractors to begin repairs.

Yet, I think I made some progress. Let’s see how it stacks up against the goals I published on January 6, 2023.

  • Edit and publish The Key To Time Travel. Yes, I got this done. Publication was in June.
  • Determine the structure of the overall A Walk Through Holy Week Bible study series, and whether it will be six parts or seven. It’s being taught in six parts over six Lent/Easter seasons, but I’m thinking it’s better as seven parts in books. I completed this, sometime in late spring. I settled on eight volumes rather than six or seven. All volumes are planned out and all chapters named.
  • Finish/edit Part 4 (what may become Part 5) of AWTHW. Finished this, and it’s now on hold, waiting for earlier volumes to be finished and published.
  • Finish/edit Part 3 (what may become Part 4) of AWTHW. Finished this (didn’t actually have much left to do on it), and it’s now on hold, waiting for earlier volumes to be finished and published.
  • Write Part 5 (what may become Part 6) of AWTHW, simultaneously with teaching it. I’m pleased to say I finished this. It actually became Part 7 in the restructured series. It was done a couple of weeks before the last class.
  • Start Part 1 of AWTHW, after determining the overall structure, of course. Not only did I start it, but I finished it and made one editing pass through it. Two more passes and it will be ready to publish.
  • Depending on how work on this goes, publish some or all of the completed parts of the study. I decided to hold off publishing volumes out of sequence, so all the complete volumes are waiting for Volumes 1, 2, and 3 to be published.
  • So far this has not found an audience on Kindle Vella. All 32 episodes have been published.

    Start writing the next book in the Documenting America series. It will cover the years 1761 to 1775 and is tentatively titled Run-up To Revolution. Yes, I finished this. I decided to publish it to Kindle Vella, chapter by chapter. In hindsight that was not a good decision, as it has not attracted a readership.

  • One other item, which is non-commercial but which will be a book, is to start transcribing the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia (1981-1983). I don’t think this is something that I can finish in one year, given that it will be fill-in work when I have nothing else to do, but I’d like to at least start it. I’ll wait to start it, however, until I get a few more disaccumulation items done. No, I didn’t do this. The work of disaccumulation proved to be more time-consuming than expected. I made major progress on it, but I’m still a long way from done.

So all in all, I published only two items: one book, one book in serial format. Given the distractions, maybe that’s not too bad. And I did get a lot of writing done, even though it’s not yet published.

Time now to set some goals for 2024. That will be in my next post.

Bible study, Documenting America, Genealogy, goals, self-publishing

December Progress, January Goals

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Time to post about my progress in December and set some goals for January. I know, I know, December isn’t over yet. Maybe I should wait until January 1st to post this. But I’m doing it now, and will either edit it or provide updates in a comment.

  • Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday. I did this, though at least once I was a day late, and another time I didn’t write it until late in the day.
  • Attend three writers meetings. I’m not sure the third one will be held, as it will be getting close to Christmas. We cancelled the third one, a combination of sickness, travel, and Christmas. I attended the other two.
  • Finish the first draft and much of the editing of A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1: To Jerusalem. …If I can maintain my writing schedule, I should finish the writing by December 10. That gives me two weeks to edit, enough time to go through the whole thing once. I finished the writing Dec 13 and the edits to the Introduction on Dec 14. Editing commenced Dec 15 and…I completed it around Dec 21.
  • Type up some of the ideas for book 3 in The Forest Throne series. I don’t intend to begin actually writing this for perhaps a year, but I want to lock in the ideas generated so far. I did this, after having contacted my granddaughter for some clarifications of ideas we considered during Thanksgiving week.
  • Work some on Nature: The Artwork of God. This may be the next book I write (still trying to decide), so I need to expand the notes I’ve already taken. As of today, I did nothing on this in December.
  • Finish the new Danny Tompkins short story and decide what to do with it. I finished it and sent it to two beta readers. Still waiting to hear back from them.
  • Read for research for the next book in the Documenting America series. Actually, until I do my research, I don’t know what the next one will be.  I did a little reading on this beginning Dec 26. I’m not very far along, however.
  • Oh, one more: Finish and submit my article on a genealogical brick wall to the NWA Genealogical Society. The contest deadline is Dec 31. The article has been done for almost two months. Time to dust it off and do a final edit. I did this and submitted it on Dec 8, though I had to submit an extra couple of reference documents later. Now, I wait.

What about goals for January? I’m going to hold off on them until I post goals for the year 2024, which I’ll do on January 1. I’ll probably post specific goals for January on January 5.

Bible study, Christmas, home improvements, miscellaneous

A Quiet Christmas

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A blessed Christmas to everyone.

After having had a busy, family-full Thanksgiving week, it’s going to be a quiet Christmas at Blackberry Oaks. Lynda and I will be here alone.

That’s fine with both of us. If yesterday is any indication, we aren’t as able to do a lot as we used to be. I started my day at 6:00 a.m. after a great night’s sleep. I was in The Dungeon by 6:15. I edited the last two chapters of A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1: To Jerusalem. That was the only writing task I had for the day, so I moved on to other things, mainly looking for a lost box of letters. I looked for that yesterday so I could file one stray letter, but I couldn’t find it.

This morning I widened my search in the storeroom, and found it in a place I hadn’t looked yesterday. In that process, I saw four boxes labeled “travel items.” They were boxes of travel brochures we had picked up over the years and, rather than go through them and decide what to keep, what to discard, I just shoved everything into boxes to go through them in the future.

The future came yesterday. I went through the boxes, pulled out everything that wasn’t worth saving, and consolidated the rest into two boxes. That allowed me to do some rearranging of the shelves, including temporary repairs to one shelf. Then it was time for me to make the weekly grocery run. Then back to The Dungeon after lunch, for miscellaneous computer tasks, along with finishing the clean up from the morning’s work in the storeroom.

When I came upstairs around 3:00 p.m., I went straight to the sunroom with my last coffee of the day, hoping to read five to ten pages in The Confessions of Stain Augustine. Instead, I promptly fell asleep. I could read only two pages, as my mind and body conspired against reading retention.

We had planned to make lace cookies in the afternoon, but neither of us had the energy. Hopefully tomorrow.

But the day was productive. One editing pass done through a book finished last week. The clutter reduced a little more. The pantry and fridge adequately stocked. A good afternoon nap for both of us. We’ll get those cookies done tomorrow.

My next blogging day is Monday, Christmas day. I don’t expect many people to be tuning in then, so will say Merry Christmas now. May God bless you on the day we celebrate Jesus’s birth.

Bible study, self-publishing, Writing

Editing Shows The Problems

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Anxious to move forward with this, but initial editing suggests it’s not as far along as I thought it was.

On Thursday, I began the editing process on A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1: To Jerusalem. On this editing pass, I’m doing this using Word’s Read Aloud feature. Thursday was the Introduction, Friday Chapter 1, and Saturday Chapter 2.

The more I use this feature, the more impressed I am with it. The computer-generated voice is pleasant, with few pronunciation errors. Wrong words really stand out. You can stop the reading, make the needed edit, and hop right back into the reading, all with just a few clicks. It probably takes a little more time than simply reading aloud myself, but I think it does better at catching the silly little errors we tend to read through without recognition. For example, in one sentence I meant to use “head” but instead typed “dead”. I’m not sure I would have caught that reading aloud, but did using my friendly editing lady.

Alas, what I found on Chapter 1, while listening to my computer read it, was that it seems to have a lot of repetition. I noticed the same thing in Chapter 2. In fact, Chapter 2 may be worse than Chapter 1 in the repetition department.

I say “alas” because, when I wrote these chapters back in October, they seemed really good to me. Now, not so much. Once I go through the whole book using the computer reader, I will have to go through again with slow, careful reading.

I suppose that’s to be expected. Something that goes down on paper (or pixels) fast is probably not all that good. I’m not sure what this does to my timeline for the book, but a delay to make it better is better than a rush to publish.

The first editing pass ought to be ready in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. At that time I ought to have a better idea of what my further editing and publishing schedule will be.

 

Bible study, Genealogy, miscellaneous

Two Tasks Done

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I asked my granddaughter to do a sketch for the covers for the Bible study series. This is her first cut at it.

My to-do list remains long. About every two weeks I start a new one, taking the one just done, transferring uncompleted tasks to the new list, and adding more. I suppose the habit is a continuation of my engineering career, and hard to break. Yet, I’m sure thinks would fall through the cracks if I didn’t organize the things I need to do. Like this morning, as I’m writing this in The Dungeon, I see on my computer desk a business card for the auto dealership where I have our vehicles serviced and realize I need to add calling them to have our minivan in for an oil change.

This week, I finished two tasks that I will today cross off the list. The first was writing A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1: To Jerusalem. It’s always good when I finish a book. As I work on a book, I will add it to my to-do list. The entry for this one would look something like:

  • write AWTHW   M   T   W   R   F   Sa

Each day I would then cross out the day as I did my writing work.  I may have a future blog post that says more about the specifics of how this book came about, how the writing went, etc. Suffice to say for now that it came together fairly quickly.

Now the editing starts. I’ve been editing as I wrote, so I’m a little further along than I would typically be with most books at the first draft stage. Last night I emailed it to my beta reader, so things are truly in motion. My next to-do list will have this entry:

  • edit AWTHW  M   T   W   R   F   Sa

Before too long, I’ll have a to-do list with the following:

  • create publication files for AWTHW

As for the second task, that is to finish scanning a large notebook of genealogy papers, saving them to my electronic filing system, and discarding the files and the notebook. This is part of a larger project to reduce the amount of possessions we would have to move in a future downsizing—an event that is not on any to-do list and is unlikely to be for a couple of years. I’ve already done that to 15 or so notebooks before this one.

This notebook contained information on relatives in Lynda’s paternal like, the Cheney family. It was kind of a difficult task. My electronic filing system is really set up for ancestors, not relatives. Therefore, I found this notebook harder to deal with than the others.

But I figured out a way to get relatives in an ancestors filing system. I don’t remember when I started on this task. The notebook is (or rather, was) thick, with loose papers as well. It was probably two months ago that this item first appeared on my to-do list:

  • scan/save/discard Cheney relatives papers   M   T   W   R   F   Sa

I took several breaks when other tasks took precedence, such as when family was here over Thanksgiving. But my revised filing system worked, and slowly the notebook emptied out. I finished the last of the bound papers on Wednesday, leaving only the loose papers to go.

Alas, yesterday the scan-to-computer function quit working. I’m not a tech guy, but I was able, in about 20 to 30 minutes, do some diagnostics and get the scanner and computer recognizing each other’s existence and get back to scanning. I got a few more pages done, leaving only around ten loose papers for today. As I won’t be doing any book writing today, I should easily be able to get all those done and check this task off the list.

Of course, that will not be the end for these two over-arching tasks. My to-do list is upstairs. Next time I go up, I’ll find it and bring it down to The Dungeon. I have two new items to add to it.

  • edit AWTHW   F   Sa   M   T   W   R
  • begin scanning next genealogy notebook

So one task leads to another, and the to-do lists never end. Still, I’m feeling good about things. I’m slowly getting done what I need to do.

Bible study, books, critique group, family, home improvements, Magazines

Getting Rid of Some Books

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This was an okay book, not great. Not sure of its truth. Will never read it again, so it’s gone, today added to the sale/donation pile.

Our efforts at dis-accumulating continue. Perhaps not as fast as needed to do a downsizing in this decade, but we make a little progress. The last month has seen the old postcard collection acquired in the mid-1980s, having been left behind in the house we bought, for $115. But the buyer wanted me to ship it to Houston and so didn’t want the small, steel cabinet. I was able to sell that for an extra $10.

Then Lynda decided she was willing to part with the Gulf War memorabilia she brought back from Kuwait in 1991. They were supposedly Iraqi items. I listed them on Facebook Marketplace, not being sure they would sell. After one price reduction, a mom contacted me. She wanted them for her son (maybe a teenager), who loves military stuff. We were able to arrange a transfer that was convenient to both of us.

But really, the big thing we need to part with is books. For a bookiphile, that’s like cutting your wrist. But we have to do it. Despite the number of books we’ve gotten rid of, we still have at least 2,000 books in the house. I gave one away at writer’s critique group last week.

One book obviously isn’t much; we need to do more. In our living room is a built-in bookcase.  We are going to have to dismantle this to repair some water damage that appears to be from improperly installed flashing around the chimney. We have already removed some books from the lower shelves and piled them, to prevent them from being damaged and allow the bookcase to dry from a little moisture found.

As Lynda and I discussed it, she suggested that we get rid of a series of Bible study books that are shelved on that built-in. We went through one of those books together, and started a second. They aren’t bad books. I learned something from them. But when you have 2,000 books, and need to unload at least a thousand, I agreed with her to put those in the sale/donation pile.

I then suggested we also get rid of two books from the built-ins, the two books in The Bible Code series. We read these aloud together. They are an easy read because the books are not long, are well-written, and have lots of illustrations of where the Bible may have a code in the books of Moses. I say “may have” because, while the writer makes a good case, I’m not fully convinced it’s true.

At first Lynda balked. She was more accepting of the Bible code than I was and thought more of the books than I did. But then she agreed with me that we read the books, got something from them, and with all the other books in the house we were unlikely to read them ever again. So she agreed to get rid of them. I’ll move them out tomorrow.

I also have a fairly large set of magazines about World War 2 that I got from my dad. I had intended to read them, but it looks as if I never will. I have them listed on Marketplace and lowered the price twice. I think I’ll do so again and see if they will sell. Also on the getting-rid-of-block is my collection of WW2 history books. They are all good. If I had a shortage of books I would probably read all of them again. But, with a book surplus and a shortage of years ahead, I think they will also go up for sale.

Six Bible studies, two Bible codes are a long way from 1,000 books. A good sized box of magazines, and perhaps ten war books are not much. But it’s a start. I’m hoping over Thanksgiving, when our children are here, we will be able to take some time to go through a few things and, with their encouragement, get rid of some things we haven’t done anything with since the 1970s through 1990s.

And that will be a good start.

Bible study, construction, critique group, family, home improvements

Grinding, Part 2

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In my last post, I wrote about how I was grinding through a bunch of tasks, and, to keep them all straight, I needed a to-do list.  I’m in The Dungeon right now, writing this, and I don’t my current to-do list with me, so I’m starting a new one.

I do these on a long, narrow note pad that we’ve had for years. I found this pad in the desk in The Dungeon, something that isn’t used too much. I was given to us when we bought our house in Bentonville in 1991. Time to use it up I would say. It’s perfect for to-do lists.

As far as what got done from the last to-do list:

  • Flu shots.
  • Heard back from two contractors. One gave me a little more information on his schedule, moving the work out some. The other apologized for not getting me an estimate yet and established a date when he would. I would have to say, I feel a little better about contractors today.
  • Got my hair cut.
  • Continued to write in my current work-in-progress, A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. I should finish a chapter today, putting me at 70 percent finished with the first draft. That puts me a little behind where I hoped to be by this time, but I’m not unhappy with my progress.
  • Got some filing done, though I have much more of that to do.
  • Attended my writers’ critique group last night. A good meeting; I might blog about it next.
  • Have started getting things together for Thanksgiving.

And Thanksgiving will dominate my next to-do list, which I started by interrupting writing this. Lots to do in terms of cleaning and organizing. Also buying in some groceries. I’m trying to plan our meals so that we get to Monday night’s supper, the last we will have alone, finishing the last prepared item.

It will be a good Thanksgiving, with both of our children, their spouses, and all our grandchildren here. It may also be the last family gathering at our house for a while, as henceforth we might shift these to our daughter’s house.

So carry on, everyone. My wishes to out to you, a bit early, for a happy Thanksgiving.

Bible study, home improvements

Once Again Unsettled

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This was left behind in the house we bought in 1984. We kept it and stored it for all these years. I was unable to make contact with any relatives of the man whose it was, so now it is sold.

So here it is, another Friday indicating another “work” week is coming to an end. Actually, I’m writing this Thursday evening. I figure I will be busy tomorrow morning with my two “jobs”, writing and stock trading. Friday is my busiest day with the latter.

It has been a good week, yet I once again have an unsettled feeling. I wrote about this before., though I can’t find that post right now. What was good? For one thing, at the close of business on Thursday, I’m beating the stock market both on the week and the year. I put in an order to take profits on a certain trade today, since I was to be tied up and couldn’t watch it. That trade filled at exactly the best possible profit today. One penny different and it wouldn’t have filled. Since the trade went way down toward the end of the day, that was an unexpected success.

37 years old, not well maintained even before we bought the place, it was time for the old deck to go.

The deck work finished last Saturday. We had them pull off the old flooring and handrails and put in synthetic wood for both.  It looks good and feels good. The spacing on the support joists were irregular in one spot, and the contractor installed an extra joist. I’m quite pleased with how it came out.

I was also able to write some today. I reached my minimal daily goal but not my hoped-for goal. The Bible study I’m writing marches on, hopefully to be finished in November. Today I had a meeting with my new pastor to discuss a couple of things that have been bugging me (not things about her, for I have felt good about her leadership and preaching in her four months here). That meeting went well. It was the first time I got to speak with her other than salutations.

Yardwork is up to date. In fact, I’ve had almost nothing to do in the yard the last two weeks. That’s a good feeling, because until this year, I have always felt perpetually behind on yardwork. We had plenty of leftovers for supper so I didn’t have to fix anything tonight. And we have plenty for the next few days.

It’s a little hard to see in this photo, but the sagging under the sunroom floor is sagging, indicating some kind of water damage.

So what’s unsettling? It’s the problem of water damage at my home. The deck work revealed some water damage due to a gutter that was incorrectly attached, possibly due to the new roof put on back in 2020. They did temporary repairs, but the damage is done. Two door frames are rotted and will have to be replaced. This also seems to extend a few feet on the flooring in the sunroom. We looked around and saw two other places that need repair from water damage. One might require the removal of built-in book cases, the other removal of our master bathroom vanity and even a wall that creates a dead air space between the bathroom and the exterior walls.

Last week I had a mold inspector out, and it turns out we do not have much mold in the house—one bit of good news. I had the insurance adjustor out today, and it’s possible, no probable, that this is not insurable as it appears to be long-term in three of the four places. I hope to hear from insurance tomorrow, but I figure the worst will result and I’ll have to pay for all the repairs.

And I need to make the repairs. Some day we will downsize and sell this house. It won’t sell with that damage showing. But as of yet, I’m waiting for the names of the certified remediation companies so that I can get proposals and estimates. I’m also waiting for the gutter guys to get me on the schedule. I spent so many years working with contractors in my employment that I hate working with them.

Ah, but the new deck is lovely. Hopefully the synthetic materials will take less maintenance than the old wood did.

Until I have the water damage repairs under contract, I will feel unsettled. There’s no getting around that. We were planning on replacing the 37-year-old carpet in our bathrooms (why did the former owners do that?), the living room, entry, and dining room this month or next, but now that will be delayed until the other work is done.

I hate feeling unsettled, but it will have to be. I feel sort of good that I’ve been able to get to this point in getting things done. Two more months of this to go.

Meanwhile, in other news, today I sold the postcard collection we picked up years ago in North Carolina. One small dis-accumulation task accomplished.

Bible study, Christianity, Documenting America, Writing

Switching Writing Gears

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As I mentioned in previous posts, not long ago I was hot and heavy into writing a new volume in my Documenting America series. It was an interesting project. I did the research on it back in 2020-21, but laid the project aside while other things occupied my attention. The writing was easier than I expected, and I finished writing it on September 22, eight days earlier than my goal. I’m now editing the chapters (2/3 done) and posting chapters to Kindle Vella twice a week. That process will play out slowly for the rest of 2023.

The next project I had planned to write was my Bible study, A Walk Through Holy Week. The plan for this, which I settled on late last year, was for it to be eight volumes, each between 30,000 and 50,000 words. As of right now, it’s half done.

Alas, I started the project two years ago with Volume 4, and moved on through Volumes 5, 6, and 7. In February-April next year, I’ll be co-teaching Volume 8 in adult Sunday school class and will write that volume simultaneously with the teaching. Thus, I have Volumes 1, 2, and 3 to go back and fill in.

I was tempted to go ahead and publish what I have done, meaning Volume 4, then follow rapidly with the other parts. But when I thought more about it, I decided no, it was better to publish the whole series beginning with Volume 1, and then consecutively thereafter. So as I saw my history book project drawing to a close, I knew I had to schedule AWTHW next.

This switching from political-history writing to Bible study had me concerned. What kind of progress would I make? Could I change course so dramatically and be effective?

I began working on the new project last week, while we were at our daughter and son-in-law’s house in Texas. All I completed was the Introduction. Then on Wednesday this week, back home in Bella Vista, I got to work in earnest in my regular writing routine—in the Dungeon, starting early in the morning.

Wednesday, I wrote the first section of Chapter 1 and a paragraph of section two. Each chapter will have seven sections, corresponding to seven daily readings in a week. Thursday, I wrote the next three sections of Ch 1. Thus, four sections are written. At that pace, or something close to it, I’ll finish Ch 1 this week and be ready for Ch 2 next week, and hopefully some of Ch 3.

That is a writing rate that will see my goal of November completion met.

Another thing I’m doing with it, as a trial. Is reading the prior one or two days of writing at the start of my writing section. In other words, edit as I go. I’m doing that for two reasons. First, it ought to make the final editing/proofreading less onerous at the end of the project. Second, it should help me better remember where I left off the prior writing session, which in turn ought to help propel me on the new day of writing.

So that’s the plan. I already have a mockup of the series cover, though early in the process.

So today I’m kind of excited. I’m working on a book I’m enjoying writing, and should have something to publish in January—with a plan of what to write next going out probably until next June. I like planning ahead.