Category Archives: books

books, career, Engineering, Genealogy, memories

Weary Work

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Into he trash went my engineering seals, lead sharpener for engineering drawing work, and service anniversary pins.

The main work I’m doing now—work at home that is, but not including my writing and stock trading work—is shedding possessions in anticipation of future downsizing. It’s wearying work. Not so much physically wearying, but mentally so. For a couple of months we’ve been pulling books from the basement and listing them for sale on Facebook Marketplace. We’ve sold a fair number, though have many more to go.

We have cleared out a fair number of things. We donated 400 children’s books to a church function. With our son’s and daughter’s help, on separate trips here, we took at least three loads of donation stuff to Goodwill. That included some odd pieces of furniture.

Some day I’ll have to actually read this old probate document and see how it fits in with family history.

One thing I was doing, but which was delayed by my hospitalizations and recuperation, was scanning my genealogy papers, saving them electronically in a retrievable manner, and getting rid of the paper files. This week I got back to that project, and over three days got rid of around 50 sheets. Some of those sheets were probate records from Massachusetts in the 1600s and 1700s that I had my son research years ago. The sheets are difficult to read, and I don’t really remember how some of the people fit into our family tree. I’ll have to transcribe the probate documents and figure out exactly who the people are (ancestors or relatives). That’s something I can do from the electronic files better than the paper files, because I can enlarge the e-docs and read them easier. But when will I ever take the time to do this additional step?

You know dis-accumulation cuts deeply if I’m getting rid of Carlyle books.

Another thing that we did in the storeroom was pull out our daughter’s old bedroom set, unused for at least 10 years, and little used for 20 years before that. We snapped some photos and I listed it for sale. Only one person showing interest so far.

With the bedroom set pulled out and on display, this allowed me to reorganize stuff. I moved an old entertainment center and restacked stuff around it. That allowed me to see what stuff we have, and gave me an idea of what we can get rid of soon with the greatest reduction in volume. Those would be the old VHS tapes.

Some of the things I’m going through are cutting deep. In a box of things I brought home from the office, I found my professional engineer seals. It took me a few minutes to make the decision to put them in the trash. The seals meant a lot to me when I was a practicing engineer, but that ended close to four years ago (retirement followed by two years on retainer. I also found a large roll of discarded engineering drawings that I salvaged with the intent of using the backs to draw big genealogy charts. But I now know that’s not going to happen, so the paper roll is moved to recycling staging. Last week I tossed twenty-five years of continuing education certificates and a couple of stacks of my old business cards. Next will be my many organization membership and annual licensing cards.

One big space keeper is my old stamp collection. After years of storing it in the storeroom, I’ve decided to get rid of it. I don’t know if it has any value these days. Does anyone still collect stamps? Are dealers out there and are they buying? Or is it possible to find a private collector?  So much work to do.

Downsizing, which requires dis-accumulation, has become more important now that I’ve had health issues. My recovery from heart surgery is going well (including three days a week in cardio-rehab), recovery from my last stroke less so. But clearly my health is not what it was a year ago. We’ve got to cut deeply into our possessions, got to. We are leaner than we were a year ago, and significantly leaner than we were four years ago. But we have much much more to do.

All this is quite wearying. Dealing with the genealogy papers is more wearying than anything. Each piece of paper I toss in the recycling basket feels like I’ve parted with something I should keep, something that someone among my descendants may want or benefit from someday. Ah, well, in the future the Internet will contain so many records and resources that my paltry files may have no value.

Tonight, after dealing with books for about an hour, I pulled two genealogy notebooks off the closet shelf and went through them. They were mostly forms for copying information on. I kept two of each kind of sheet and discarded the rest. I did keep any lined sheets without writing on the front or back (maybe 20 of them), as who knows what I could use them for someday.

book reviews, books

Book Review: “The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Vol. 3”

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This was a good read for me, but probably of little interest to most readers.

A few months ago, when looking for the next book I wanted to read. There’s no shortage of bookshelves in the house, plus a couple of dozen e-books on my phone. I wanted to read something I was fairly sure I would enjoy yet wouldn’t want to keep. I was in an obscure part of our basement, where we had a few dozen books on a shelf, and I spied the perfect book: The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Vol. 3.

I have no idea where we picked up this book (at a used bookstore or garage sale, no doubt) nor when (at least eight years ago). When I bought it (and it had to be me—Lynda wouldn’t have spent even 50¢ on it. And I knew next to nothing about Virginia Woolf other than a vague notion that she was a writer.

Pulling her letters off the shelf and diving into them caused me to do a little research on her. She was a British author of novels and prose. The period of the letters in this volume, 1923-1928. During this time Woolf wrote three of her novels: Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and Orlando. She was also writing articles and reviews for literary magazines and, on occasion, giving lectures.

And writing letters. The book includes 637 letters. That’s one letters every 3.5 days—and that’s just the letters that have been collected. No doubt she wrote other letters that the recipients didn’t preserve.

The letters were more personal than business. Many were to Woolf’s sister,  Vanessa Bell. Many others were to a good friend from adulthood, Vita Sackville-West. Much of the contents we would consider gossip. Woolf was part of what is known the Bloomsbury Set, a group of authors and critics that met in the Bloomsbury section of London. Their heyday was 1905-1920 or so. Thus, this volume is after the days of Bloomsbury.

But Bloomsbury still played a part in in Woolf’s life. Many of the letters are to those who had been part of the Bloomsbury set. They talked about their writings and thoughts, but also about each other and about others in their set. Yes, gossip. And Woolf admitted as much in her letters. I read the book over July to Nov 2024, with an interruption of about a month due hospital stays and illness.

So I come down to my usual questions. How do I rate this book and why do I rate it thusly, will I ever read it again, is it a keeper, and do I recommend it to others. I give it 4-stars, mainly because I like to read letters as unfiltered history. I would have to say, however, that I’ve enjoyed other collections of letters more. I got through all 575 pages, but at times I would read a paragraph, and wonder what I had just read. Was it distracted reading by me or material in the letters that failed to hold my attention.

I don’t see myself ever reading this again, thus it isn’t a keeper. I also don’t recommend it. That is, unless Virgina Woolf is a literary study for you, or you just like reading letters—any letters.  One warning if you do want to find and read this letter. My copy was a trade paperback, and it fell apart in two pieces as I rea it. So be gentle with it if you do read it.

 

books, home improvements, memories, miscellaneous

So Sick Of Books

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The legacy books on the built-in shelves in the living room.

No, not sick of reading. I’m in the midst of reading two different books, one print book and one e-books. Actually, it’s 3 books. There’s one other one out in the sunroom that I’ve almost given up on. Maybe I’ll read a little more in that. And, when I’m done with these two, or three, I’ll transition into two more. Wait, it’s four. There’s also the book I read in the mornings for devotions.

The books on the left are waiting for the buyer to pick them up. The books on the right are waiting for reshelving.

No, not sick of writing books. This last week I finished the first chapter in my next Bible study. I enjoyed doing it, though after almost two months of writing nothing due to my health problems. And the two months before that I was writing at reduced capacity due to the two freak injuries I had in mid-July. So I’m having to get re-used to taking a portion of my day for writing. And working through my fine motor skills for typing. Yes, re-learning the elements of being an author.

Keepers to go back on a shelf, or possibly to be revaluated, but right now adding to the decor in the dining room.

No, what I’m sick of about books is selling them. You see, in the interest of a future downsizing, which after this year of health problems is much closer than we though, we decided to make a big dent in the 2 or 3 thousand books in our house.

That includes what I’ve been calling my legacy books, or more properly termed heirloom books. These include a large number of books published in the 1800s. This has been a lot of work. Looking up the books at on-line sales sites, deciding on a price, placing an ad on Facebook Marketplace, fielding queries, scheduling buyers in, dealing with no-shows, etc. It’s a lot of work.

Books on the dining room table.

I could also say gathering books from various places in the house. We had many boxes of books on shelves in the basement storeroom. Lynda was the one to identify the boxes and carry them upstairs (since I wasn’t allowed to go on stairs after my operation). Our daughter, Sara, also helped carry books upstairs while she was here. The basement is now much cleared of books. Yet, the bookshelves in the basement living room still have lots of books. We have no shortage of building material.

Books on the garage worktable.

The garage worktable is covered by boxes of Christian novels, mainly for women. The dining room table is covered with boxes of misc. books, a cross between legacy and modern books. All those are for sale. Then we have boxes of books in the living room and dining room that Lynda hasn’t yet made the keep/get rid of decision. We also have a pile of books on the hearth, waiting for the buyer to pick up, and another, smaller pile near of books we have decided to keep but haven’t yet looked where to reshelve them.

Why not just give the books away, you ask? It may come to that, especially with the modern ones. But for the legacy books, it seems a shame to not first try to get something for them. Some of them have been in the family for 130 years—first on bookshelves of some kind in the houses David Sexton rented, later in boxes in the boxes in the basement of the house I grew up in in Cranston, Rhode Island, then finally on the bookshelves or in boxes in our house. All that storage and transporting deserves compensation, don’t you think?

At some point, the inventory will be small enough that donation will be more likely. Or the few that are left will be manageable to keep. We’ve already done that with children’s books, 400 of them donated to our church for a special event.

But at some point, I’ll be glad for the dining room table to be clear, the living room clear, and the garage clear of book boxes and loose books to be gone, either sold, donated, or re-shelved.

books, miscellaneous, reading

Reading In the Woods

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Dateline Friday, 5 July 2024

The view from my woodland reading chair. Our house is to the left. Well in the distance is where the sound of the limb falling came from.

A few years back, we bought the unbuilt lot next to us, on the uphill side of our house. We got it for a good price and, based on current prices for lots in Bella Vista, it’s perhaps the most profitable investment we’ve ever made.

I’ve done some improvements on this lot, cutting down dead trees, cutting underbrush, clearing leaves from the edges to allow some grass to get a start. We have our compost pile on the lot (actually had it there before we bought it) and a well-worn path from the garage to the pile.

The woods directly in front of me. I’m keeping this are free of new trees and brush, though there are enough mature trees around it that the shade canopy is complete.

Along that path is my reading place. I don’t go out there to read often. Usually, I take my noon reading break in our sunroom. But it isn’t airconditioned, and this time of year it’s really too hot to read in. So on these days, I either read in the basement or out in the woods. I think I’ve gone to the woods most days this week (see the dateline), usually right around noon.

Isn’t it hot then, you ask? Yes, probably around 92°. But it’s shady. The oaks cover the path. I have a chair out at a level spot. A cut log set on end serves as a small table, leveled up with a wedge piece from a tree felling, to set my phone and cup of coffee on. By 1:00 p.m., the sun will have moved around further south and higher, and gaps in the canopy caused by the death of a couple of oaks due to a blight maybe three years ago. At that point I’ll have to move my chair or go inside.

Another view from my reading chair, looking more to the south and past our lot. Sunshine occasionally finds its way to the ground here.

Today I followed this procedure, but the temperature was a little cooler than recently due to rain yesterday evening. It was 92° with a nice breeze. In the shade of the oaks, I felt quite cool. I had a book and a magazine (an old one) with me. I decided to read the mag and try to get through it. Since it was from 2009, many of the articles were dated and not worth reading. Despite the distractions of woodland reading, I was able to read all I wanted in the hour and put it in the recycling bin afterwards.

What distractions, you ask? Just the sights and sounds of the woodland. And yes, even though our house is well within sight, when I’m sitting on our lot I’m in the woodlands. But most of the sounds are of human civilization. Take today. At first it seemed dead quiet, except for the sound the wind was making with the leaves. Then I heard a car door close, then another. Soon, I heard a lawnmower start and start to move. It sounded like it was coming from down the street at one of the two new houses. Then I could faintly hear a voice; probably one of the mowers.

Before the mower sound came, I watched a small lizard play near the edge of the driveway. A butterfly came by but didn’t stay. A fly somehow got in my coffee, but I fished it out and went right on drinking. I heard a mosquito near ear and swept it away. A vehicle made its way up the steep road across the hollow, somewhat faintly, around a thousand feet away or a little more. In winter, when the oaks are devoid of leaves, we can hear vehicle much clearer.

As the mowing continued, a vehicle came up the hill and passed by me, most likely without seeing me in the shadows. The view from the road into the woods is partly obscured by the first row of trees, some underbrush, and my blackberry vines. I looked back down the hill, into the woods. A bird flew silently across the lot thirty feet away from me.

Then I heard a crashing sound. Shifting my gaze to the north, I saw leaves and branches moving in the direction of the crash. It seems a branch fell from a tree behind our backyard. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go down there and see if I have new deadfall just off the property.

I continued reading in this distracted state. The magazine, the monthly publication of our Rural Electrical Cooperative, had a good article on one woman’s historic preservation work in Arkansas. That was quite interesting. Another article covered things that the State Legislature would be dealing with in the session about to start. But I kept looking up from the mag to see what was going on around me. I heard the sound of a squirrel but didn’t see it.

I looked around for WTBD—work to be done. Some underbrush needed more cutting. Leaves need to be pushed back a few feet more from the house, to widen the grass strip that’s coming up naturally there. Three trees, 6 to 8 inches diameter, fell near the south border of the lot. Someday, perhaps, I’ll saw them up and put them on one of my brush piles.

The sun was moving around to the point where I would soon lose my shade, then thin clouds partly obscured the sun. I decided I’d read all in the mag that was important, laid it on my log table, and took up my coffee. Perhaps you think it strange to take hot coffee out to woods to drink on a hot day, but I like the taste, and in the woods it’s not too hot to drink.

But my time was soon up. I:00 p.m. neared, and lunch beckoned me. The sights and sounds of the woods faded as I traversed the rocky path the 50 feet to the garage. Possibly I’ll return to my reading spot tomorrow for another hour with another mag or a book, and once again read distractedly but enjoyably. Cooler weather and the sunroom are not far away. Any place to read is a good place.

books, letters, reading

How An Editor Sees It

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At over 900 pages, this promises to be an interesting book that I can digest in small junks during hospitalization.

About a week ago, when I thought my heart surgery would be today, I began going through books that I would want to take to read. It may be a pipe dream to think I can read much while in the hospital, but I want to be prepared. I’ve picked out one book on prayer and two books of letters. These are print books. I have a fair number of e-books I can easily pull up on my phone.

One book of letters is The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Vol. 3, 1923-1928. I picked this up used quite a few years ago and kept it on a basement shelf, waiting for the right time to read. Well, that seems to be now. It’s a thick paperback to be holding in bed. But the letters are, for the most part, short. I’ve read 40 or 50 pages into it to make sure it’s a suitable volume to read in my circumstances. So far I find it is.

I read a couple letters yesterday, and found an interesting item.

Importunate old gentlemen who have been struck daily by ideas on leaving their baths, which they have copied out in the most beautiful, and at the same time illegible handwriting, dump these manuscripts at the office, and say, what is no doubt true that they can keep it up or years, once a week, if the Nation will pay £3.3 a column. And there are governesses, and poetesses, and miserable hacks of all kinds who keep on calling—So for God’s sake write us something that we can print.

I need to add a little context. Virginia Woolf and her husband, Leonard, were part of a literary group known as the Bloomsbury Circle, or Bloomsbury Set, who had great political and literary influence in the first two or three decades of the 20th century. Leonard had just been appointed literary editor of The Nation and Athenaeum a magazine that dealt with British politics and English Literature. Virginia was, at that time, heavily involved in the Hogarth Press, print a variety of books. Leonard was also involved in that.

Thus, they were busy people. Virginia wrote a letter to Robert Fry on 18 May 1923. Leonard had been less then a month in the editorship, and the couple had just returned from a month-long holiday in Spain and France. Leonard’s plate was full, with coming up to speed at the magazine and dealing with book publishing. Complicating this appears to be a glut of unsolicited submissions to The Nation, submissions that Virginia, in her letter to Fry, considered as from “miserable hacks”. And she begged Fry to “write us something we can print.”

I find it funny almost that this is the same complaint editors have today. Too many submissions from unqualified writers crowding the mail and e-mail inboxes. Given the universality of typing now, they don’t have a lot of “illegible handwriting” to decipher, but reading those many submissions is not easy. Nor is it a good use of time. So most of those submissions go unread, or get shoved off to an intern with instructions such as, “If you’re still reading it after one page, put it in my inbox; if you’re still reading after three pages, bring it to my office right away.”

This should make all authors take some time before they make unsolicited submittals. The editors probably put you in the category of know-nothing writer, and expect nothing of publishable value from them. You’ve wasted your time submitting like that. Instead, take a long time to hone your writing skills, study the market, study the publishing outlets, study the realm of literary agents. Then, after however many years that takes, start submitting in a smart way.

I found it interesting that, in 1923, the problem editors faced was that same as they face today—with illegible handwriting thrown in. Technology makes the process easier, but the problem remains.

books, letters, reading, The Forest Throne

Something To Read

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Elijah enjoyed this as I read it to him. I enjoyed reading it again. Found a few typos I’ll have to fix.

I’m always reading something: a book, a magazine, whatever holds my interest. At least once a month I try to make a dent in my magazine pile, and I’ll take a couple of days to read three or four magazines.

But books are my main reading. A print book is nice, but I’m not against e-books. In fact, at some times I prefer an e-book. On a trip, or with a large book, having an e-book on my phone is definitely easier to read.

I’m usually working on two or three books at a time, which I read in different places, with one of those books being the main one. I’ll have another one I’m beginning to read to see if I’ll like it. I’m also reading a book more for research than for entertainment. And, I’ll have an e-book or two at the ready on my phone, to read in odd moments, such as in a doctor’s waiting room.

But as of late, I’ve had difficulty finding a book that I like. Here’s what I read or started lately, and a little about them.

  • C.S. Lewis’s The Allegory of Love. I just started it, and within five pages I found it very difficult to understand. This is one of Lewis’s scholarly works, and it reads like one. I suppose I’ll find a way to read it, but with great difficulty.
  • Jack London’s White Fang. I brought this book on our recent trip to Texas, planning to read it to our youngest grandson, Elijah. I had never read it. But I got through only one chapter, and Elijah wasn’t interested. I also found it a bit difficult. So I set that aside.  for the rest of the trip, and plan to read it on my own sometime in the next year.
  • I just finished two similar books: XIII Men, and The Master’s Men. They were among the books that belonged to my mother-in-law that we recently liberated from a box or shelf in the basement. The books were similar. The first read almost as creative non-fiction and the second as a Bible study. Two different treatments of the same subject, the apostles appointed by Jesus. They probably aren’t worth reviewing on the blog, though I’m thinking about it.
  • My own book, There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. Elijah wanted me to read it to him, so I did. He hadn’t read it before, and he seemed to like it.
  • The second book in the series, The Key To Time Travel. Elijah and I got about 2/3rds of the way through it when our child/pet-watching gig was up.
  • The Letters of Cicero. Readers of the blog will know I love reading letter collections. I’ve had this one as an e-book for a long time, and I’ve been slowly reading it in those odd moments. I’m around 33 percent through with it. I’ve found it uninteresting, and have laid it aside for now. I plan on making a presentation of this letter collection at the September meeting of the NW Arkansas Letter Writers Society.

None of these books have been what I would call great reads. They aren’t the sort of book, for example, that I would take to the hospital for a week-long stay. I needed something else.

A few days ago, knowing I needed a book or two to take to the hospital, I started scanning my bookshelves. On a bookshelf tucked away in the basement storeroom are my literature and poetry books. I found several that looked promising. One was The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth. I picked this up new many years ago, but put it on the shelf. Now, I pulled it out and began reading it.

A journal is kind of like a letter collection. The passages are short. The book is easily picked up at any point for a short read or, if time and interest allow, a longer read. So this looks like a good read for the days in the hospital. This will not be enough reading material, however. I have a few things on my phone, but will be looking for one more book.

How about you? What does your reading pile/list look like?

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.

books, miscellaneous, Writing

An Introvert and An Extrovert…

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Where the extrovert goes to talk, and the introvert goes to read.

An introvert and an extrovert walk into…let’s make it a coffee house rather than a bar. They are not together but arrive at the door at the same time. The extrovert pulls open the door and holds it for the introvert, who says thank you. They stand in line together, get their coffee at about the same time. The coffee shop is kind of crowded,  with almost all tables having someone at them, so the extrovert says, “Let’s sit together at that empty table.”

The introvert has a book under his arm, and was obviously hoping for a quiet time of reading and sipping his large house blend, but doesn’t want to be rude, and so says, “Sure.” They sit together and the extrovert keeps up a steady conversation between occasional sips of his latte. The introvert says little. He has placed his book on the table, hoping the extrovert sees it and recognizes what the introvert wants.

Fortunately, before their coffees get cold, the extrovert sees a friend enter the shop, excuses himself, and goes to the newly arrived friend. The introvert heaves a sigh of relief, picks up his book, and begins to read.

Is this a realistic scenario?  To me, who sits well out on the introverted side of the spectrum, it seems about right. I’m obviously not an unbiased observer.

But it seems to me that the introvert sees an extrovert and, rather than say, “Why can’t you be more like me, just keeps to himself and lets the extrovert do his thing.

Coffee, a book, and solitude when you want it or community when you want that. The introvert’s life.

But the extrovert, encountering the introvert, not only says, “Why can’t you be more like me,” and then sets out to convert the introvert to the extrovert’s ways, insisting he join a group of six other extroverts for community.

Am I right on this, or am I being too harsh on the extrovert, or perhaps not understanding the extrovert at all?

At a literary agency blog that I follow, the post this week had to do with ways and means of marketing our books, but slipped in this statement:

A high percentage of writers are introverts, yet even they crave community…just on their own terms.

And I thought ain’t that the truth?

You ask what’s the point of this post? Maybe nothing. Perhaps I’ll print it out on cardstock half-size sheets, carry them with me, and the next time an extrovert tries to draw me out in a coffee shop, hand him or her a copy.

books, fiction, interviews

Author Interview: Susan Barnett Braun

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Susan is a long time writing friend and colleague.

I met author Susan Barnett Braun at the 2011 Write-To-Publish Conference in Wheaton, Illinois. I attended that conference with the help of a generous Cecil Murphey scholarship. Susan did the same. I was one of six people who were members of an on-line writing group, The Writers View 2. Six of us in that group received scholarships. We got an e-mail loop going before the conference and agreed to meet, share meals together, and hang out.

Susan received her scholarship by other means, perhaps direct from Cec’s website. But when she got to the conference and quickly came to know of our little huddle of scholarship winners, she “crashed our party,” so to speak, and joined us for meals and other conversations.

Susan and I kept in touch afterward. She was beta reader for several of my books, providing great feedback. One of her daughters, who is talented with graphic arts software, has made several of my book covers.

What evil lurks in the organ loft? You’ll only find out on Kindle Vella.

Susan recently dipped her toe into the Kindle Vella pool. She wrote about it on Facebook, and I exchanged e-mails with her about the process and prospects, then offered to interview her here about it.

Q: Before we get into Kindle Vella, tell us a little about your writing career up to this point.
Susan: I loved to write even as a child, and wrote several books while in elementary school. I would write them out in longhand, and my mom would type them for me on the typewriter. I’d even take a few snapshots and add those in. I wrote my first book as an adult in 2011, when I wanted to write a memoir of my childhood for my 3 girls to read someday. After doing that, I attended a writing conference which further lit the writing fire. I wrote two other books in the next year or two; one a biography of “mad” King Ludwig II of Germany, and the other a children’s biography of Kate Middleton.
Q: In an e-mail to me, you implied that “Kindle Vella got me writing again”. That implies you’ve been through a dry spell, or at least a non-writing period. Is that true?
Susan: It is, as far as books go. After my whirlwind of writing the three books about a decade ago, I didn’t write more books. I just didn’t have the ideas or the motivation that I often felt when I had written my books. I have, however, blogged since 2008. That’s been great in keeping me still writing in some form. I have to say it feels good to be working on a longer work, a story/book, again.
Q: What made you decide to write a serialized story for Kindle Vella?
Susan: In June, our family took a vacation to Glacier National Park and the surrounding area. One night, we had dinner with my husband’s cousin. She is a prolific writer, and she immediately asked if I’d heard of Kindle Vella. Although the term was vaguely familiar, I didn’t know anything about it. She told me about how she’d become a big fan of Vella. It’s a different way of releasing a book, one chapter (or “episode,” as Vella terms it) at a time. She works full-time writing grants, but on Saturdays she writes on her Vella stories and then releases a couple of episodes each week. She liked the way it’s so easy to do this, plus after a story is fully released on Vella, Amazon makes it easy to convert into an e-book or paperback 30 days later. She was so excited about Vella, and spoke so highly of it, that I caught her enthusiasm and thought I might enjoy trying it too. I like the idea of serialized stories — it reminds me of the “old times,” when authors often released stories this way, but in magazines, not online.
Q: Tell us something about the story line in Phantom of the Organ.
Susan: Fiction isn’t my usual genre. In thinking about what I might write as a fiction piece, I thought of what I knew. That led me to the world of church, and specifically, a church organist. I thought I might like to try writing a mystery, and I liked the idea of combining a church with a mystery. My girls have always loved Phantom of the Opera story. All those threads came together for me, and I came up with a church organist who is practicing at night in the church, when she hears strange noises … The Phantom of the Organ was born.
Q: Rumor has it there will be a season 2 of PotO. Is this true?
Susan: Yes! My original story line took me 10 episodes to tell. I thought that was that. But then, I realized I was liking the characters and setting I’d come up with. I wanted to spend more time with them! So, I thought up another mystery for season two; this one involving items going missing from St Matthews church. My plan at this point is that I’d like to come up with four seasons. With each season running just over 10,000 words, that would be a book nearing 50,000 words. At that point, I would plan to release the story as an e-book and paperback. Can you tell I’m having fun with this?
Susan’s books can be found through her Amazon author page. That doesn’t get you to her KV story, however. Here’s the link for that. I hope you will check it out.
books, C.S. Lewis, Christianity

The Reverse Reasoning of Screwtape

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Reading it for the fourth time, studying it in Sunday school for the second.

A few months back, I asked our adult Sunday School class for ideas on what they wanted to study. We were in the midst of a video series, and had a plan for ten lessons on Holy Week before and after Easter. So this was some medium-range planning. At that point, I asked the class to write down what they wanted to study in the coming year. Several people wrote “The Screwtape Letters”.

I wasn’t terribly happy at first. It wasn’t so long ago, maybe 15 years, that we studied this book by C.S. Lewis. It’s a great book, one of three books I would say that had the most influence on me in my Christian walk. But to study it again? But, if that’s what the class wanted, we would do it.

We finished the study we were in, had the Holy Week study, did one or two weeks of fill in stuff, and started the Screwtape study on June 18. I taught that week and got through the Introduction and Letter #1. The next week my co-teacher taught Letter #2.

That got us into a rhythm of one letter per week. Last Sunday, I taught Letter #7. What I’ve found, and I think my co-teacher has found, is that we can easily study at this pace without it being an overwhelming burden on us to prepare. But, with 31 letters in the series, plus that toast that Screwtape makes at the end, this study will take a long time.

Last weeks was quite interesting. World War 2 has broken out, and the new adult Christian that the junior devil, Wormwood, is tempting, is confused. Screwtape advises the young devil, who is his nephew, to work on that confusion. Keep confused if you can, or tempt him into becoming either an extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist. Screwtape wrote,

“All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged.”

The Enemy is Screwtape’s word for God. He sees God as the enemy, wanting to see all men live in extreme devotion to Him.

That rang true to me, but only once it was combined with Screwtape’s next advice. The extremes give rise to the “Cause”, something that is extremely important to the man being tempted (called the Patient) that he begins to mix it in with his religion. It become Christianity and the Cause. Religion becomes the reason for the Cause. Then, the Cause and religion are on equal footing. Then the Cause becomes primary, and religion is what justifies the Cause.

This gives rise to factions and cliques. The Cause becomes so important that a small group forms around the cause. Believers in the Cause are freely admitted; non-believers are excluded and looked down upon. Even if the Cause is a godly thing, with just a little tempting on Wormwood’s part, the sequence that turns the godly cause into an evil Cause is not that big of a stretch.

This is something we need to watch out for in the church. Each denomination has its Cause, i.e. its own doctrine, its own reason to be. Once we begin to think we are the only ones who get it (Christianity) right and look down on all others, the Cause has supplanted God as our reason to be. That can happen with denominations, with individual congregations, or with any small group within a congregation. It is something for us to watch out for.

I think I’m going to like this Screwtape study. I have some study materials from last time, and I’ve found much more available on-line. This is at least my fourth time to read the book, and I have found much help in it for myself even on this re-read.