Three borrows in two months: it’s nice to have new readers for this oldie.
When I first started self-publishing, back in 2011, two organizations competed for authors: Amazon, which distributed e-books and print books to its own store; and Smashwords, which distributed e-books to a lot of retailers. I began by uploading my books to Amazon, but before many months passed I also uploaded to Smashwords.
Over the years, other services popped up. Barnes & Noble made it possible to uploads your books directly to them, bypassing the middle men. Another service distributing to retailers was Draft 2 Digital. I made the decision that it was hard enough keeping up with Amazon and Smashwords that I wouldn’t mess with D2D too.
In fact, I had very few sales through Smashwords, and didn’t bother to upload most of my latest books.
Then, a year or two ago, D2D bought out Smashwords. I waited a long time to transfer my books, but finally did early this year. I spent almost no time learning the D2D system. I had too much on my plate, between writing and household and health, to read up on how D2D did things.
In September, I received an e-mail from D2D saying my August sales report was available. That surprised me. I opened the report and found I found I’d sold 1 copy of Dr. Luke’s Assistant and one of my short story “Charlie Delta Delta”. The royalty for each was 32¢! That couldn’t be. I contacted D2D and learned that Hoopla was a different type of retailer. It’s more of a library service, and a “sale” is really a borrow.
Then, Wednesday I received an email from D2D saying my September sales report was available. I downloaded it, and learned I had five sales, all through Hoopla (so really five borrows. One of Documenting America Vol 1, two of Documenting America Home School edition, and two more of Doctor Luke’s Assistant. The problem is: how do I account for these borrows in terms or recording sales. Is a borrow a sale? or something less than a sale?
A borrow means a reader. A sale means a reader—or so you hope. So in terms of readership, a borrow is the same as a sale, maybe even more likely to result in a reader. So, at least for now, I’m counting each borrow as a sale. If that skews my sales number, I may have to rethink that.
Of course, with the delay in D2D reporting, I won’t know each month’s sales until almost a month after the last day of the month. But that’s okay. I’m glad for the additional readers.
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.
I’m hoping that, by the end of the year, this will not be the only Bible study in my bibliography. Alas, I wrote that caption in 2022, and here it is 2023 and it’s still my only published Bible study. But I’m much closer to that goal.
Since early February, my main writing focus has been the Bible study on Holy Week that I developed. I wrote about it here. With a good writing day Saturday, reaching back to work on Part 5 (Part 7 being caught up), I got to the point where I can see light at the end of the tunnel on both Part 5 and Part 7. An introduction for the series, to go in the as-yet-un-started Part 1 also came to me this weekend.
Thus, it’s time to be thinking about the next thing to write. The second book in The Forest Throne series, The Key To Time Travel, is done, just waiting on cover creation. I will most likely give it the once over, checking to make sure the dates are correct. That’s a one-day task at most.
This was one of my two new publications in 2022. The sequel will be out within two months. When will I do the next one?
Somewhere around June 1, I will be looking to start something else—unless I take a month off from writing to do some major decluttering work, in which case July is the more likely date for writing something new. I actually started something else last week, the first volume in the Alfred Cottage Mysteries. That was mainly to have something to bring to critique group. I don’t know if I’m ready to begin work on it as yet.
But what do I write next? My Genre Focus Disorder (GFD) is so severe, I have any one of several directions to turn. I’ve spoken about GFD before, and if I can find the posts, I’ll put in a couple of links. It is a self-defined, self-diagnosed writing condition. It’s the inability to stick to one genre and build an audience in it. I’ve got it bad. I’ve met a few other writers with it, but I believe their cases are less severe than mine. Now that it’s time to pick a new direction to go in, what do I choose?
This was the last volume published in my Church History Novels series. When Ill I do the 5th?
I could write the next book in the Documenting America series. I have sold more in that series than any other. I did the reading research for the next volume, which will be titled Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution, around two years ago. Hopefully my notes are comprehensive enough that I can jump right into the writing.
Or how about the next book in the Church History Novels series? I have four books in that complete. That’s my second-best selling series (which isn’t saying much). I know what the next volume will be about, though I’m not sure of the title yet. Actually, I know what the next three or four books in the series will be.
It’s been a long time since I wrote most of the poems in this, around 2005-6, I think.
Then there’s a book of poetry I’d like to write. It’s tentatively titled On Of My Wishes. I created the document last year and grabbed close to 30 poems from my “inventory” that will fit the theme. Alas, inspiration for the 20 to 30 others I need to write to flesh out the book hasn’t come. I’ve been so busy with prose, poetry is almost a distant memory. Could I rekindle the desire to write it, at least for one more book?
I could keep going with the Holy Week Bible study. I’ve completed Parts 4 and 6, and, as I said earlier, and very close to done with Parts 5 and 7. That leaves Parts 1, 2, 3, and 8 to be written. I could just continue on with them while that’s what’s been on my mind. Or, I have another ten Bible studies developed and taught, and a few more in development that would probably make decent books. Maybe that’s where I should go.
I have one Carlyle book published and two more started. And essays about him on my mind. It’s probably an obsession that I ought to get treatment for.
A couple of other non-fiction projects I started on are about Thomas Carlyle. One was a comprehensive, chronological bibliography. I’m well along with that, maybe 70 percent of the work, with the hardest parts complete. I pulled the document up Saturday evening to check to see if I had a certain of his compositions in it. I did, including documentation from his letters. Also, I began putting together a book about Carlyle’s Chartism, a pivotal work for him I believe. That may also be around 70 percent done, though I haven’t looked at it for at least five years. Why do either one of them, when the one volume about Carlyle that I edited and published doesn’t sell? Beats me. Mainly to complete unfinished projects. I hate leaving things unfinished.
A period of intense research is what led to this book. What will come of this new time of research?
Another thing that’s nagging at me is a genealogy book about my wife’s immigrant ancestor, John Cheney of Newbury, Massachusetts. I actually have much work done on it as far as research of his personal life is concerned. I researched, wrote, and published books about two of his descendants. I’d like to do a book about him, and maybe about four or five more about his children. This is more a dream, a hobby almost. Still, I’d like to get that done.
I could always stick with the Alfred Cottage Mysteries. They are cozy mysteries based on young Alfred’s genealogical studies. For some reason, I think they would sell. More dreaming, I guess.
One more short story to go in this already published collection has come to mind. Maybe that will be next?
And that’s not all that’s available for me to add to. The Gutter Chronicles could use a third volume. Ideas for series that I’ve fleshed out include The Waterville Dome, one about stock trading that’s partly planned, and…it seems that I’m forgetting something else. Oh, yes, the next two volumes in The Forest Throne series. The next one is partly planned out. And I haven’t even mentioned short stories.
See what I mean about Genre Focus Disorder? Maybe I do need to take that month off from writing, get some serious decluttering/dis-accumulation done, then see where to go. Whatever I decide, I’ll report it here.
The Centennial book is done. I have my copies in hand. Full distribution starts on Sunday May 22.
Ack! It’s almost 11 a.m. and I’m just now getting to writing my blog post for today. Something must be wrong with me.
Yes, something is wrong with me. I’ve been too busy. It began last Thursday, when a Zoom meeting about our upcoming church Centennial celebration was still going strong after 2 1/2 hours, and I hit a wall. I couldn’t go on. I abruptly ended the meeting, took a break, and a few hours later got back to the task we had been working on—now alone. Yes, I still work better alone than with someone else.
Not the final cover, but some thoughts I had on a draft. The artist is working on it.
Friday and Saturday are blurs to me now. I know some heavy yardwork and a daily walk were involved. I had a number of e-mails about the Centennial, also about There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. Saturday evening was taken up with study to teach Life Group on Sunday morning. Sunday was the usual church, Life group, fast-food takeout. Then we went to the high school graduation reception for our neighbors’ daughter. Through a comedy of errors (which included my not understanding the invitation), that took us a while to even get there. Back home, tiredness set in and I didn’t get a lot done during the afternoon. In the evening I went back to the Centennial work I have been tasked with, and got a little more done. I also did some in-depth critiquing of a piece send by a member of our critique group. This morning, the first thing I did was finish that critique and e-mail it to her.
Back on TNSTATT, we must finalize the book cover, create the publication files (e-book and print book), decide whether it will be on Amazon only or go “wide” to other publishers. I think it was on Friday that I got most of the final formatting done. Today I re-read a couple of the later chapters and made a few edits. I declared it done around 8:15 a,m. and began the final formatting. This includes such things as adding in a listing of my other books which, for some reason, is never up-to-date. I spent time getting it up-to-date, and creating a system for keeping it up-to-date henceforth.
I have another hour and a half of work on the print book, then an hour or so on the e-book. Then I will be ready to work on something else. What will it be?
I ought to get back to the second of two Bible studies I was writing, as described in this post. I had pulled off the second while waiting on feedback on the first. But last night I learned that the man I sent it to for review never got the e-mail. I re-sent it last night, confirmed he got it, and so now I wait. I may get back to that. The Scribblers & Scribes meet this Thursday evening, and I’d like to have something to share. But what? I’m not sure they will want to review and critique pages of a Bible study.
Or, I may start on something completely new. I don’t want to go into too much detail. Tentatively titled Tales Of A Vagabond, it would be the start of an autobiography. I actually started it when I realized I needed to write my blog post.
Whatever I ultimately do with Tales Of A Vagabond, I know that finishing the two Bible studies will be my next main writing tasks. But after that, what? I’m kind of itching to do some work on a genealogy book about one of Lynda’s ancestors. My two partly-complete and temporarily-abandoned Thomas Carlyle books are starting to look attractive again. There’s always the next Documenting America book, for which I have completed the research. If TNSTATT takes off, I may hop right on Book 2 in that series. I just don’t know.
That’s not really the full list. I will be taking time soon to pray about this and see if I get some divine direction. The problem is, God has never given me such specific guidance. He usually leaves it up to me, and I have learned to pray that he would direct my footsteps as I make the best decisions I can. I suspect this will be one of those times.
My cover designer, Sophie Braun, made the revised covers for the series. I managed to upload them this month.
I didn’t exactly set January writing goals. On Jan 3, I posted some annual goals, with some mention of schedule, but I didn’t say “In January, I want to accomplish….” So, I have no monthly goals to report on. I think this was due to being uncertain of what I would be able to accomplish. So let me say what I managed to do in January, then set some goals for February.
I finished The Forest Throne. I thought this would happen in January. It was in the first ten days that I wrote the scene that connected the book to the actual last scene (which I wrote months ago). It has now been read by three other people besides me, and two beta readers have it. I’ve been in touch with a cover designer and she is working up some options. I have also made the decision to title the series The Forest Throne, and title this first book in the series There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel.
I also finished the church Centennial book. I wrote the last words in this in December, and in January I made a complete pass through the book as proofreader/editor. Those edits are typed. The cover designer is onboard and waiting on me to give the final size. Two proofreaders have been going through it in January, and informed me last week they are ready to meet. That is scheduled for Friday.
Having two long-term projects come to completion at the same time is unusual. I said in my earlier post that a Bible study would be next. I spent a week looking at where I stood in preparation work on several Bible studies, and made my choice. January 15th or so saw me beginning work on a Bible study on The Last Supper. This is the study I taught during Lent 2021. I have lots of notes on it, some of them typed as if they were going to be a book someday.
As you will see from looking back on the blog, I managed to blog twice a week, as per my general goal.
Change out the covers on the Church History Novel series with new covers giving the series theme. I received this in early January, and began making the switch outs. As I’m actually writing this a few days before the 31st, it’s possible I will finish this task in the month. If so, I’ll edit this accordingly. Edit: Yes, I managed to get this done on Friday-Saturday. The last of the four was approved by Amazon on Sunday.
It has taken over a year of work to get to this point, but finally we are within a couple of weeks of going to print.
What about for February?
Make any edits to the church Centennial book and deliver it to the printer. I guess that means we will have to make a decision on the printer, but that decision is actually almost made. This goal depends a bit on the cover designer, but it’s a fairly simple cover so I don’t see this as a problem.
Related to that, though not necessarily writing, finish pulling my research notes together into a format and organization that will make the job of a future researcher easier. I assume someone, in 25 or 50 years, will do something similar to me at a future milestone anniversary. I want to leave my notes in a condition that will facilitate their work. This is likely to take several days or even a week of concentrated work. This task includes writing a short document (short as in 10-15 pages) “Notes for a Future Researcher”. That document, however, is most likely a task for a future month, say March, April, or May.
Make any edits necessary to There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. I want to get a few more chapters through my critique group, and of course I’m waiting on the beta readers and then the cover artist. Assuming that all comes together, I’m looking at publishing either in March or April.
Complete significant work on The Last Supper Bible study. I’ve had some trouble coming up with the right format; or rather, I’ve had trouble seeing how the format I came up with a year ago will work. I have to get some words on paper and see how well it comes together. As such, this goal is a bit unfocused. I suppose my real goal is to write enough in February to see if I have the right format, and be able to do more in a future month.
As always, attend writing group meetings, both in person and on-line. That will likely be five meetings, three of which will be in person.
As always, blog twice a week on Monday and Friday.
That’s where it stands right now. Other things can get in the way, things might take longer than expected—or shorter. But I think this will be a good second month for the year.
It’s been a long time since I posted my book sales. 2021 was my best year for sales. I guess you would call it a record year, though, with the numbers still as low as they are, record somehow seems inappropriate.
I sold 223 books, almost all sales coming from on-line sources. That beat my previous best year which was 156 way back in 2012. Also, in 2021, I passed the 1,000 lifetime sales mark, ending up with 1034.
Why the increase? Amazon ads. I began running some ads on Amazon in July 2020, added to them in 2021, and sales finally happened. Unfortunately, to this point I’ve spent more in ads than I’ve received in royalties from all sources. It’s not a big number, and the deficit is shrinking. At the end of the year, I was down only $4.52, though at worst I was behind $73.80. If the trend continues into 2022, I’ll be money ahead in a month or two. Just on ad spend, not overall. The cost to maintain this website puts me way in the red each year.
Had 19 sales of this, pulled along by the ads for the first book in the series.
I had sales of 22 different books, out of 35 books listed for sale at year end. Highest of those was the first Documenting America book, which I advertised. Second was Doctor Luke’s Assistant, which I also advertised. The other two books in the Documenting America series also had double-digit sales, as did Acts OfFaith, which I advertised.
Several of these “sales” were actually through Kindle Unlimited, the first that I had from that Amazon sales channel. I think royalties work out to less, but I’ve had a hard time rigorously tracking them.
So, here comes 2022. My ads are still running. They don’t seem to be working quite as well as early in the year. I will probably add another book to those I advertise, though I’m not in any hurry to do that.
Here’s hoping 2022 will be another best year for book sales.
October 1, falling on a Friday—a regular blogging day for me—is the perfect day for recording what I accomplished in September, and for establishing some goals for October. Here’s the progress.
Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Done, though one Saturday I realized I had totally forgotten to post anything on Friday, so I got a post up a day late. And one Monday post, that I wrote the previous Friday, accidentally got posted on that Friday, #usererror. But every regular blogging day was covered. To help me be a little more regular with my posting, I actually have four blog posts started as drafts.
Wrap up my research project on our church’s charter members. Done! Wednesday I made a final tweak in the list of probable charter members. I started putting my notes into usable form, which I should finish doing in October.
Finish “Foxtrot Alpha Tango”, the short story I’ve been working on for two or three months. Done! I finished this around Sept 20 and sent it by e-mail to my critique group.
Link the books in my Church History Novels series on Amazon. This is an easy process. I’ve been holding off until the new covers were done, but it’s time to just do it. No, I didn’t do this. Shame on me. It’s an easy task. I guess I was hoping to have the covers re-done first, so I kept putting it off. Back on the to-do list for this month.
I still have a few more tweaks to do on the church centennial book. I’m going to work on it after I finish this post and may finish them today (Friday afternoon). Done! Though see what I put in my October goals.
Attend my writers’ groups. At the moment all three are scheduled. Done! One was cancelled, the other two met in person and I attended. I also attended two meetings of a weekly on-line writing group. I don’t know whether I’ll be a regular there, but it was good.
Document one Bible study idea I had and put it in the queue. Done! I recorded it in my journal. At some point I’ll have to transfer it to an ideas folder, either on paper or on the computer, but at least it’s documented and I’ve been able to let my mind sort of forget it.
Alright, September was a productive month. I event added a couple of thousand words to my next work-in-progress, something I hadn’t planned on. Now, what about October? Be bold, or be cautious, in my goals. I’m just going to type and see how it comes out.
Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. I have a couple of conflicts coming up, so maybe those pre-written and to-be-scheduled posts will come in handy.
Work on my work-in-progress, The Forest Throne. I can’t remember what I’ve written about that here. I may have to include a post on it. I won’t give a specific word count goal for now. Possibly I’ll edit this in a week or so.
Link the four novels in my Church History novels series. Why do I keep putting this off?
Begin formatting the church Centennial book. I received one of three outside contributions and pasted it in. I have a promise of receiving the other two very soon. Meanwhile, I’m proofreading the book, which has caused me to realize I have three blanks to be filled in. They are just names and dates, but, still, they will require a little work. I hope to have that done today or tomorrow. Then the formatting and photograph additions will begin. Possibly I will have the formatting done by the end of October and will be ready to go to print.
Attend writers groups this month. I’m not sure how many it will be. I may have conflicts with the meeting dates of two of my regular groups. Maybe I’ll be able to get in on the new group a couple of times.
Publish “Foxtrot Alpha Tango”, once I get critiques back from the Scribblers & Scribes. I have one back already. Publishing will mean cover creation, but I’m already pulling ideas together.
Take a look at, but don’t necessarily write more on, the Bible study I was working on during the spring and early summer. I’ve been so busy with other things I don’t remember where I left off. Since I might start it soon, as in two months or so, it would be good to have it swimming around in my mind even now, occupying a few gray cells.
That’s enough. As with last month, there’s always the chance that something else could pop up.
Is this considered a craft? Oh, no, I did a craft! What’s to become of me? I feel the dendrites in my nervous system getting all worried.
Whether the pandemic is over or not, it’s good to be coming out of it. To go to the grocery store and not wear a mask. To go to church, not wear a mask, and get a cup of coffee (while staying 6 ft. distanced the whole time). To have long-interrupted groups meet for the first time in over a year. Yes, while we realize the spread of the virus isn’t over, and questions remain as to the effectiveness of the vaccine against all mutations of the virus, it’s still good to open up.
One group I belong to has been meeting. The Northwest Arkansas Letter Writers took a few months off, then decided to meet outdoors. I joined this group in March 2020 and attended one meeting before the pandemic hit. These are people who enjoy writing letters, on paper, that get sent through the mail. We have been meeting at a church not too far from me, under a drive-under at the back door, skipping the coldest and hottest months. That was good to keep seeing each other and talk about our letter writing activities.
Another group I’m a member of is the Scribblers & Scribes of Bella Vista. This is a writers critique group. We had our last meeting at a library in early March 2020. We typically had four or five people attend out of six active members. One of those has moved away; two others were new and we don’t know what their current interest is. Three of us were core members who rarely missed a meeting. While we were shut down, we sent pieces for critique by e-mail and received feedback the same way, but it wasn’t quite the same as reading pages in front of other writers and receiving comments then.
We began meeting again last Tuesday, all except me, as I had a one time church meeting to attend. I e-mailed in for critique the beginning of a short story. I’ll have to wait for the July meeting to see them all again. Anyone reading this who is interested in a writing critique group can find us through MeetUp.
The other group I’m a member of is the Village on the Lakes Writers and Poets. This group is a diverse bunch of writers, a fair number being poets. They met once a month at a writers retreat center in Bella Vista, sometimes as many as 20 people. The meetings were about inspiration for and education concerning writing, along with read-around of our work. Then the pandemic hit. The March 2020 meeting was cancelled. By April we were ready for Zoom meetings and did this every month during the pandemic.
In May, the State having lifted many restrictions, we met at a coffee shop, just five of us, and did some planning and dreaming. In June, we met at a pavilion of one of Bella Vista’s parks. One of our two group leaders led us in an exercise. Now, I hate writing exercises. I’m not sure why; I’d just rather write what I want to write and be done with it. But I took part. The leader had brought plucked off leaves, colored pens, pencils, and sketching paper. We were to trace a leaf (or leaves, whatever we wanted), then take fifteen minutes to write about it, after which we read our exercise to the group.
Not trace. I’m not exactly sure what this craft is called. Put the leaf on wax paper, then a sketch sheet above it, and rub the leaf through the paper so that the features come through. Leaf rubbing I suppose it’s called. My leaf didn’t want to cooperate. I chose yellow as my rubbing color. Probably not the best, as yellow doesn’t show well. The thick parts of the leaf didn’t show well, so I took a green pencil and traced them.
As to the writing, I stared at my leaf and couldn’t think of a thing. Then I took note of the dendritic pattern of the leaf and remembered an e-mail discussion with my now-deceased friend, Gary Boden, and a train of though came to mind. Here’s what I wrote and read to the group.
Dendritic Passage
As the trace of the leaf shows more prominently the division of segments—i.e. the spine and the hard, thick parts, so is my writing life and all that has brought me to this point. These start at the periphery and end at the bottom of the stem in what is called a dendritic pattern.
Dendritic? Yes, that’s the term. We used it in hydrology to describe the nature of a drainage basin, coming together from the far-flung edges and arriving at the main channel. But I think the word comes from the natural sciences, for I first heard it from Gary, a zoologist by education who ended up his career in computer systems. Branches coming together but with a fabric between them is what makes a dendritic pattern.
As I look at this leaf from an unknown plant and see its dendritic pattern, I see my writing. Each little spine is a genre that captures some of my time and results in a book or story. The latch-key teen experiences resulted in the Danny Tompkins stories. The many places visited early in adult life are being turned into the Sharon Williams stories and Operation Lotus Sunday. My love of God’s story and His word & church has moved to a branch that is the church history novels and
Hydrology, botany, and neurology (if that’s the right word) all make use of the term dendritic. Who knew?
At that point the leader said “Time.” When I read what I had to the group, someone talked about the dendritic pattern of the nervous system. I later looked up a dictionary definition, and both the pattern of a tree and the nervous system were used in the definition of dendritic. And the word “dendrite” for the first time came to my attention. Guess I should have figured that.
This is not a profound post. I have no conclusion to draw, no inspirational thing to write. Just an observations. Groups are coming back. I took part in a writing exercise. I did a craft-like thing and lived to write about it. All is not right with the world, but it was better that day when we met.
My camera is not with me right now. When it is, I’ll edit in a photo of my leaf rubbing, quite possibly the first and last I’ll ever do. Now, on to my day’s dendritic activities.
Oh, and why did I write “Passage” instead of “Pattern” in the title? I guess I don’t know.
In my last post I gave the results of my writing in May. Not a great month in terms of progress, but not bad either. Now it’s time to think about, dream about, and plan for what I would like to do in June.
Finish the church anniversary book. I think I’m doing well on this, and should be able to add the final portions and declare it done by the end of the month. I made some good progress on it the last two weeks. I have some more interviews to conduct, which may hold it up, and some contributions by some others. I won’t say that I’ll have those contributions, but without these interviews the book won’t be done.
Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. With this post I’m well on my way toward achieving that.
Explore a little more the linking of a series together on Amazon. I have four series among my Amazon publications, none currently linked. This was on my list of things to do last month but didn’t get done.
Work on this website, creating a new landing page and updating some content.
Work with the cover designer concerning new covers for the Church History Novels series. This is somewhat out of my control, based on her schedule. I haven’t checked with her in a couple of weeks.
Watch some Amazon videos on how to better do Amazon ads. They keep sending me e-mails about available webinars, several of which look beneficial. I’d like to watch at least one a week.
Continue work on the next volume of Documenting America. I’m still mainly in the reading for research phase, though I also did some of the book planning and created the book file. I want to at least complete the basic reading (40 more pages) and move on to some other sources. I think that is very do-able.
Some of these are more writing career items than strictly writing. That’s fine. I’ve somewhat neglected the career aspects for a while and it’s time to work on them.
I’ll check in near the end of the month and let you know how I did.
This month, due to busyness with some alternate activities, I’m going to split my writing progress for this month and writing goals for next month into two posts. Today will be May writing progress; Friday will be June writing goals.
Republish the three prior books in the Church History Novels series. This will be the contents, adding information for the full series, including links to all the books. The switch of the covers to be consistent across the series may not happen this month, so the full process may take a little longer. I didn’t get this done. Don’t have the covers yet, though I thought I would. Hopefully soon, at which time I should be able to do this quickly.
Create, in Amazon KDP, a true series of these books. People have told me this is easy to do. After I get the content updated, I may tackle this, even if the covers aren’t ready to go yet. And, if I’m successful at that, I’ll create true series for my two short story series. And for the Documenting America series. Did not do his. I guess I was waiting on something, though not sure what. Maybe I can do this next month.
Continue work on the church anniversary book. I’m not going to set a word goal, since I can’t seem to meet the word goals I set. By the end of the month I would like to have all my interviews done, information from those interviews worked into the book. I also want to have basic information added to all chapters. This was my main writing endeavor this month. While I don’t feel like I spent enough time on it, I spent a fair amount. I’m now over 20,000 words in a book I thought would be 12-15,000. The end is not yet. I have four more chapters to write and about four more people to interview. The largest chapter, where I look at the church decade by decade, is done (except for photos). The remaining chapters are short and should go quickly. I feel really good about this project.
Continue work on the Bible study. In some ways, this is fill-in work when my mind can’t wrap around other writing tasks. That tells me that maybe my heart isn’t really in this project. Or maybe it means I simply need to get other things off my plate before I can really concentrate on it. I looked at this briefly early in the month, and may have added a few hundred words. I think I also brainstormed it a little. But, I let this slide while other writing and many life events and activities took precedence.
Blog twice a week, Monday and Friday. I ought to be able to do this. Done, done, done.
Continue research reading for the next Documenting America I’ve read over 100 pages so far, with around 200 to go. I made major progress on this, as I didn’t do a lot of other reading this month. I’m down to about 50 pages to read in my main source book. I also started the file for the book, finding a couple of source documents and creating a computer file for them.
So, all in all, I’d say it was a good month—not great, but good.
