This will be a short post today. Day before yesterday I began to get the symptoms of a cold, yesterday they came on strong, and today they linger. I may be a little better. Maybe.
So, yesterday and today I took life easy. I typed edits in Adam Of Jerusalem. I followed the stock market and made a few trades. In the evening I read four more chapters in AOJ to Lynda. I didn’t do any of my exercises yesterday, and don’t plan on doing any today. Yesterday I also went to the sun room to read, though I think I slept more than read. I hope to do the same today.
It’s been nearly two years since I had a cold. As I’m essentially a home body nowadays, I’m not sure where I got it. Perhaps it was going Monday to the Martin Luther King memorial service at our church. I didn’t speak up close with anyone; perhaps it was in the air.
I’m hoping that by tomorrow, Saturday, I’ll be back to 80%, and to full strength and health on Sunday.
Somewhere in this house, most likely in one of two places, I have a list started of blog posts I want to do. The list is on paper, one of the pads I want to use up rather than just discard. Do you think this morning, my regular day for blogging, I can find it? Of course not.
Instead of whatever I was thinking of for today, I’ll just post a stream-of-thought thing. What popped into my head was: I still haven’t found my new normal in retirement.
I have many things I should be doing. De-cluttering is a key one. Lynda has started on some de-cluttering, in a small way only but it’s a start. I’ve been working on it for a while, but haven’t done anything major for a while.
My main decluttering has been a little printing I did. How is that decluttering, you ask? It was four pages for the members of my new critique group. I printed them on the backs of old printed pages. I have two stacks of these, which are somewhat unobtrusive piles in two places, one quite large the other small. But, since I brought the pages back home with me, you might ask how is that decluttering? Once I incorporate their comments into my chapter, I’ll discard them into recycling. This is a departure from the past, where I kept all such critique sheets. No more.
Also yesterday I printed my completed novel, Adam Of Jerusalem, for my last editing pass through it. All 217 sheets are on reused paper. So, once I finish with this, it will be taken to recycling as well. The pile I pulled all these sheets from may in fact look a little smaller.
Today is a holiday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. But now that I’m retired, it’s the same as other week days except the stock market is closed. I’m free to do whatever I want. I don’t even have to prepare any food, as we have left-overs from the prior cooking.
So what am I going to do? I should try to read 100 pages in the novel, editing as I go. I will try to find that list of blog post, and put it where I can find it when I need it. I’ll hit the elliptical, and try to do 1.2 miles on it in 0.2 mile increments. I’ll walk outside, hopefully my 2.4 mile route. It would be nice to read something for leisure, maybe something out of the large magazine pile (which will be multi-tasking since it will also count as decluttering). We may also head into town for a noon service celebrating MLK’s life. We’ll see.
Tomorrow will be another day into retirement. Perhaps, with the stock market open and having trades to make and watch, it will feel a little closer to a new normal.
So, I think it was last Thursday that I started the second round of edits on my novel Adam Of Jerusalem. I completed the first round in mid-December, but had to put it aside as family and Christmas was upon me. I printed it again and put it in the notebook. There were two places where I wanted to work in some backstory. I actually did that around Jan 2-3, but didn’t re-print.
“Adam Of Jerusalem” is a prequel to “Doctor Luke’s Assistant”, and is the first in my church history novel series.
When I read it for the first round of edits, I wasn’t happy with it. Too many places with clunky phrasing. Too many places where my meaning wasn’t clear. And something about the plot that wasn’t quite right. I had begun reading it aloud to my wife, but somewhere, maybe about 95 pages in, I quit that due to my unhappiness with it and went to another part of the house to read it to myself.
Saturday was a rain day, so I didn’t walk. I took two or three hours out in our sun room, in the nice cool temperature, to read around seventy pages. I had a lot of editing marks, but in general I was much more pleased with it than I was a month ago.
Sunday, after church and lunch, and with the weather not particularly conducive to walking, I again went to the sun room and began reading/editing. I got up to page 105 (of a 210 page manuscript, and felt like I was re-reading something I had read the day before. I flipped back fifty pages and, sure enough, I had covered the same Bible story earlier in the book, the one from Acts Chapter 5, where the apostles are imprisoned but miraculously released over-night.
How had I possibly done that? It’s a good story, sure, but to use it in two different places as if it were two different events? Looking back, I figure I must have had a time-gap in my writing. I had put the story in, written some more stuff, taken time away from the book (for whatever reason), then gotten back to it and, forgetting the story was already in there, written it again.
The treatment of the two stories is similar. My protagonist, Adam, is involved in the arrest of the apostles. The first time he was a simple bystander, then sent to check on the condition of the apostles after they were flogged. The second time he was sent by the high priest to facilitate the arrest, to try to convince the apostles not to make a scene when they were arrested.
I stopped my editing and tried to figure out what to do. One of the stories had to go. Which place did it fit in naturally with the rest of the narrative, and which was better written? I’ve found in the past that, normally when you write something twice (such as happened to me three decades ago when I began writing by had a professional paper, lost it, started again, then found the original pages), the first time is better. Would that be the case here? And what to do with the “space vacated” by deleting one of the two?
As I looked at the book, I decided either place would work. To make it consistent with the order in the book if Acts, I would have to either use the first instance or make a slight change in another place to make the chronology work. As to which of the two versions of the repeated story are better, I’ll have to read them both carefully and make that decision.
As to the words lost, I hate to make the book shorter. It’s only a little over 70,000 words, which is shorter than I wanted. I stopped there because the it seemed the story was complete. Why pad it with extra words? But now, to lose words? That’s not what I prefer.
So, last night was a brainstorming night. It didn’t take long for an idea to come to me. Not all my scenes come out of Acts, naturally. I could add an extra-biblical scene where the apostles are confronted in the temple by Jewish leaders, much the same way they confronted Jesus. It gives me some chance to work in some more teaching of Jesus as the apostles debate the Pharisees, Sadducees, chief priests, and teachers of the law.
I went to the place in the manuscript where the first story was, and began typing the new scene. I was only a couple of hundred words into it when I quit for the night. But I finished pleased. Pleased that I had a plan that seems good to me; pleased that I made a start on implementing that plan; and pleased that I’m well into editing.
Oh, and, I found two potential beta readers for my novel, both in my target audience. I won’t give it to them until I have this round of edits done, hopefully in about two weeks.
I didn’t mention in my last post that I was planning to go to a writing event on Wednesday. It was the regular monthly meeting of Village Writers and Poets, a group centered in my city that meets more or less monthly. As this meeting is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., I wasn’t able to go while I was working. I knew one of the writers making a presentation, which is why I wanted to go to this particular meeting.
Several different writing events occur in the ARC: Artists’ Retreat Center, in Bella Vista. That’s where I was on Wednesday Jan 9, 2019. (can’t find copyright holder of this photo, so hope it’s alright to share.)
They occasionally have Sunday afternoon meetings. That was the one I attended back in February 2018. The leader asked me if I was interested in doing an author presentation, and we’re now trying to figure out a date.
At the read-around time, since I was new to most of them, they asked me to tell them something of myself and my writing. I tried to explain my Genre Focus Disorder to them, told of myself and my writing. Since I hadn’t brought anything to share, I recited “The Beginning of a Special Day”, the first poem in Daddy-Daughter Day. One thing I told them was that I had a new finished novel and was about to begin the second round of edits on it.
I came home after the meeting and two other errands, went for a 2-mile walk, and fixed supper. That evening, while watching television, I remembered what I had said: “Tonight I’ll start the second round of edits on my most recent novel.” So I went down to The Dungeon, took the notebook with the manuscript, and came back upstairs to work on. I read the first chapter, made some notations. Soon it was bedtime.
The first slice was good. Better have another to be sure.
Today is a rainy day in Bella Vista, as predicted. I can’t go for my walk. I’ve been on the elliptical three times, though need to do it three more times to get my steps in for today. I decided to make banana bread, the firs time ever. And, I went out to the sun room with a mug of coffee and the manuscript, and began some serious edits. I’m on Chapter 5 now. I just identified the place where I’ll work in a little more backstory for the main character.
This feels good. I wasn’t pleased with the book when I read it through the first time, making simple edits. Some places seemed unclear, not explained well enough. I’m making a few clarifying edits. Nothing major; mainly adding speaker tags, sometimes an extra clause or two to make things clearer.
At the rate I’m going, I could be done in a week. Then a few days of typing, then one more read-through with, hopefully, minor edits. Then it’s ready for publishing. Way behind the schedule I’d hoped for, but still a viable addition to my collection.
What’s next to start, in my multi-tasking world? I want to write letters to my three oldest grandchildren. I think I’ll start that tonight. And, I need to make a list of blog posts I want to make, possibly scheduling them. If I get that done by Sunday, I’ll be happy.
Well, you would think that, after almost a week of retirement (five days, actually, today being the beginning of the sixth), I would have accomplished much on writing. You would be wrong.
I actually started the year spending more time on genealogy and stock trading than anything else. Stock trading because it’s a new year, I needed new spreadsheets, and I needed to be active in it and try to make some money. Genealogy because I love to do it so much, and I had some new leads—or rather a little bit older leads I’d been holding off on until retirement. Following those leads now.
I’ve been holding off on writing also because I had much to do in life, and I knew retirement was coming. But retirement came, and I felt that I needed to get a few other things done first. Lynda is ill, with the flue, and it doesn’t seem to be going away quickly. Perhaps she had bronchitis as well. So I’m having to do some things for her. It’s not a burden, however. I’m glad the family sickness passed me by and I’m able to pick up the load.
I haven’t been totally absent on writing, however. A few days ago I saw a notice in a Bella Vista Facebook page about a new writing critique group someone want to form. I contacted her, and it looks as if it will happen, a once-a-month group at her house. I’m looking forward to that.
Last night I pulled out the manuscript of Adam Of Jerusalem, and began going through it looking for places where I’d marked I needed to add Adam’s backstory. Found them, and began to work on that backstory. I have the notebook next to me, in The Dungeon, and will work on it today.
These are somewhat feeble efforts, however. I wanted to get some other things done first. I felt that writing time would come shortly, and I needed to get my family budget up to date first, then file receipts, then clean up certain clutter stacks, then start a jigsaw puzzle (yes, did that yesterday). Saturday I made wonderful progress on all of these, which gave me freedom of mind to do a little on writing yesterday. Oh, yes, somewhere along the way I knew I needed to start doing some more healthy things. I’ve been doing that, though I need to ramp it up some still. Over time, over time.
Another thing I did was work some (on Saturday, I think it was), on the outline/programming of a Life Group lesson series my co-teacher and I had discussed. I like the way it’s coming together. It concerns Jesus’ activities during Holy Week. Three of the planned lessons might be a little thin on teachable/discussable material, so I’m doing a little more research on them. I should finish that today.
The last thing I’ve done is try to plan out what exactly I’m going to write in 2019. I have a list of things. I don’t know if it’s complete yet, and it’s certainly not prioritized. It reflects my Genre Focus Disorder; it reflect the fact that I have much I want to write; it also reflects that I now see myself with more time to write than I ever had before. I intend to work on that list this week, and maybe have it in shape to report it on my Friday blog.
Planning is fine, but doing is better. Time to leave this and post it, and get to my other work. See you all on Friday.
Turning an infiltration pond, which didn’t infiltrate, into a filtering pond.
My last post was on September 11. At that time, I was planning for trips to Minnesota to oversee a construction project. That the trips would happen was sure, but the timing was unknown. The first one could happen in a day; it could wait a week or more. I couldn’t order tickets, couldn’t plan my schedule.
During this waiting period, I let blogging go. I even let most of my writing go. Otherwise, I kept to my normal schedule and tasks.
Finally the schedule became clear. I made three trips to Minneapolis and watched the re-construction of two stormwater ponds. The main work was on Saturdays (since it was at an active childcare facility) with prep work done on Thursday and Friday. Each time I flew up for the prep work and flew back on Sunday. I decided I’m too old to rush to get to the airport, return a rental car, and rush to a plane.
Sometimes it got messy.
It’s almost over. I have one trip next week, on election day, for a final inspection. That should be it, unless they pay me to go up next summer to check on how the vegetation is doing.
That’s over. But getting back to the disciplines I set aside for a while has been hard. My weight is up, my blood sugar is up, and my writing time is down. I’m also getting closer to that magic last day of work, December 31st this year, knowing I’ll have oodles of writing time on the flip side. That’s made my motivation lag.
It looked good once it was done.
The one good thing I did was write in hotel rooms while I was out of town. I was able to finish my novel-in-progress, Adam Of Jerusalem. That was a good thing. I’m now reading it aloud and editing as I go. It’s clunky, and will need significant editing. I don’t believe I’ll publish it this year.
So, hopefully you’ll see me back to my regular Monday and Friday posting. Hopefully my posts will be meaningful. And hopefully I’ll hang on to writing in the 1 month and 29 days of working life I have left.
I’m writing this Thursday evening, and will schedule it to post on Friday, my normal blogging day.
Although, if you’ve missed four consecutive, normal blogging days, can you say you have a regular blogging day? I hope so, and I hope to be back on a more-or-less normal schedule going forward.
You ask “What has kept you too busy to blog?” A number of things, which have taken both body and brain power. Around the time of my last blog I was assigned to help with a quick turnaround project at work. It was right up my alley: writing the scope of a water and wastewater masterplan for a downtown district, and us getting paid to do it. This was made more difficult, however, when a key player in the larger project of which this forms a part turned in his resignation. He’s still here, but a greater burden fell on his main assistant, and other work she was doing for which I was assisting fell back to me. So that tied me up.
Then, I’m managing our project manager training program, which is being taught mostly by others. But I’ve had to do a lot of paperwork with it, juggling class schedules and teachers. I wouldn’t quite say it’s a nightmare, but definitely a bad dream.
Time outside the office has been taken up by yardwork and moving my mother-in-law into her permanent assisted living quarters (from a temporary, respite one). That included helping my wife through quite an adventure of buying a used table. Perhaps someday that will be a story to tell. I might even adapt it for the next volume of The Gutter Chronicles.
Speaking of books, I continue to make progress on my work-in-progress, Adam Of Jerusalem. Two weekends ago, after helping my wife get on the road to visit the daughter, son-in-law, and grandkids, I managed to add just over 3,100 words on one long day. Then, last weekend, Labor Day weekend, I set a goal of adding 10,000 over Friday to Monday. I did that. Sticking to my chair, minimizing breaks, and working through previously uncertain plot lines, I quit at 3:00 p.m. Monday having added 10,100 in four days. That puts me at 48,400 words. The book is running a little short, so I have only 22,000 to go.
All these things have left me quite brain dead in the evenings. Two evenings recently I had evening meetings, and didn’t get home in time to do much.
So, what does the near future look like? This weekend I hope to add 6,000 words. That will take me about through the sagging middle and at the brink of the ending action. Rain is forecast for Friday-Saturday, so I think I’ll have fewer distractions.
Alas, I have trips scheduled. A warranty project requires me to be in Minneapolis two consecutive Thursday-Saturdays. That may be next week and the week after, or it may delay a week. At least one time I’ll fly up on Wednesday and back on Sunday. Plus, I’m supposed to fly to West Texas next weekend for a family thing and drive back with my wife on Monday or Tuesday. That part is a little iffy right now, due to the Minnesota thing.
That means lots of distractions, lots of body and brain energy that might keep me away from my self-appointed blog duties. I have a book review to do, two writer interviews I’m waiting on, and a handful of other things to write about. No shortage of topics; just shortage of energy and gumption.
We’ll see, though. Tonight, I feel much better in both body and mind. Maybe I can power through this and get some things done on the road. That would be really nice. I’d love to get AOJ published before the end of the year. That window is slowly closing, but I’ll keep hoping for now. And hope for the future is what keeps us busy today.
Not the Sunday just passed, nor the two before that, but I think if was the one before that. July 8th, I guess. I was in the sanctuary of the church, now called the Worship Center. I sat alone as my wife was ill and couldn’t come to church that day. After teaching the first lesson in a new series in Life Group, which went fairly well, I thought. It was then on to the sanctuary.
The music was good, mostly the typical modern songs that struggle to speak to me. But it was good. The time came for Pastor Mark’s sermon. He’s in a sermon series titled “Please Disturb”, the idea being that we should invite God in to disturb the things we really don’t want disturbed, such as our prayer life, our future, our story (yesterday’s topic). It’s been a good series.
That particular Sunday, as the pastor was speaking, my mind was also thinking about my writing, and the many things I want to write for the Christian market. I searched in my Bible and found a sheet of paper to write on. I pulled out my pen and, as the pastor continued to speak, I began listing things I’ve written for this market and things I want to write. I started with non-fiction books, all of which are somewhere in the future. I listed five, though I believe the last time I went through this exercise I had six. Not sure which one I’ve forgotten.
I then went on to Bible studies and small group studies. I had seven listed that I’ve already taught. I have notes on them, but they are not even close to being in publishable form. Then there’s two I’ve actually started some research and organization on; then added four more that I know I want to develop, teach, and write. That’s twelve all together; some which are developed and taught, some not.
I then listed the Church history novels I’ve written, am writing, and plan to write. That’s nine works in a series. Add all of those up and they come to 26 works. Of these: two are published; one is a work-in-progress; one has a couple of chapters written before being set aside for a time; six have been fully developed but not written; two have some research started; and fourteen are plans or dreams.
All this I wrote while Pastor Mark was preaching about inviting God to disturb us. I actually felt that I was able to hear what Mark was saying, and understand it. My notes took no more than ten minutes to write. They were then out of my head. The rest of the sermon wasn’t multi-tasking; it was solely devoted to the sermon.
Maybe. Also on this piece of paper, written below the list of works I want to write, is a note that says “conflict for AoJ”. This is my work-in-progress, Adam of Jerusalem. I’m about to enter the middle of the novel. I know what I want with the ending; I knew what the beginning needed to be; but the middle was a mystery to me. I had one event planned, but I needed a whole lot more. What would I fill the middle with?
On this sheet of paper are five conflicts, five events that can all be written to lead to where I intend to go with the ending. I don’t know when I wrote these. Was it during the same sermon, or was it another time? I’m not sure.
But, as I look at those notes, it seems to be a good plan. Each of the five events can link together, and can flesh out this middle portion of the book.
Yesterday, in church, during the sermon, I found this sheet of paper. I took a minute to read it, then tucked it back into my Bible. I didn’t have to do anything more on it. I listened to the sermon without feeling the need to multi-task. I think I’m going to leave this in my Bible. It will be there whenever I need it during church, allowing me to concentrate on the sermon without feeling the need to multi-task.
After a very busy week writing in my work-in-progress, a novel, I had two not-so-busy weeks. Each week I added words, even having a couple of days with a what I consider a good word count. However, I could have done better. Still, Adam Of Jerusalem now sits at over 25,000 words. I’m close to 1/3 through, depending on what the final word count turns out to be. I’m shooting for 80,000, though not sure it will be that high.
But, I find my mind turning away from the novel to…poetry. No, I’m not writing some new poetry, but am thinking of submitting some to a magazine or two.
I have never completely left poetry while concentrating on prose. I still monitor the poetry critique board at Absolute Write and post a critique from time to time. I’m currently reading a book on Robert Frost (will post a review in due course), so that has increased my interest.
So when I saw an internet post about a magazine that is dedicated to short poems, and that the submittal deadline for their next issue is the end of this month, I took notice. For the last ten to twelve years almost all the poems I’ve written are short ones: haiku, cinquains, a rhyming quatrain or two. Some of these I think are pretty good, especially the haiku.
So, I’ve made up my mind to make a submittal to this magazine. My main problem is I haven’t done a good job of keeping track of what poems I’ve written for the last decade. Most of them are on one of two places at the house, I think; though a few may be hiding in the pages of the blue folder I carry from home to work and back each day, with whatever papers I think I need.
Tonight I start the process of finding my short poems, preparing them for a proper file, and deciding what to submit. The mag says it wants ten poems, submitted by e-mail by 30 June. I should have no problems meeting that deadline, so long as I get started tonight. Possibly I’ll report back in Friday’s post whether I’m on track or not.
Lots of activity going on in my household right now, considering I’m the only one there right now. My mother-in-law is now in an assisted living facility near us, and my wife is away for a couple of weeks, helping our daughter and her family move. I was there the last couple of weekends with her. Their truck loading days are today and tomorrow. I would go and help, but with my shoulder not yet fully healed, I decided not to.
So, batching it, what have I been up to?
Writing, for one thing. I’m back on Adam Of Jerusalem, first book in my church history novel series, and the prequel to Doctor Luke’s Assistant. I wrote three evenings this week, adding about 4,000 words to what I had before, and last night getting to the first plot point. While I’ve known for quite a while the story I want to tell with this book, I wasn’t sure what scenes I would have, or how I would get that story told. Despite that, my writing speed is good. Well, last night was a little slower. I added only 1,000 words, possibly because I wasn’t feeling well. Went to bed early.
Another thing occupying my time—so far in just a small way—is blog maintenance. By that I mean I want to go back to old posts and clean up the categories those posts are tagged with. Some I didn’t tag at all, while others were tagged in a way that doesn’t make sense given how my blog has progressed. This is busywork, but I think needed. I have way too many categories and would like to trim it some. Hopefully after this work, the number will be.
Third, I’m doing cleaning in the house. This has been the slowest of the three things in the post title. I’m getting a little done every day. I ironed some shirts that came out of the wash a month or more ago with wrinkled areas, but I haven’t yet put the iron and ironing board away. I disposed of a pile of mail, but haven’t yet filed the things that need filing. I’ve cleaned one or two things off the kitchen table each day, but it’s still a mess. I’ve made a good start on decluttering all my paper, and have tossed many, many sheets, yet still have piles of paper where there shouldn’t be.
Through all of this, I’m still trying to lose weight, and have spent a lot of time walking, most days at noon and some in the evenings at home. I’m at my lowest weight for three or four years, though still have 35 pounds to go to get to the upper end of my target weight range. Ate properly Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week, then kind of lost it last night. Back on track today, I think.
So what do I have in store for this Memorial Day weekend? Writing for sure. By the end of the day Monday I’d like to be a minimum of 7,500 words further along. I believe that’s achievable.
I have more cleaning to do. I’ll progress through that slowly, but by the end of the day Monday: the kitchen table will be clean; the kitchen floor will be mopped; the unfinished piles of decluttering remainders will be gone through and trashed or stowed. Also, all the oak pollen strings will be swept, raked, blown, or by hand put into a pile, and moved to the compost pile. A few weeds will be pulled as well.
I also hope to go through a minimum of 100 of my oldest blog posts not yet touched and clean-up the categories. I did 25 the other day. I believe 100 should be no problem.
For what it’s worth, I plan on some reading for relaxation. I’m on the last 70 pages of Mark Twain’s short stories. I hope to finish that this weekend as well. I believe that’s possible.
I’ll report back with a blog post, probably on Tuesday instead of Monday, and let you know how I did.
