Category Archives: Church History Novels

Church History Novels, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Doctor Luke's Assistant, fiction, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Short Stories, Writing

2012 Writing Plan: Fiction

3 Comments

Now, on Jan 4, 2012, looking ahead to what I plan to accomplish this year with my fiction, here’s what the year will look like.

  1. Publish my second short story, titled “Too Old To Play”. The story is written. I’ve  edited it for typos, plot, language usage, etc. It’s ready to publish, in my view. I e-mailed it to my critique group mailing list and to another trusted reviewer, so far with no response. I’m not really worried about  receiving critiques. If I get some, I’ll see what I need to do. If I don’t get any, I’ll publish as is. My schedule is to eSP this in January. Since it’s a sequel to my previously published short story, “Mom’s Letter”, I hope they will feed sales to each other. I’ve already “commissioned” creation of the cover.
  2. Publish my novel Doctor Luke’s Assistant. I finished what I consider the last round of edits a month or so ago. Publishers have told me it’s a good idea, but they won’t publish such a long work in a difficult genre from an unknown author. I figure it won’t have great sales, but what’s the downside in self-publishing it? Only the cost of a cover (already commissioned). If it doesn’t sell much, then the editors will be proved right in their judgment of it. If I make anything on it, that’s more than my prospects through commercial publishers. Right now I’m planning for an e-book. It’s so long I’m afraid a POD print book will be too expensive. I’m targeting this for February, which is very do-able
  3. Publish my novel In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. The book is written, and partially edited. I sent it out to about twelve beta readers in October, and have heard back from three. The copy they read had many typos, as I had not proof-read it. I have a few plot issues to address, and must make a judgment on the amount of dialog vs. narrative. I think I can have all this done by the end of February, making production of an e-book in March fairly firm.
  4. Publish another short story in the Danny Tompkins series. I hadn’t thought of adding another story to this series until recently. Heck, the second one didn’t even come to me until three months ago. I haven’t seen myself as a short story writer. So I’m still testing the waters. A plot for another one (actually two) has run through my mind, so I might as well schedule it to be written and published. I’m guessing this will be somewhere around June, but I’m still in the early stages of this.
  5. Begin work on my third novel. I could go several ways with this. I could work on a sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I hadn’t planned on that, but my friend Gary pointed out to me how the things I left hanging at the end of the book could segue very well into a sequel. I’m thinking my espionage book, China Tour, is most likely to be next, since it has had the longest gestation period. But a series of cozy mysteries has been brewing, and the first of those might be next. Given the uncertainty of what I’ll be working on, I’d say completion of the next novel in 2012 is unlikely, and I’m not putting completion in my plan.

So, there are my fiction writing plans for 2012. In a vacuum (i.e. with no non-fiction), it would be an easy schedule. Covers may be the hold up for maintaining my publication schedule.

Church History Novels, Doctor Luke's Assistant, fiction, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Writing

2011 Writing in Review: Fiction

Leave a comment

In 2011 I spent a lot of time on my fiction. At the beginning of the year I polished and published a short story, “Mom’s Letter”. I wrote this somewhere around 2005-06, first for a contest and then expanded and reworked. I published that at Kindle in February, at Smashwords in July. Sales are brisk, with a total of 9 copies sold (No; that’s not a typo).

When I attended the Write-to-Publish Conference in June, I pitched my second novel, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, and an agent was interested. I hadn’t looked at it for a couple of years, and was surprised to see, when I prepared to submit the partial manuscript after the conference, that I had less than 15,000 words written. I thought I was over 20,000.

So I got busy. From mid-July to early October I completed the novel, ending at about 87,000 words. I sent it out to beta readers in October, and have received a trickle of comments back.

At that point in time, after a brief break, I read my first novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, which as been “in the drawer” for about three years, looking for “about 60 typos” a beta reader said I had but didn’t identify, and fixing a few minor plot problems or references. My goal is to e-self-publish it around February 2012. I made the typos and think it’s ready to go, cover permitting.

I then decided to work on another short story, to help me get another book on my self-publishing bookshelf. So I dashed off a sequel to “Mom’s Letter”, titled “Too Old To Play”. I’ve distributed that by e-mail to my critique group, but so far have had no responses. In my mind it’s ready to upload to Kindle, though I’m open to edits.

Beyond this, I dreamed a lot. I know which novel I’ll work on after that. I have at three series identified and at least five novels in each (by title). I have only outlined, at least in part, one. So this is work for the rest of my life.

 

Church History Novels, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, Short Stories, Writing

Stewardship of Writing Time

Leave a comment

Thanksgiving week was not expected to be a time to get much writing done, and I didn’t for the first part. Our daughter and son-in-law came in with the two grandsons (3 and 1) on Sunday evening, then left the kids with us as they went on to Eureka Springs for a couple of days at a resort, courtesy of their church for pastor appreciation. Watching these two little boys didn’t lend itself to writing.

And actually, for the week before they came I didn’t write much, as the house needed a good release from clutter and dust and accumulation of months of having no visitors.

But the kids left Friday after Thanksgiving, my mother-in-law left on Saturday, so the house turned quiet real fast. With leftovers galore, even food preparation time was greatly reduced. So I did find some things to write, and ways to futher my writing “business”. Here’s my status right now.

  1. Last night I finished reading Doctor Luke’s Assistant, and have marked 60 or so typos and that many other places to make a few improvements. My goal is to e-self-publish this as soon as I can get the edits done, format it for e-books, and have a cover made. I suspect it will be ready in January some time.
  2. The print books of Documenting America arrived! Yesterday I found them at the office. They probably came in on Monday, but I never went to the mail area. I took some to Centerton yesterday when I went there and sold two. Sold one at the office also. I only ordered 20 copies to start with.
  3. I began writing my next short story, “Too Old To Play”. This is the next one in the Danny Tompkins short story series. The first one, “Mom’s Letter,” is available as an e-book. I hope to get this one available as an e-book as well. Again, having a cover made will be the hold-up.
  4. I’m reading a book titled Creating Unforgettable Characters, part of my continuing study of the writing craft. This is a little older, from the 1990s. It makes frequent references to characters in TV shows I never watched, such as Murphy Brown, and movies I never saw such as The Rain Man. But it’s pretty good. I’m gaining some new insights into fictional character development, even if I don’t fully understand the illustrations given.
  5. This morning (I’m home sick, the last stages of recovering from a stomach bug that hit me yesterday morning) I set up my writing business accounting spreadsheet. I entered the print book sales, entered the Suite101 income, and set up the expense tab of the spreadsheet. Maybe I’ll be ready to prepare my Schedule C when tax time comes.
  6. I wrote an article for Buildipedia.com and submitted it on the deadline, Nov 28. This is the first of a Q&A column on construction administration. It’s experimental for the on-line magazine. I have contracts for two columns, and I guess they’ll decide on more and the frequency when they see how these first ones are received. Let’s hope it works. I’ll be paid about 40 cents per word, which isn’t chicken feed.
  7. I completed an article for Decoded Science, another on-line source of potential writing income. I have not yet uploaded the article, as I have to first write short and long writer bios and upload a photo. Maybe I can do that today, and upload the article tomorrow.
  8. Attended a meeting of BNC Writers. We were a small group, but did some good critiquing and planning. We may have one more meeting on Dec 5, then wait till 2012 to resume.

That’s about it. I have much to do with writing over the next two weeks. Our Christmas letter, edits on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, the second Buildipedia column, finishing the new short story, planning for marketing Documenting America. Enough to keep me busy.

Church History Novels, Daddy Daughter Day, Doctor Luke's Assistant, poetry, Wesley, Writing

Conference Assimilation: The Appointments

Leave a comment

One reason writers go to conferences is appointments with editors, agents, successful authors, and other faculty. WTP is no exception. The conference did not begin with an introduction of the faculty and staff. You had to have done some homework and figured out from their websites what each faculty member was there for, and which ones were editors or agents.

Based on this homework, I decided to try to schedule 15 minute appointments with two editors. Full-conference registrants were allowed two appointments. More could be scheduled at certain times on succeeding days provided the time slots were not filled. At 8:00 AM on Wednesday morning was a conference ritual I call “crashing the boards”, as we gathered where schedules were posted on the wall, and reached and stretched to write our names on the preferred agent, editor, or writer schedule. I got appointments with my two targets, for Friday afternoon.

Why did I chose to meet with agents when I’ve decided to self-publish? I guess I still hold out some hope that I can get a contract with a legacy publisher, and so am willing to give it another couple of tries. But, as for other appointments, if I could get them, who to try for?

The panels helped. On Wednesday a panel of magazine editors discussed what they wanted to publish, why they were there. I had not planned on pitching to magazine editors, but three on the panel had things I could pitch to them. When the time came on Thursday when we could sign up for extra appointments, I signed up for two. Then the book editor panel on Friday showed me I should try to get one more appointment, with a certain editor. Again I pounced on the boards, and got the fifth appointment.

As I mentioned in a previous post, on Friday I hung out in the appointments auditorium rather than attend electives. By doing this I was able to have an unscheduled appointment with an agent who had a hole in his schedule—not to pitch to him, but to get his advice on what to do with Father Daughter Day. That made six appointments in all.

Here’s who I met with.

– Rowena Kuo, publisher of a relatively new publisher of magazines and books. I pitched a short story and a series of magazine articles to her.

– Craig Bubeck, of Wesleyan Publishing House. I pitched my Wesley writings project to him.

– Sarah McClellan, literary agent. I pitched Doctor Luke’s Assistant and Father Daughter Day to her.

– Mary Keeley, literary agent. I pitched Doctor Luke’s Assistant and Father Daughter Day to her.

– Ramona Tucker, of OakTara Publishers. I pitched Doctor Luke’s Assistant and Father Daughter Day to her, along with Documenting America

– Terry Burns, literary agent. I spoke with him for only five or ten minutes, and only about Father Daughter Day.

So, that is my stewardship record of appointments at the WTP Conference. I believe I did well, in timing when I crashed the board and in those I was able to meet. I’ll have more specifics in a future post.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Writing

Editorial Silence

Leave a comment

In the seven (almost eight, actually) years I’ve been trying to be published, I think my biggest gripe against the publishing industry is what I call editorial silence. Let me think, though, if you include submittals to literary magazines I’ve actually been submitting for about ten years. There’s always a time lag between submittal and answer. Magazines, agents, and book acquisitions editors almost all state what their response time is: 6 weeks, 2 months, 3 months, 6 months, whatever. It’s a little different if you meet an agent or editor at a conference and they ask you to submit something. That’s a little less formal, though I suspect their posted response times could be considered to apply.

From my perspective, I don’t mind the slow response. What I mind is non-response, or responses so long after the stated response time that it might as well be a non-response. That’s the way this business works. A non-response most likely means a no. Most editors say to send them a reminder e-mail once you’re a little past their stated response time. When you do you’ll get a no.

Some examples. I met with an agent at a conference in Kansas City in November 2007. He asked me to send him the complete manuscript of Doctor Luke’s Assistant, as he was planning to represent more fiction in the coming years. I did so about a week later, and heard nothing. The following April I learned this same agent was going to be at a conference I was hoping to attend the next month in North Carolina. I thought we could meet then to discuss my manuscript, if warranted, so I e-mailed him, now five months after he requested the material, and asked for a status report. He said he couldn’t find my mss and would I send it again. I did, and talked to him briefly at the next conference. He said, “Your writing is strong, but I don’t know if I can sell it. I’m still reading it. Send me a reminder e-mail every week until I respond.”

That sounded strange, but I did as he asked. About two weeks later he passed on my book. Looking back, I now suspect he hadn’t even looked at the book when I saw him the second time, and he was just giving me “agent-speak”.

Another example. At that same North Carolina conference in May 2008, I met with another agent and pitched In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. She asked me to send her a partial (30 or so pages) and a proposal. I did so promptly, and heard nothing for four months. I sent a reminder e-mail, and heard nothing for two months. I sent another reminder e-mail, and she responded, passing on my book because she already represented something similar.

How strange that these two agents, who I met with and who requested me to send them some material, should totally fail to respond. Add to that about thirty magazine submittals where I’ve either never heard back or heard back up to a year after submittal, and I’ve concluded that the submittal process is broken across the board. Some writers call it the “query-go-round”. Others have a less complimentary term for it.

It’s enough to drive an unpublished author to self-publishing. For now, I guess I’ll go do something that will make me some money.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, fiction, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Writing

Literary Villains: Is the Conventional Wisdom Right?

4 Comments

Attend any class on writing fiction and before long you will hear this mantra: Your heroes must have some faults and your villains must have some good traits. You can’t make your heroes so ooey-gooey nice and perfect that they are unbelievable. And you can’t make your villains so absolutely awful that there is nothing redeemable in them. Well, you can, but your novel will be the worse for your doing so.

This was news to me when I first heard this in a fiction writing class at a writers conference, but it kind of makes sense. Fictional characters ought to reflect real life to some extent. Few people in real life are totally good or totally bad. Actually, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say no one is totally good or totally bad. Even if a novel is fantasy, and doesn’t include humans at all, we human readers judge the novel by our human experience, and the non-human characters must be believable and real based on our human experiences.

But in literature, is this true? Do successful writers always give their heroes faults and their villains virtues? For heroes, I think this is probably true. A big part of any heroes’ quest is to overcome obstacles, both those that the world throws at them and those that are within them. But for villains, is this so?

I’m thinking of the Harry Potter series, and of Harry and Voldemort. Now, I must preface this by saying I’ve not read the books! I intend to, and will be doing so within a year, I think. I’m basing this on the movies. I’ve seen all seven, and those who have both read the books and seen the movies indicate the movies are fairly faithful to the books. Harry has his faults. We easily see this in his movie portrayal. But does Voldemort have any virtues?

I looked hard for Voldemort virtues in the movies, and haven’t found any. I suppose you might say he has a virtue of making an accurate assessment of his chances in a fight against Harry. He says he could not overcome Harry’s wand and that Harry has a type of wizardry, provided by Lily Potter, that he, Voldemort, needs something more to overcome. He doesn’t pump himself up by ascribing his failure to kill Harry to bad luck. But that’s a pretty small virtue, I think.

We might be able to have some sympathy for Voldemort based on the circumstances of his birth and parentage. But sympathy and virtue are not the same.

So, as I write my fiction and flesh out characters, I wonder just how much virtue I should add to the antagonists, the villains. What good characteristics should I give to Tony Mancuso, the Mafia Don who wants to prevent the success of phenom pitcher Ronny Thompson, the hero of my In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People? Should I add a couple of good characteristics to Claudius Aurelius, the corrupt government official who want to stop Luke from writing a biography of Jesus in Doctor Luke’s Assistant? I’ve worked hard to give these villains some redeeming qualities, but I’m wondering if it’s a waste of time. Perhaps readers like their villains to be really, really bad—to hate them thoroughly, not to feel a smidgen of sympathy for them. Certainly, if Voldemort’s abject villainy contributes to the success of the Harry Potter books, one would think that is the case.

What say you, my few readers? Do you want the villains in the novels you read to have a virtue or two? Do you want to feel some sympathy for the antagonist, and think, “Oh, if only his parents had treated him better he wouldn’t have turned out so bad.”? Or do you just want to hate the villain and love the hero?

An inquiring novelist wants to know.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, freelance writing, poetry, Writing

The Kicking and Screaming Part

Leave a comment

Yesterday I completed my first article for Suite101.com and posted it for editor’s review. Your first article after signing on must be approved by an editor before it is viewable on the site. After that you post directly and an editor reviews it after it “goes live”. This morning an e-mail was waiting for me, from the editor for this area of the site, saying some changes were recommended.

I checked in at the site and looked at the editor’s suggestions. Turns out it’s just to add some more white space by breaking things into smaller paragraphs, and maybe making a bulleted list of a couple of items. No change asked for in the text itself. After completing this post I’ll make those formatting changes, resubmit, and the article should go live today. I’ll come back either today or tomorrow and post a link.

Then I will have to go to PayPal and see if my long-dormant account is still there. That’s the only way Suite 101 pays. Not that I expect a windfall any time soon. I have about thirty days to give them payment provisions.

But as I said in my previous post, I’m doing this freelance thing kicking and screaming, holding on to my novels, Bible studies, poetry, and even non-fiction books dream. I’m afraid every writing hour for a while will be devoted to freelancing, both Suite101 and other markets. So I’ll have to carve out time for other writing. Doing it while driving doesn’t work. I’ve tried it and I can’t seem to concentrate, and I don’t really want the distraction. Better to spend driving multi-tasking time with the radio and either music or talk.

My walking time on the noon hour provides opportunites for poetry. I’m usually working on a haiku, or a cinquain, or something else short, something I can remember and write down when I get back in the office. Most of these are not good and I do nothing else with them. although I’ve got two from the last month that are on Post-it notes on my desk, waiting for me to decide whether they are good enough work on some more.

TV time obviously isn’t a good time. Although, I find I can write with the TV on whereas I can’t read. But this time is better for editing something rather than writing new stuff.

But the time that has seemed effective at pursuing my “dream” is when I go to bed and turn out the light. I generally fall asleep almost right away. But lately I’ve been fighting sleep to think through scenes in my novels. I have at most ten minutes before whatever substance my body makes in excess sends me into la la land. Lately I’ve visualized the last few scenes in Doctor Luke’s Assistant. I’ve played and re-played the scene of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People where Ronny Thompson learns his girlfriend is a fraud and he hurls his cell phone off the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River. And I’ve ridden again on the Star Ferry across Hong Kong harbor, where the vanilla American family moves unbeknownst into an espionage adventure in China Tour.

Eventually I’ll move on to other scenes. And I won’t let this overcome me to the point where I can’t fall asleep easily. Perhaps these last thoughts will lead to dreams that will enhance these books, and perhaps I’ll begin remembering my dreams.

Church History Novels, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Screwtape's Good Advice, Writing

Fear Rises

2 Comments

Well, yesterday evening I heard back from the agent who has been considering Doctor Luke’s Assistant. As expected, he passed on it. I say “as expected” because I have learned the book is unpublishable for a first time novelist. It’s way too long by industry standards—forgivable for someone who already has a fan base, but not for a first timer. And, it’s Bible era fiction, which is a dead genre right now per the book buying public. So, I guess I chalk this up to writing practice, and move on. Hey, most authors don’t get their first book published. Why should I be different?

Last night I finished the final edits on the proposal for my study guide for The Screwtape Letters. Based on the meeting I had with the publisher in May, I have high hopes for the success of this book. Today I wrote the cover letter, tweaked the proposal slightly based on something I had previously missed on the publisher’s web site, copied the whole thing, went to the post office, and mailed it. I’m $1.68 poorer, plus mileage. I really had to make myself do those final steps, internally reminding myself, “The worst that can happen is they turn it down.” But fear rose up again, as I’ve written about before:

Fear of Failure : This isn’t a big deal. Rejection happens in the publishing business. You learn to live with it and get over it quickly or you go crazy.

Fear of Success : How would life change if this is successful? If they then want another one? If I have to go thither and yon to promote the book?

Fear of Error : This is the worst, I think. Who am I to claim to know enough to write a book on this Christian classic? I’m just a man who fell in love with it three decades ago, and who recently renewed that love affair, recently helped teach it to an adult life group, and found a lack of materials available to help teacher and student. But, what if I say something in the book that’s really stupid? That the publisher doesn’t catch, but that some theological sharp-shooters do? Oh, the scorn and derision I could direct on myself. Maybe it would be better to just not mail it and watch television every evening.

Fear of commitment did not enter into this. If the book is accepted, I will have to add to the four sample chapters written: a minimum of 28, and possibly as many as 30 additional chapters, probably in three months. That is a pace I believe I can do.

Let’s see, I think someone said that irrational fear is anxiety. Why borrow worries from tomorrow’s legitimate ones? Each day has enough worries of its own. First item of my July goals accomplished, within schedule.

Bible study, Church History Novels, Doctor Luke's Assistant, technology woes

Disagreeing with the Scholars

Leave a comment

I just lost a long post, once again technologically challenged. All I was doing was copying text to save it to the clipboard to prevent losing it, and in that process I deleted it all. Madness, madness, all technology is madness. I’ll try again, but don’t know if I have the strength and time.

You know you’re in trouble, as a layman, when the books you are reading have heavy doses of words like docetism, ascetecism, gnosticism, redaction, etc. Recently I have been reading various scholarly books about the formation of the New Testament. I began doing this about three years ago as research for my book Doctor Luke’s Assistant. And, it proof of Frost’s contention that “way leads on to way,” I’ve gone way beyond that to looking at other books of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, thinking of sequel upon sequel. But I digress.

As I read these scholarly works, I can’t get away from the feeling that the purpose of these scholars is to denigrate the New Testament and, by extension, Christianity. It seems like the scholarship is done with an end in mind, to prove something harmful to the acceptance of the book. For example, these scholars seem determined to prove that certain books could not have been written by the apostles to whom they were attributed. Why is that important? Because as the canon of the New Testament was being agreed to over a period of a few centuries, one criteria was that the books in the canon had to be written by an apostle or by one who knew Jesus or by one like Paul, to whom God spoke directly in the era of the apostles. So, if the scholars can prove the apostles didn’t write the books attributed to them, they prove the canon was criteria was not adhered to, the canon is thus flawed, the New Testament is flawed, and the foundation of Christianity is brought down a couple of notches. To me, the scholarship seems structured toward that specific conclusion, either purposely or as part of a mob mentality, a conclusion that will not help Christianity. I say this realizing I don’t have the credentials, have not read all the manuscript fragments, have not read many of the attestations of the early church writers. Possibly I’m discerning this in my spirit, or possibly it’s pseudo scholarship on my part. Nevertheless, this is my impression, so I’ll write about it. This will take me several posts to get through and, hopefully, make my point.

Case in point: The book I have at hand is The New Testament by Bart D. Ehrman, a professor at the University of North Carolina. Oops, if he’s a professor, I probably should call him Doctor Ehrman–although nowhere in the book is he called Doctor, so maybe not. Ehrman seems determined to bring down the New Testament. An example is how he treats Jesus’ use of “Son of Man”. Ehrman would ask, when Jesus said, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven,” to whom was he referring? Here’s a quote from the book.

“It appears that Jesus expected the kingdom to be brought by one whom he called the Son of Man. Scholars have engaged in long and acrimonious debates about how to understand this designation. Is it a title for a figure that Jews would generally understand…? Is it a general description of “a human-like being”? Is it a self-reference, a circumlocution for the pronoun “I”? Moreover, did Jesus actually use the term? Or did the Christians come up with it and attribute it to Jesus? If Jesus did use it, did he actually refer to himself as the Son of Man?”

I’m sorry the debate of the scholars has been so long and acrimonious. The laymen haven’t had any problem understanding that Jesus was talking about himself.

This is just an example. I have at least two others in mind to discuss. I’ll use Ehrman’s book, and perhaps a library book if I can get to the post before it’s due. I’ll probably make the scholars angry, but since they are not likely to be flocking to this blog, I don’t really care.

Stay tuned.

ancient letters, Doctor Luke's Assistant, research

The Tentacles of Research

1 Comment

I find myself with more time on my hands while abstaining from computer games during Lent. Last night I used that time to return to research on Doctor Luke’s Assistant, things that have been nagging me and leaving me fearful that some things might not be historically accurate. So, using the miracle of search engines, I began this task.

In the book, I have the educated farmer, Jacob of Ain Karem, making ink from animal blood and keeping it in a container fashioned from a leg bone of an ox. Is this even possible? Would the blood congeal, even if mixed with something? Would it be absorbed into the bone? Or would it form a film, that maybe would prevent very much from absorbing? This may not be a major item, but I’d like to get it right.

So I searched for “ancient documents” and “ink”, and had the usual large number of hits, many of which were not germane. One, however, was to the book Forty Centuries Of Ink, by David N. Carvalho. Who knew such a book existing, or that it was on-line at http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/tech/printing/fortycenturiesofink/toc.html . I haven’t yet found the answer to my question, but I have much more of this to read, and other links to pursue.

Then, since I’m preparing the correspondence of Augustus ben Adam, assistant to Doctor Luke, I wanted to research some expert references regarding ancient letters for form and content. I’ve done some of this already, but not as extensive as I’d like. So I searched for “ancient letters” and had thousands of returns, some amazing documents, either books or articles on-line, or blogs, or professors’ web sites. And these sites have hundreds of references to original sources they used. It’s a veritable treasure trove of information. When I am at home tonight, I will edit in some of the names of the originally found document and some of the references of interest. How I would love to access and read it all!

But, maybe I don’t need to go that far. While perhaps one article or book cannot be considered definitive, maybe two is enough for the purpose at hand. The derivative research, which would be more pleasure than research, will have to wait.