Category Archives: The Teachings

Bible study, Church History Novels, Documenting America, The Teachings, Writing

April Writing Progress; May Goals

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The last day of April and my regular blogging day fell on the same day. It seemed like a good day to post my writing progress for April and goals for May that day, but then I decided to post that piece on harmony. It’s still close to the beginning of the month, so here it is. First, my April results.

  1. Publish The Teachings. All that is left are various publishing tasks, including: e-book TOC; adding two maps, one of which needs modification; writing the back cover copy; writing the Amazon page text; formatting the print book (well, the e-book too, which is far easier); and uploading to Amazon. I think this is very doable. This is done! I published the e-book on April 13 and the print book on April 25. It all went pretty easy.
  2. Republish the three earlier church history novels with new covers and a list of my works. One of the covers is ready. Hopefully the other two will be soon. This is not done. Too many things came up this month, both for me and the cover designer.
  3. Expand the church anniversary book to at least 15,000 words and hopefully 20,000 words. I made progress on this, but didn’t hit my word targets. I’m 13,300 words right now. I’m pleased with the progress, however, as I did a number of interviews with members of the congregations and began incorporating their information into the text.
  4. Blog twice a week. It’s doable. No travel planned this month. Did this.
  5. Do some research on the next Documenting America volume. I won’t commit to how much, but I have to get going on it. For my afternoon reading I have been reading for this research. I’ve done about 100 pages of reading so far, identifying documents to use in the book. I’ve searched for and found on-line a couple of these documents and loaded them into a file for the book. This is a long way away from truly starting on the book, but it is progress.
  6. Look again at the Bible study I was working on in February and early March, and decide if that is going to be my next book or if something else is. I spent some time on this, adding some words, perhaps settling on a format. I’ve decided that this probably is a viable project. I will be spending time on this next month.

So that’s April. What about May? I’m just now beginning to think of this month, but can say a few things based on last month.

  1. 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.
  2. 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
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Blog twice a week, Monday and Friday. I ought to be able to do this.
  6. Continue research reading for the next Documenting America I’ve read over 100 pages so far, with around 200 to go.
Church History Novels, The Teachings

“The Teachings” Is Published

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Now that I have four consecutive books in my Church History novels series, the cover designer I’m working with has come up with a theme for the series. I like what she’s done.

I’ve made other posts about the novel I’ve been writing. The Teachings is the third novel (chronologically) in my Church History Novels series, though the fourth one written. I’ve been working on it for well over a year. I think it was in the fall of 2019 that I put the first words on paper—or in the computer, rather.

I pulled off it for a while to work on other things. I wrote and published “Tango Delta Foxtrot“, the fifth short story in my Sharon Williams Fonseca series. Before I came back to The Teachings, I also published a family history book, Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney of Ipswich. Those were distractions, I guess, while I was trying to figure out The Teachings.

The problem was making The Teachings compatible with the history of the First Jewish War, which is the time setting for the book. I kept getting bogged down in the war history, reading and re-reading my copy of Josephus’s writings, making copious marginalia and separate note sheets, writing perhaps a dozen outlines of war events and how my characters might interact with them.

It was sometime around July last year that I figured it out. Busyness prevented me from hitting it hard for a month or two, but I think it might have been September that I got back to writing it. The words flowed, and the book came together. I think it was in early February this year that I finished it. Three editing passes, two beta reader reviews, and incorporating comments on the first three chapters by the Scribblers and Scribes of Bella Vista, my writing group, and I called the book done.

Not bad as a placeholder. Just waiting on Amazon’s human review. It already passed the automatic review. I had to tweak it once before Amazon approved it.

The cover was made by Sophie Braun. She is a college student who is very busy this time of year. But she got the e-book cover done and it looks great. I took that cover and pulled together a print-book cover, which is what is published at present. When semester ends, Sophie will turn it into a real cover.

Now, I need to figure out what to do next with my writing. That will be a post for the near future.

Health, home improvements, miscellaneous, The Teachings

Getting Things Done – Latest Edition

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Thursday’s work was stump grinding from our front yard. Looks like they did a good job.

More than once I’ve posted about getting things done. I usually keep a to-do list, which I try to work through. From time to time I slack off from the list, but somehow that doesn’t reduce the amount of things needing to get done. I’m a little late with my post this morning because of getting things done. In fact, it’s likely to take me over an hour to write and post this because I still have other things to get done that are on a time schedule.

Today’s work is pressure washing the north wall and some other minor repairs. It’s going well. Just wish they had brought their long ladder.

How far back do I go? For over a year my wife has asked me to have her sewing machine looked at, but pandemic related closings and restrictions caused me to keep putting this off. Plus, the repair shop is 18 miles away, and I don’t generally drive 18 miles for a single purpose trip. But Wednesday of last week I was in Rogers for something else and could divert to the store with very little distance added. I did so and dropped the machine off. When there, they said they needed a bobbin for the machine and there was none in it. Once home I got the bobbin ready to mail. But when I took it to the P.O. I learned it was too thick to be considered a letter and would cost $4 to mail as a small parcel. I knew I would be in Rogers again this week, so I just made the slight diversion again and dropped that at the sewing shop. Now we wait for the repairs. Check off the item on the to-do list.

It’s a little hard to see in this photo, but the area to the right is weeded; to the left is not. I think this work is keeping me young and agile. At least a little more so.

Last Saturday I received a message about someone wanting to buy some of my wife’s paperback romance novels I had listed on Facebook Market place. The problem was she lived too far away to come by and get them, would I ship them and how much would it cost? I replied immediately and transitioned into salesman mode. I told her yes, I would ship them, but had many more available that weren’t mentioned in the Marketplace listing. I’ll shorten this story. We had 203 romances to sell and she wanted them all. I took them to the P.O. on Monday to weight for a shipping estimate, received payment via PayPal on Tuesday, and took the books to the P.O. in the mini-snowstorm the same day. They are now in USPS hands, “winging” their way to her. Check one item off the to-do list.

Also P.O. related, on Monday I mailed a nice group of greeting cards to the daughter of a first cousin. These are cards found in my dad’s house at his death in 1997. He kept all incoming greeting cards, and even had some that went to his father. I’ve slowly gone through them and sent them back to the families from whence they came. I contacted this cousin and she would like the cards from her grandfather, mother, and aunt. Mailed them on Monday; check one item off the to-do list.

On Tuesday, while waiting at the doctor’s office, I finally called our electrical cooperative to ask why they had never come back to grind the stumps left from when they took trees out of my front yard in December 2019 and January 2020. A different crew was supposed to come a few days after the last tree was down, but they never did. I kept finding the card for the vegetation management guy, then losing it, then finding it. The last time I found it I put it where I could pick it up easily, did so as I went out to the doc. The co-op was very apologetic, the man came out that day, and the crew arrived Thursday late-morning to do the work. They were done by 1:30 p.m., and the yard looks good. Check another item off the to-do list.

Everything above in this post I wrote over two hours ago, almost three.  I interrupted first for doing my stock market work, which is busy on Friday. Then the work crew came that is doing some siding maintenance and repair on our metal siding. Spending our stimulus money. Since I was outside lining them out, I did my yardwork, a little more than usual. Now, I’m back in The Dungeon, typing away.

I have two books to work on, but haven’t done much this week other than research, as these other tasks distracted me too much. But, really, there was one big task that was the most distracting: publishing The Teachings. Sunday (or maybe it was Monday; the days are running together) I published the e-book. I haven’t made an announcement as I wanted to get the print book published then start promoting it. But, the cover designer, who did a super job on the e-book cover, is busy with her college work and is a little delayed. That’s no fault on her; sometimes the timing of a project isn’t good.

Not bad as a placeholder. Just waiting on Amazon’s human review. It already passed the automatic review.

I decided I would try to pull it together, using the e-book cover and using G.I.M.P. Readers of this blog know that I hate G.I.M.P. Yesterday morning I decided I would just knuckle down and get it done, and I did. Today I uploaded the interior file and the cover. Amazon accepted them for human review without any problems—meaning I must have figured out the mechanics of using G.I.M.P. for creating print covers—and now I wait. My cover is a placeholder. When the cover designer’s schedule frees-up, I’ll have her do the real one. Meanwhile, the book will be available both as an e-book and print book.

So here it is, 12:17 p.m., and I’m finally coming to the end of this post. Maybe next week will have fewer things on the to-do-list. You think?

Christianity, The Teachings, Writing

What to Write Next?

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Dateline 15 April 2021

Now that I have four consecutive books in my Church History novels series, the cover designer I’m working with has come up with a theme for the series. I like what she’s done.

The Teachings is done! The e-book is published; the print book is formatted; I await only the cover (which is being produced) in order to upload the print book. Once I have both up, I will make a formal announcement here, on Facebook, and to my small e-mail list.

So, the question to ask is “What do I write next?”

The answer is sort of easy. I have the church 100th Anniversary book to write. I’ve been working on it, with good progress. I’m at 12,306 words. I had thought it would be around a 14,000 word book, but I’m no where near the end. Now it looks like 20,000 to 25,000 words. I’m at the point with this book where I am starting to interview people about family members in the church long ago. My goal is to put a couple of paragraphs about perhaps two-dozen families.  I’ve only done two of those families so far, so I’ve got a lot of work yet to do. In fact, today I hope to contact two of those families and perhaps do the interviews. Yes, this book will be my primary focus for a while.

Research for the church anniversary book is almost like doing genealogy. I’ve been amazed at the footprints I’ve found for the founding families of the church.

But what next? What of my own writing? As I wrote before, I have several paths I could go down.

  • The next volume in the Documenting America series. This will be Run-up to Revolution, and will cover the 15 years or so before the Revolutionary War. I’m reading for research now but finding it hard going.
  • The next short story in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series. This will be about Carter Burns investigating Sharon’s role—if any—in the Qatif uprisings in Saudi Arabia in 1979. Not a well known incident, but I heard about it when I was in Saudi in 1981-83.
  • A totally new work, a new series, a new genre (oh, no, not Genre Focus Disorder coming up again). Tentatively titled the Forest Throne series, it is a sort of time travel book for young boys. My oldest grandson and I have been talking about this ever since, maybe four years ago, we found a land feature in the hollow behind our house that looks like a seat indented into the hillside. It’s probable the root hole from a tree that fell over, but the tree is long gone and only the root hole remains. This is what my grandson wants me to work on next.
  • While I’ve been proofreading The Teachings and getting it ready for publication, I’ve also been working on a Bible study. It’s a little different from the one I did before, almost more of a commentary/devotional type book. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I’ll keep poking away at it as the Spirit moves me, but, in truth, I don’t know if it’s a viable project or not.
  • And, I could actually go on to the next book in my Church History Novels series. I have the basic outline of the plot, the characters, and what I want to accomplish with it. This is not likely to be next, as I think I need a break from this series.

So, that’s five possibilities, or six including the anniversary book.  That’s not by any means exhaustive of what has been on my writing mind of late.  Somehow I have to narrow that down and begin writing something. I’ll let you all know what that is once I decide.

The Teachings

Figures for “The Teachings” e-book

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Amazon KDP won’t allow the maps and figure in the e-book version, so I will post them here, and put a link to this page in the e-book. At the end of Chapter 36, Adam draws this symbol:

What Adam drew at the end of Chapter 36

 

 

 

 

The land of Israel during the events of The Teachings

 

The eastern Mediterranean world during the events of The Teaching.

 

Documenting America, self-publishing, The Teachings, Writing

March Writing Progress; April Goals

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I accomplished less writing tasks in March than I hoped for. That’s because of making two trips to West Texas, one to pick up the grandkids, bringing them here for a week, and one to bring them back.

  1. Make one more editing pass through The Teachings, and decide if it is ready for publishing. Get my ideas for the cover to the designer and get things rolling on that. This is done! I make another full pass through the book, reading it aloud to my wife. The edits are done. I also got my ideas to the designer, Sophie, and she has made the cover, made into a theme for the series as a whole. That is no longer a hold-up.
  2. Make major progress in the church 100th anniversary book. I’d like to be close to 15,000 words by the end of the month. That depends, however, on getting into the library for research, or having a librarian help me. I definitely made progress, though I fell short of my word goal. I’m sitting a little under 9,000 words. I did hear back from the librarian, though she didn’t have much to tell me due to the poor quality of the microfilms she had to work with.
  3. Read for research in the next Documenting America book, including taking notes. Begin to sketch an outline of the Table Of Contents. I read for this research only one day. Too many other things to work on.
  4. Continue with my current Bible study project and see if it’s something I should turn into a writing project with the intent on publishing. Again, I think I only worked on this one day. My goals were much larger than my capacity.
  5. Get my personal bibliography up to date for current works. This should be doable. In fact, I may go work on it as soon as I finish this blog post. I didn’t work on this much before the mid-month time crunch came, but I think I got this done. I will have to pull up the bibliography and see. If needed, I’ll come back and edit this.
  6. Blog twice a week. That may be interrupted if we bring the grandkids back here for spring break. I missed three regular blogging days, as I said in a post this month, due to grandparent responsibility.

So, March was a mixed bag. Time to now set some goals for April.

  1. Publish The Teachings. All that are left are various publishing tasks, including: e-book TOC; adding two maps, one of which needs modification; writing the back cover copy; writing the Amazon page text; formatting the print book (well, the e-book too, which is far easier); and uploading to Amazon. I think this is very doable.
  2. Republish the three earlier church history novels with new covers and list of my works. One of the covers is ready. Hopefully the other two will be soon.
  3. Expand the church anniversary book to at least 15,000 words and hopefully 20,000 words.
  4. Blog twice a week. It’s doable. No travel planned this month.
  5. Do some research on the next Documenting America volume. I won’t commit to how much, but I have to get going on it.
  6. Look again at the Bible study I was working on in February and early March, and decide if that is going to be my next book or if something else is.

That’s all I can see to add right now. I’ll check back in on April 30 or May 3 and let you know how I did.

miscellaneous, The Teachings, Writing

The View From The Dungeon

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Clouds have obscured the bright sun disk of early morning.

The windows in The Dungeon face east, and that’s the direction I face when sitting and working at my computer. On sunny days like today I will be greeted by the sun. Since we are not far from solstice, the sun, as it frees itself from the horizon, comes blazing through the windows into my eyes. I have to adjust myself in the chair, lean a little to the left, so that the sun is blocked. Otherwise, I’m sure my eyes would become painful and eventually I’d go blind. Oh, the windows have blinds, long vertical slats that go to the floor (well below the window bottoms), but the tangle of computer cords causes the slats to separate and allow the bright rays to come in.

This condition lasts only a few minutes. The sun rises above the cut-out at the back of the upper unit of my computer desk, and the sun no longer torments me. I can shift my torso back to upright. At some point this spring/summer the sun will rise early enough that perhaps it will already be above the critical point when I arrive in The Dungeon to start my workday. But, by then other conditions will have changed as well.

Right now, the woods behind our house are at or just past their barest point. The Bradford pears have bloomed and just leafed out. The wild dogwoods are blooming. The oaks are a couple of weeks away from their initial budding. But, the pin oak trees among them have finally lost their leaves. Yes, those pin oak leaves hold on through the winter, dropping in the early spring just before everything else starts to bud. Once the oaks do bud then leaf out, the sun will be totally blocked until it is well up above that desk cut-out. I will come to The Dungeon when it is lighter and not be bothered by the sun.

With the solar disk so bright, and with the windows so dirty, and with the slats blocking much of what would otherwise be visible, what do I see? Bare oak branches show from the nearest trees, and behind them the mass of trees on the other side of the hollow. They are, perhaps, seven hundred feet away. If I would stand up and find a good viewport through the windows I might just barely see thy walking/hiking/biking trail, in the hollow. I walk that trail a fair amount and, until the oak forest leafs out, can see our house from it.

You wonder what the point of this post is. I’m not sure I have one. Just thought I’d take a post now and then to record something of interest. The hollow behind our house is unplatted land, belonging to the POA. It is considered unbuildable due to the steep slopes. However, if hard times would come, I’m sure the POA would figure out a way to build on it and homes would spring up. Given the nature of the geology, it would have to be very hard times indeed. So, we are destined to have a wooded valley behind us for as long as we stay here.

It is now just after 10 a.m. The sun has moved higher and way around to the right. It no longer bothers me or causes me to dodge and weave to avoid looking directly at it. The eastern sky, what little I can see of it, appears cloudy. The tree trunks at the edge of the forest aren’t bright. It would appear that cloudy conditions are developing.

The day is starting to drag. I’ve been looking for maps to illustrate my novel and am having trouble finding suitable ones. Before much more looking passes I’ll just break down and draw my own.  My cold is better, but I think I need one more day before I resume walking. Friday is April 2, Good Friday. It will be the day for me to post my progress and plans for the month. I’ll see you all then.

C.S. Lewis, Christianity, family, Genealogy, The Teachings, travel, Writing

Hunkering Down

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[Note to self: Don’t hit the browser back button when typing a post if you haven’t hit “save draft”. Maybe the second time will be a charm.]

This is looking up the street from our house on Thursday 2/11. It is sanded (actually gritted). I believe I could get up it if I tried.

I’m looking out The Dungeon windows to a light snowfall. It’s just condensation due to the cold, 14°F. We were supposed to be in Texas this weekend, watching the grandkids while their parents were at a church event. Wednesday last was our departure day. But we woke up to a winter glaze on the roads, a freakish ice storm overnight. It had been predicted then removed from the forecast. After a quick survey of the situation, I postponed the trip a day.

If not, perhaps I could get down the hill then loop around the circle and go up the next street which, last time I checked, was free of ice.

I spent time chopping and clearing ice, spreading rock salt and sand. I was able to get the already-loaded van up to the end of the driveway. Once the City truck came by spreading grit on the road, I probably could have made it up the hill. But reports on conditions elsewhere indicated the trip would be difficult. Thursday morning was not much different. Radar showed light, frozen precipitation along our route. I delayed the trip from morning to afternoon. By noon it was clear things were no better. Reports of accidents along our route said it all. I cancelled the trip.

So were are unexpectedly home. The forecast now calls for 6-10″ of snow Sunday-Monday, with temperatures like we have now or lower. After a trip to Wal-Mart today (hopefully) for fresh items, we will hunker down. I made a large pot of soup yesterday. We have enough frozen, canned, and boxed food to get by a long time should the W-M run not be possible. I plan to write in the church anniversary book. I plan to begin the editing process in The Teachings. I will read C.S. Lewis and other things. On Sunday I will teach Life Group from home. And I will walk outside a little but get my main exercise on the elliptical. I might even get a little genealogy research done.

I realize that the last paragraph is all about me. “I plan…I will…” Obviously I will do that only by the grace of God and the strength and abilities He has given me and continues to give me.

Oh, in the last half-hour we learned that the church event have been postponed due to…weather.

Church History Novels, Documenting America, self-publishing, The Teachings, Writing

February 2021 Writing Plans

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Dateline: 4 February 2021

As I said in my last post, which re-capped the writing I did in January, my next post would be about writing goals for February. On Monday I thought I might write that post the next day and have an extra post this week. Alas, that didn’t happen. But I’m here now.

What are my writing goals for February? I haven’t written them anywhere (something I sometimes do), so today I’m making this up as I go along.

  1. Continue to work on The Teachings. At the rate I’m writing now, I should write “the end” somewhere around Feb 15. That depends a lot on life circumstances. We will be babysitting grandchildren during part of this time, and traveling two days, so that time may slip. A lot depends on how much I manage to get done today.
  2. Continue to work on the 100th Anniversary book for my church. I’ve made a start with the book somewhat planned out and the writing started, now sitting at 1,675 word heading towards 20,000 words, maybe a little longer. Last night I did some research into one item—actually a person—that I felt needed expanding in the book. I found what I needed. I don’t have any real deadline for this book, but I would like to have it fairly well finished by July. Still much research to do, especially of photos for illustrations.
  3. Get back to research into my next Documenting America book. I call this Run-up To Revolution. It’s about the period before the outbreak of fighting in 1775, so say from 1761-1775. I read for research before, but not a whole lot. I don’t know if this will be the next book I work on or not. A lot will depend on this research.
  4. Continue to blog twice a week. Very doable.
  5. Continue to work on my bibliography. I started this some time ago, maybe three or four years, after I found joy working on a chronological bibliography for Thomas Carlyle’s writings. Every now and then I open it and add a few more things to it. I did that last week and early this week. I plan on keeping up-to-date with blog posts and other writing endeavors. This is a “don’t have to do it” task, but it is becoming a labor of love. Perhaps no one will ever really care about the vast number of items I’ve written, but I plan to leave a comprehensive bibliography behind just in case someone does.
  6. This is more publishing than writing related: Begin to improve my books to try to 1) get more reviews and 2) improve the click through and purchasing rates on my ads. I’m aware of several small-ish things I can do to make that happen. Or at least do to try to make that happen. I’ll start with the two books currently advertised, then do the others in their series, then branch out to others. For February, I will plan on doing the ones advertised.
  7. Advertise one more book. I’m thinking it will be Acts Of Faith, but we shall see.

I think that’s it. I have no plans to work on letter transcriptions, or write any essays, or political essays. It’s getting into tax season and, right after this babysitting gig, I’ll have to take some time for that. Corresponds well with completion of the first draft of The Teachings.

home improvements, self-publishing, The Teachings, Writing

Staying Busy

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Here it is Monday morning, about 8:45 a.m. I have set myself a schedule to have my blogs posts up by 7:30 a.m., so I missed it. Sometimes I write my posts ahead and schedule them to post at that time on Monday or Friday. Last night, however, I got busy doing other things and, well, here it is late Monday morning and no blog post.

I’m not quite ready with a couple of different posts, one a book review, another part 2 of a prior post. So I’ll just say I’m staying busy. Writing and marketing of my books are taking a lot of time. I’ve been trying to write 1,500 words a day on The Teachings, and, except for weekend, I’ve been successful at that. I’ve also been involved with an on-line “school” for doing Amazon ads. I blew off a lot of the classes since this is the third time I’ve taken the school, but I’m looking at some of them, including this morning. I won’t do a lot with it this time, but I’ll do some new ads on a different book.

Well, while I was typing my rheumatologist’s office called. My appointment last week was cancelled for the doc’s convenience and couldn’t schedule me until April, which was okay with me. They called now to say they had two different times today, one this morning, one this afternoon. I was about to take the afternoon one when I checked my calendar and saw I have out pest control service scheduled for today. I totally forgot about that. So, I’ll have to spend time getting ready for that.

My listings at FB Marketplace are continuing to generate interest. I had people come by to look at books several times this week, including yesterday. That doesn’t mean our clutter is greatly reduced, but it is some. In the storeroom I have cleared off one full shelf unit and almost a second. These we will give to our daughter next time we go there (possibly in February) to replace some sagging plastic ones. The small amount of de-cluttering feels really, really good. The work ahead is massive, but progress feels good.

So here I am with a post for today. It’s breakfast time. I made two stock trades, which is all I’ll do today. Small trades: low risk, not much money involved, which are the type I like. It’s time for breakfast, then to finish that class I interrupted, then get on with my writing for the day, then get ready for the bug man. All in a day’s work.