Category Archives: critique group

Bible study, Church History Novels, critique group, family, Writing

Ideas and Grandchildren

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The scene at the Dodge dealership in Snyder. Ezra is in the middle of the photo.

I stated in my last post that I wasn’t getting much writing done, due mainly to the snow days and the grandchildren being home. And I was okay with that. But, in the three days after the snow days, I have’t done much.

I had sent the first five pages of The Teachings to my critique group, Scribblers & Scribes of Bella Vista. I received one review back, and went over that carefully, incorporating many of the comments. Alas, I didn’t add any new material. I found a little time (maybe 30 minutes) to re-read some of the source material, which will help me down the road.

Leaders and boy scouts ran a good show on Saturday. Ezra’s car is the bright blue one.

Saturday I took #2 grandson, Ezra, to his Pinewood Derby competition in Snyder, about 50 miles away. That was a fun time. We had lunch afterwards, and Ezra commented it was lunch for second childs. Yes, it was.

This was a snazzy set-up. The display shows the result from one heat.

We walked around the neighborhood a couple of days. Yesterday, after church, Ephraim had a friend over for a visit. I found some time to sit on the front porch and read—not in the source book, but in other things I brought along on our trip. Enjoyable, but not necessarily productive for writing.

A good number from Ezra’s pack participated. All seemed to have a good time.

Yesterday, Sunday, was mainly for reading. But, as I read in the book we are currently studying in Life Group, and as I read some in a short book from 1886 about Thomas Carlyle, ideas started to come to mind. These were ideas for Bible studies to develop and write. One had been there for a while, but another came out of the blue. Actually, the thought came to me in the men’s Sunday school class yesterday, from a Bible passage we read and studied.

Ezra didn’t seem to be disappointed at not winning anything. He enjoyed being with his friends, and maybe with his grandpa.

Yesterday evening I took a few moments to write the ideas down. I didn’t take time to flesh them out. That may be an activity for later today or tomorrow. I also listed other Bible studies I’m thinking of. I have about six I’ve developed and taught but never written out in book form, and, in addition to the two added yesterday, I have six others I want to develop. I won’t give any of those here. That will wait on a future post.

So, in a way, this was writing productivity. One of my goals for this month is to decide on the next Bible study to write. Last night’s exercise will help me achieve that goal.

Bible study, Church History Novels, critique group, self-publishing, Sharon Williams short stories, The Teachings, Writing

January 2020 Writing Goals

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I’m still working on my annual goals for 2020. I’m just not sure of what I’m going to attempt this year. So, I’m going to start on goals for January. That’s a short enough time frame I should be able to project 30 days ahead. Here are my goals.

  1. Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday. I’ve been fairly successful blogging at this rate, and feel confident I can achieve this.
  2. Finish producing a book for a writing friend. This project is well along. I might finish it today; if not, it should only be a day or two from now.
  3. Edit my short story “Tango Delta Foxtrot”. The story is finished, and I’m in the editing process. My critique group hasn’t particularly liked the plot, but I don’t know how to change it. Whether I can accomplish this in January is a little iffy.
  4. Attend writing group meetings as much as possible. My travel schedule may make it impossible to attend one, but hopefully I’ll be at the other.
  5. Start my next book, tentatively titled The Teachings. This will be book 3 in my church history novels series. I plan on starting this later this week. Writing will take several months.
  6. Finish a proof-reading of Acts Of Faith and republish a corrected version. I’ve proofread about a third of it and found more errors than I like.
  7. Create a PDF version of Acts Of Faith: Leader’s Guide in 8.5×11 inch format. This is a brief task that should be no problem to complete.

I think this is enough. I’m writing this Friday evening to post on Monday morning. It’s possible I’ll add an item or two.

Adam Of Jerusalem, Bible study, Church History Novels, critique group, self-publishing, Sharon Williams short stories, The Teachings, Writing

Looking Back as the New Year Starts

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The writing of this book was finished in December 2018. Editing took some time, and I didn’t publish it till May 2019.

One year ago I entered the world of retirees. It was unchartered territory for me. I knew I had more than enough interests to stay busy, but how would I structure my days? What would I accomplish? Would it be more or less than I wanted to do? How would writing and stock trading and property upkeep and a dozen other things vie for my time?

At that time, in January 2019, I did not write a blog post about writing goals. It was all too new. I didn’t know what I could accomplish in my writing. I had recently completed the first draft of Adam Of Jerusalem and I was letting it simmer while the Christmas busyness was in progress. So that would be on the table early in the new year. But what else would I accomplish?

I think I will start this year on An Arrow Through The Air by three posts about goals. First will be what I accomplished last month, then will be a look-back at the whole year, then will be a look-ahead to 2020 and what I hope to accomplish. I’m still thinking about the new year, so this schedule will give me time to think some more.

I last posted about goals at the end of October, for November. Not sure why I didn’t do a December goals post. Here’s what I said for November, and how well I did on them over a two-month period.

  1. As always, blog twice a week on Monday and Friday. I may have to write some ahead and schedule their posting. I did fairly well on this. Some of them I did write ahead of time for later posting. I missed one day in each month.
  2. Attend writing groups. One group is considering adding a second meeting in the month, so it might be three instead of two meetings total for the two groups. I attended every meeting available. One was cancelled. Another was a time to wrap books as Christmas presents to go to a middle school. It was a fun time.
  3. Finish Tango Delta Foxtrot. I think this is about two hours of writing. Surely I can do that. I finished this, and gave it to my critique group (Scribblers and Scribes of Bella Vista). Waiting on a full range of critiques, but initial response, but for installments and for the full document isn’t good.
  4. Finish reading in two books that are research for The Teachings. This is quite doable. I’m not reading all of Josephus—just enough to know about a certain action in Jerusalem at the beginning of the war in 66 a.d. Yes, I got this done. From Josephus I have selected the dates and locations for certain scenes. From the other book I have a good idea of the composition of The Didache. From the two I’ve made an outline.  When I sit down to work on it, probably next week, I hope it starts to flow.
  5. Finish the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith. This should be doable, in the original concept only. I’ll be working toward publishing it in December, most likely as an e-book only. Another thing finished. I received some feedback about potential changes that would have taken time, but decided not to make them. For now this is an e-book, but I’m planning on making a PDF in 8.5×11 format to give to people who ask.

So, two months of reasonably good accomplishment. Hopefully this will continue into January 2020.

Bible study, critique group, Doctor Luke's Assistant, self-publishing, Sharon Williams short stories, Writing

Publishing and Writing Side-by-Side

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The e-book cover for this was easy. At present I’m not planning on issuing a print book.

Well, I missed another blogging day. Yes, I missed last Friday. That’s two Fridays in a row. I tell you, miss it once and it can become a habit. I’ll break that habit this coming Friday.

For now, I’ll just tell a little of my current activities.

Today is the day to publish the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith. I made the cover on Friday, finished the editing on Saturday, made one minor tweak yesterday, and let it sit for the night. As soon as I finish this I’ll go to Amazon KDP and do the publishing tasks. Hopefully it will be available for sale before the end of the day, though perhaps tomorrow.

I’ll make the cover for the print edition of the prequel of this look much the same. Delete “Again” and change the photo.

Then, tomorrow I’ll work on my friend Bessie’s book. I did her second book for her earlier this year. Her first book, however, is available from the publisher only as an e-book. She has people in the church who want a copy. At my prompting, she obtained a license from the publisher to make do a print book edition of her own. I have already gone through the text for errors. I think I built the Table of Content, but will check on that. The cover will follow the lines of the last book and should be simple—except print book covers are never simple for me. Publishing it may not be doable on one day.

Salzburg and environs are so nice, with quaint things to see and do—but not when you’re following Sharon Williams Fonseca.

After that, I shift to writing tasks. My short story, “Tango Delta Foxtrot”. It’s now at 5,300 words and is well along with the story. I don’t have a specific word goal, and I didn’t plan out the plot. To keep it from getting boring I need to wrap it up. I may work on that some in the evenings. I did so yesterday evening, incorporating comments from my critique group. I’m not finished yet with that, so may make working through those comments my evening task for a few days. Wednesday or Thursday I hope to be adding words to the story.

Meanwhile, I sold a couple of copies of Acts Of Faith at church yesterday, and last Friday a paperback copy of Doctor Luke’s Assistant sold at Amazon. That bring my sales for the year up to 131, my second-best year so far. About 75 of those are self-sales of books from inventory, and 69 are of books I published this year. That’s good news. I hope to continue the up-trend next year.

book reviews, C.S. Lewis, critique group

Book Review: The Oxford Inklings – revisited

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Read it in 2014-15 and gave it 5 stars; re-read it in 2019 and haven’t changed my mind.

Four years ago I read The Oxford Inklings and posted a review of it. I put this book on the shelf and forgot about it. Forgot that I even had read it, though in the back of my mind I knew I had that book somewhere in my library.

Lately, with my interest in C.S. Lewis enhanced—not that I ever lot interest in him, but from time to time it bubbles to the top of my thoughts and I have to read a book by or about him. Well, after having trouble a while back trying to find something from a Lewis book to go into Acts Of Faith, I realized I needed to consolidate my Lewis books into one place. As I was doing that, almost accidentally I saw The Oxford Inklings hiding in a place I never would have expected it. I looked at it and couldn’t tell if it had ever been read. So I took it up to the sun room and decided I would read it right away.

I remembered a story late in the book, or thought I did. If I get to that part and that story is in there I would know I had indeed read this. Rather than look ahead and try to find that, I decided to just read it straight through and wait until I came.

As I read the book, it seemed new to me. Although I thought I had read it before, reading it now I felt like it was a new book. Had I read it or not? I found it gave me good information. I was about to say no, I hadn’t read it before. As I got close to the end, it began to feel familiar.

At last I came to the period that described Lewis’ declining health, and there was the scene I remembered. Yes, I had read it. Obviously I hadn’t retained it as much as I should have.

I see I gave the book 5 stars before. I stand by that. It does a good job of describing the Inklings and how the group revolved around Lewis more than the others. Members came and went. The three with the most time in the group were Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Lewis’ brother Warren. Others were there for a few years, or for a longer time but not attending each time they met. A few didn’t write and were there just to critique.

We aren’t the Inklings yet, but we are helping each other improve and move our writing forward.

Their goal was to make their writing better. They read works and received criticism on the spot. Back then easy means of printing and copying weren’t available, so their criticism was through listening and commenting. How different it is now. Our writing group, Scribblers and Scribes of Bella Vista, has the advantage of receiving works ahead of time and taking time to read and make comments in writing. We also read and comment at our monthly meetings (soon to be twice a month), but typically have copies of what others are reading.

But, I must go back to the book and close. If you’re interested in C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, their books, their circles, how writers go about their business, this is an excellent read. I highly recommend it—again.

Church History Novels, critique group, goals, Sharon Williams short stories

October Accomplishments; November Goals

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It’s Friday, so a regular posting day. And, it’s the first of the month; time to blog about achievements and goals. Here are the goals I set at the beginning of October, and how I did on them.

  1. Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Almost made this. I missed last Monday.
  2. Finish the short story “Tango Delta Foxtrot” and come close to finishing the editing process. Shared the first scene with my writing group, for critique later. Didn’t work on this at all. Other writing wound up taking precedent.
  3. Attend writing groups on the 9th and 16th. Yup, did this. I enjoy going to my writing groups.
  4. Finish the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith. As of this morning I’m a little more than halfway done with it. This is doable, though might be a stretch. If I get it written, publishing will be in another month. I am very close on this. I think it’s just a chapter and a half of new writing to do, then go back and format it for e-book. I had a snag thrown at me on this, concerning how much I need to write about the second part of each chapter. My thoughts right now are to finish it as intended, then perhaps go back later and expand it.
  5. Issue my first newsletter. It may be shorter than I want, and may not have as many items as I planned, and for sure won’t have a lot of subscribers, but, hopefully, it will go out. I did not do this. I’m not sure why I hesitate, but I do.
  6. Continue an aggressive reading program, at least an hour a day. I’m in the midst of two books, one in print and one e-book. I should finish both and start one or two more. Yes, I continued this reading program, and perhaps expanded it a little. Some of it is for research on my next church history novel.

So, all it all October wasn’t a particularly good month for achieving goals.  I’ll try again in November, though with much family coming for Thanksgiving, achieving any goals may be difficult.

  1. As always, blog twice a week on Monday and Friday. I may have to write some ahead and schedule their posting.
  2. Attend writing groups. One group is considering adding a second meeting in the month, so it might be three instead of two meetings total for the two groups.
  3. Finish Tango Delta Foxtrot. I think this is about two hours of writing. Surely I can do that.
  4. Finish reading in two books that are research for The Teachings. This is quite doable. I’m not reading all of Josephus—just enough to know about a certain action in Jerusalem at the beginning of the war in 66 a.d.
  5. Finish the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith. This should be doable, in the original concept only. I’ll be working toward publishing it in December, most likely as an e-book only.

I think that’s it. I may be able to accomplish a couple of other things. If so, I’ll report on them on or around December first.

Carlyle, critique group, poetry, self-publishing, Writing

Acquiring an Editor’s Eye

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MEditing Illustration 03y time in the poetry wars, as I call the days I spent at Poem Kingdom, was my first time to begin to acquire what I recently termed an “editor’s eye”. At that site I critiqued hundreds of poems, first as a participant, later as a moderator and still later as an administrator. That actually wasn’t my first time and place to do that. I had already been critiquing at Sonnet Central for a few months, and had been in a writing critique group for a couple of years.

After Poem Kingdom there was Poem Train (with it’s critique forum Café Poetica), Poem 911 (which died in the whole EZ Boards hacking fiasco), and Absolute Write’s Poetry Critique Forum. In all of these I’d estimate that I critiqued somewhere around 1,000 poems. No, I don’t think I’m exaggerating. I copied off a bunch of them, but not all I’m sure, and have them in notebooks, preserved for posterity and research, should I become a famous author who someone ever wants to research.

Editing Illustration 02A thousand critiques at an average of perhaps 300 words each is 300,000 words. If anything I’m probably short with that. That’s a lot of time and effort given to critiquing. What I did was analyze the poem as a work-in-progress. Literary criticism—whatever that is exactly—was not the goal, but rather helping the poet bring the poem to a state of completion as the best poem possible for the subject matter and desires of the poet. In short, it was to be an editor. Not a cheerleader. Not a critic. But an editor.

During the years, ever since around 1998, I’ve also been in writers critique groups in real life, and one time on-line. It was the same thing: look at works in progress and consider how they might be made better in the writer’s quest for publication. These weren’t written, or at least not type-written and posted for all the world to see. A handful of us sat around a table and marked manuscripts in pen/pencil and gave oral crits. Still, it was the same type of editing, it seems to me. Sometimes I was most concerned with what is essentially proofreading. At other times it was line edits: looking at grammar and sentence structure to see how the writer’s intent can be better communicated. Still other times it was structural edits. I remember critiquing one piece at an e-mail critique group where the woman described a character as timid. Then she had the girl go up to a fellow student she knew of but didn’t know and offer help to her. It was completely out of character. I pointed that out; I’d call it a structural edit. Still other times I’d do a big picture edit, such as is the plot interesting? Are there holes or conflicts in the plot? Those kinds of things. Different types of edits as the situation arose.

Now I’m editing my next publishing project, a book titled Thomas Carlyle’s Edinburgh Encyclopedia Articles. These are public domain articles that I found in five different places, plus a few notes that others have written about them (explanatory notes, not critique). I know I’ve written about this project before. These twenty-one articles have never been gathered before, so I decided to do so and add it to the Carlyle bibliography. I pulled the publisher’s note and editor’s introduction from the 1897 re-printing of sixteen of them, and pulled some references to them that Carlyle made in his own letters. But I knew I needed to write an introduction of my own. So I did. Last night I sent the much-critiqued Intro to my critique group, which meets next Tuesday. We’ll see what they say.

Editing Illustration 01But I’ve had other things to do as well, things that an editor would do. Such trivial things as deciding how much info to give about each article. How the text should appear on the page. Whether to break up long paragraphs (I didn’t), whether to modernize archaic punctuation techniques (I did). How to make lists and tables work best in modern typesetting and e-book formats. I suppose some of this is book production, but it feels like editing to me.

So through all of this I’ve been acquiring my editor’s eye. They (that is, various experts and claimed-to-be experts) advise that one who self publishes should hire an editor before ever publishing their works. I think that’s good advice, in general, but a very expensive practice. Simple line editing for an average length probably costs $300 dollars. Add proofreading, structural edit, and big picture edit, and you will have a large editing bill. I don’t know about others, but I don’t have $500 or $1000 to pay for editing. Therefore I just have to do the best job of producing the book with the skills I have.

So maybe all my editing work through the years, even that from before I realized I was editing, is helping me with my self publishing. I’d like to think so.

critique group, Danny Tompkins Short Stories

A Teenager Watches His Father Grieve

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I’ve read “Mom’s Letter” to three different critique groups. Well, I actually read it to two; I sent it by e-mail to the third one and let them critique it in the next meeting. Actually, in the two groups where I read it, I broke down crying mid way through, and someone else had to finish it for me. Oh, I also shared it with an on-line critique group when I first wrote it, back around 2004.

One reaction I received from each of these four groups is the lack of feeling from the father—my father. While not all parts of the short story are true, the ride home from scout camp is, as close to word for word as I can make it. One item of fiction at that point: I didn’t do the mile swim at camp that year. I matured late as a swimmer, and think I was 18 before I could swim a mile.

Back to Dad. People don’t like how he broke the news to me that Mom was on her death-bed in the hospital. They things like, “I want to smack him in the head.” “Oh, what a cruel, unfeeling man!” Funny, though, I didn’t intend to portray him that way, nor did he seem that way to me at the time. I asked when Mom was getting out of the hospital, and he said, “You don’t understand. She’ not getting out this time.”

The on-line crit group said I simply had to make a change, to give the dad some greater degree of feeling. I wasn’t sure why I had to do this. As a thirteen year old, I didn’t find dad unfeeling. He spoke to me directly, expressing surprise that I hadn’t noticed all summer that Mom was dying. I felt that the fault was mine. Possibly I was self-absorbed. Possibly I was subconsciously ignoring the obvious. Whatever the reason, I hadn’t seen it, and Dad was surprised at that.

I suppose readers fault him for not having told his son before that what was happening. Why he didn’t I don’t know, but no such conversation took place before that ride in the car.

Looking back on that, close to 47 years later, I think I must have understood that Dad was grieving too, but that he had to stay strong for the sake of his three children. One scene from the short story that’s true is Dad laying on the couch in the living room that Mom used to lie on, and pound the wall in anguish, the wall Mom used to pound in pain, and say, “Why did you have to die, Dotty? Why?” That went on for a couple of weeks.

Yet, he never broke down, never showed any weakness. Grief, yes; but weakness, no. Of course, he had known what was happening. For years he knew her days were numbered, then for months he knew the end was near. I think he did a lot of grieving before she died.

As I said in my last post, maybe this short story will help someone else out in their grieving process. Maybe they will understand what their surviving parent is going through. If so, “Mom’s Letter” will have accomplished something.

critique group

Writers Group Tonight

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After a four-week holiday hiatus, the BNC Writers will meet again tonight. I’m looking forward to it. I need the fellowship of other writers. I have been much engaged with writers during this time, but on-line. I have come to know a couple of them well. And I joined and became active in the on-line counterpart to Ozark Writers League, though I’ve never been to a real life meeting of theirs. Maybe I’ll make one in 2012.

There’s nothing like a meeting of writers to get the creative juices flowing. I always come home from them thinking how great it would be not to have to eat or sleep, but rather just go to the computer and type new works, edit draft ones, publish completed ones, market published ones. Even research is an enjoyable task, with heightened interest after meeting with writers.

We are likely to be a small group tonight. I know of two regulars who can’t come. I haven’t heard anything from the other three regulars, so don’t know if they will be there or not. I also hope to have one new member there tonight. She’s on our mailing list, and would have been there last meeting except for missing the meeting announcement and learning about the meeting too late to attend.

Tonight we will have somewhere between 1 and 5 people there, I think, with three being most likely. That will be enough for meaningful fellowship and for critiques. If it’s just one—meaning me—I’ll be disappointed, I confess. I’ll stay till almost 7:00 PM and work on my next Buildipedia article in manuscript form, then head to the house. It will be an empty house since I am batching it again, my beloved having made the trip west to help out with the grandkids.

So, in an hour it will be off to the unknown fellowship, with a stop on the way at the Bentonville Public Library to see if I can find Documenting America in the electronic card catalogue and on the shelf, or perhaps checked out. Whatever happens, it will be a good evening.

critique group, Engineering, flood studies

A Calm Place in the Whirlwind

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Life is busy. At my engineering day job, it seems like no task gets closed, yet many more get open. I can’t quite get my current floodplain project to work. The lateral structure I entered, as a way to simulate an overflow pipe, needs to be revised, and I haven’t yet figured out how to revise it to make it correct. Or rather, I believe I know what needs to be done and how to do it, but time to do it hasn’t materialized. I figured it out at the end of the day yesterday, but today so far has been fully consumed in…

…teaching a class at my company, and preparing for it. I haven’t done a class in at least three months, due to busy-ness, and several people have been saying they needed professional development hours. So I decided to teach a class titled “Five Important Construction Items Often Overlooked During Design”. Creating the PowerPoint presentation to go with it took all morning—or all least all of the morning that I didn’t let myself get distracted with a couple of personal things. Even half my lunch hour went to that. I didn’t actually prepare what remarks I was going to say. I just talked an hour from the PowerPoint, using my many years of construction engineering experience. From the comments of attendees, I did pretty good. Add this to my list of classes for listing on a resume or on a website, if I ever get one built.

Back at my desk after teaching, I talked with my wife. It seems I am to go to the next town over after work and purchase a used jungle gym to give to our grandson Ephraim on is third birthday in two weeks. That’s if the one called ahead of her doesn’t take it. We are second in line. Hopefully we’ll get it. Sounds like a good bargain. But, it does take away time I could have used on something else.

My writing efforts right now are fully consumed with the John Wesley small group study. One chapter done, another half done, the outline finished—except today I realized I had left out a major part of his writings, the many hymns he wrote, and the many of his brother’s he published. How can I leave those out? I can’t, so I will have to insert another chapter (I think I’m up to 22 now), figuring out the best place for it to go. The pressure to have the study ready around September 1 is off, as I believe the church is going to do another all-church series. I might not need it finished until December or January. That would be nice. I might be able to work on volume 2 of Documenting America. I’m still inching toward e-self-publishing volume 1, maybe in less than a week. It looks as if I’ll have to do that without any beta reader comments, as no one has gotten back with me. I think I ran four or five of the chapters through my previous writing groups, though they were shorter at the time.

So where, you ask, is this calm place in the midst of life’s whirlwind? It was last night, from 6:00 to 7:30 PM at the Bentonville Public Library, as we held the second meeting of the BNC Writers group. The previous meeting was to organize; last night was for critique. The same four of us met. Four others who want to attend couldn’t because of illness or other unspecified reasons. About the time some would be traveling here the sky opened up with another round of rain, which probably contributed some to keeping people home.

But the four of us who met had a great time. Last meeting I had given them copies of my short story, “Mom’s Letter”, not for critique, but just as a sample of my writing. But they came back with some critique, and I will consider it. It’s already for sale on Kindle, but I can easily make changes and re-upload it if necessary. As group leader, I chose the order of presentation. The three ladies went first. Brenda shared a short story based on a dream she had. Joyce shared the first chapter of a novel she has just begun. Bessie shared a non-fiction story from her years on the mission field in Papua New Guinea. I know that was her first formal writing, and first time sharing writing in a critique group. I think it was also Joyce’s first time. She had been involved in the writing process before, helping writers through critique and editing, but I think she is just beginning her writing efforts.

We had a great time with the critiques. Our procedure is for each person to have copies enough to pass around, then for the author to read their work while the others follow along and make notes. We then discuss the work, making suggestions, asking questions. In the end we give the author the copy we have marked on. The author can respond to comments, sometimes indicating what their intent was, but always accepting critique with graciousness and thick skin.

Alas, we ran out of time, and I wasn’t able to present the Introduction and first chapter of Documenting America. Maybe next time. I did receive the crit on “Mom’s Letter”, so it’s not as if I was left out. We will meet again in two weeks, probably at the church this time, which will allow us a full two hours, not limited to the library’s allowed schedule for conference room use.

I left the group and went home, to evening storms (outside and inside), a checkbook that wouldn’t balance, a pile of mail to go through, and no time to write, very little to read. But that was okay. A momentary respite out of the whirlwind was sufficient for the day.