Category Archives: Doctor Luke’s Assistant

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

Doctor Luke’s Assistant is Re-published

March 13, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

This was my first novel; but, if plans work out, it will actually be the second in the series, and "Preserve The Revelation" will be the fourth. — This was my first novel; but, if plans work out, it will actually be the second in the series, and “Preserve The Revelation” will be the fourth.

For the last month I’ve been working on re-publishing my first novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant. Actually, I’ve been working on it much longer than that. Last summer I re-read it on my Nook, marking places where I found an error or where I thought the writing could be improved. I did that in anticipation of writing and publishing a sequel to it. Just yesterday I put the finishing touches (I think) on Preserve The Revelation, and will publish it in about two weeks.

I started writing Preserve The Revelation in October, 2012, as part of a four-book trial writing period. PTR didn’t get “selected”, so I worked on other things. Until September 2016, when I picked it up again and began writing. In the summer before that, knowing PTR was coming, I re-read DLA, knowing I would want to re-publish it before publishing PTR. I finished PTR on January 14, 2017, and immediately shifted to DLA.

One of the things I wanted to do with DLA was change places to contractions. Early when I was writing it, I got advice that people back then didn’t talk in contractions, that they were much more formal than that. As a result, I wrote things such as “Let us eat” and “I will go with you tomorrow”, instead of Let’s eat, and I’ll go with you tomorrow. Did people speak and write in contractions in the 1st Century? I don’t know, but I suspect that every era has colloquial ways of shortening their speech. So, in the 1st Century, speaking in Greek or Aramaic, people would have shortened their speech and writing, as we’d say “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” As a result, the most common criticism of DLA was that it was stiff. How much did lack of contractions contribute to that? I figured quite a bit.

When I reread DLA, I found about two dozen typos, but there were hundreds if not thousands of places where contractions would lessen the stiffness of the dialog and narrative. I did search and replace for common word combinations reduced to contractions in English. As a result it shortened the book by over 1,000 words, I think closer to 2,000 words. That was a lot of searching and replacing.

I had that work done in mid-February, and shifted back to PTR for the first round of edits. Once those were done, I went back and forth between the two books. I made the print version file of DLA final, uploaded it to CreateSpace, and waited for the proof to arrive. I started a third round of edits on PTR. The two progressed simultaneously at that point. Last Friday I uploaded the print file of DLA to CreateSpace, after a couple of failed attempts that I didn’t understand, and waited for their automated system to tell me it was okay. That okay came at midnight, so this afternoon I made that my main task. Got it done around 2 p.m.

Well, that wasn’t my only main task. I had to make two last minute changes in the Kindle version. I did that, uploaded it, checked it on the on-line viewer, and saw it had a mistake. So I went through it again, this time getting it right. That was done somewhere around 3 p.m., I think. Then I typed the third round of edits in PTR, which I finished in manuscript Sunday morning (not going to church because of a lingering cold). Those were done around 5:30 p.m., at which time I exited The Dungeon to go upstairs and fix supper.

So, this weekend, while prevented from doing outside work due to my cold and to the rain-snow combination on Saturday, I made major progress on writing. I didn’t work on stocks, or filing. I did complete entries in the checkbook, which had been lost for a week. But except for that, it was all writing, and it felt good. Now, it’s on to making the Smashwords edition, and working on an almost complete short story—as well as finishing touches on PTR, of course.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, family, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

Unwinding From The Weekend

March 6, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

I’m at work, at my desk, trying to figure out how to be productive today. We spent the weekend in Oklahoma City, on a dual family event. Ezra’s birthday was March 1, and we celebrated this weekend. Elijah’s dedication was Sunday. So all four grandchildren have been dedicated to God’s care and service.

Since these were two family events, and since some people would be driving in for them but wouldn’t want to spend the night, both took place on Sunday: the dedication during the normal worship service; and the party right after at Incredible Pizza. This is 50,000 sq. ft. of mayhem. Noisy, crowded, chaos. The kids liked it, and that’s what matters. We were there a couple of years ago for Ephraim’s and Elise’s birthdays.

So today it’s back to the grind, at work and at home. I had my manuscript with me over the weekend, but only managed to look at 30 or so pages. That will be my main writing focus this week, that and re-publishing Doctor Luke’s Assistant. My proof copy should arrive this week. If it’s good, I’ll get the print and KDP and Smashwords editions republished this week.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, miscellaneous, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

Still Weary, But Will Write On

February 27, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

My last post, on Feb. 23, was written in Atlanta, Georgia. I was there for a conference, the Environmental Connection 17 conference put on by the International Erosion Control Association. For the first time in years, I didn’t submit a technical paper for presentation. So I was just an attendee, renewing old connections, making new ones, and encouraging one of our younger engineers who did present a paper, his third.

The flights out, via Dallas-Fort Worth, went well. We had a long enough layover in Dallas that it was enjoyable. We got easy transportation to the hotel. The walk from the hotel to the conference center, over two elevated walkways, was just about right. The Wednesday activities were good. Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel gave the keynote address. I went to some technical sessions on things I wasn’t familiar with, and broadened my perspectives. All was well.

But something happened on Wednesday, not at the conference, that wasn’t good. I won’t go into details here. Let’s just say it threw me for a loop. It so affected me I wasn’t able to sleep that night in the hotel. I tossed and turned, and finally got up and read. It was well after 2:00 a.m. when I finally went back to bed, though I’m not sure when I fell asleep.

The next day I made that post. I made it from my company smart phone, the first text-intensive post I’ve made from it. That was something new for me. During the day, the situations that caused me to lose sleep somewhat resolved themselves. By the end of the day, Thursday, I was doing much better emotionally. I blew off the social gatherings at the conference, went back to the hotel, and spent the rest of the day editing my novel in manuscript. I made significant progress on it.

I wish I knew why I let things affect me so. Part of the problem is that I engage in two activities that can put you on the emotional roller coaster. One is writing; the other is stock trading. Stock trading is going well this year. I’ve had a lot more winners that losers, and I’m earning at a rate that I like. Writing is also going okay, though I still get no sales. At this time I’m not ready to put money into advertising, so I’ll likely have low sales.

Once my book is ready and I publish it, I’m sure I’ll get some sales of it, and perhaps of others at the same time. Before I publish it, however, I really need to correct and re-publish Doctor Luke’s Assistant, because it comes before Preserve The Revelation in the series. I made all the corrections to the DLA master file, formatted it for print, uploaded it, and had CreateSpace check it. Alas, it had many formatting errors, all due to lack of recognition (or user error) of inserted section breaks and having the wrong page on the wrong leaf. I was working on that last weekend, but hadn’t finished it. That will be a tomorrow task.

A day-after-tomorrow task will be re-reading PTR in manuscript. I had enough edits on this round, my second round of edits, that I believe I need a third round. This will delay publishing, but I’m having that delay anyway due to the DLA problems. Alas.

One good thing did come of this trip. When I was packing Monday evening and Tuesday morning, I had to decide on what reading matter to bring with me. I have several books on Google Play and on my Nook, so I didn’t need to bring any print book. But at the last minute I stuck in the Civil War volume of the Annals of America. , just in case I wanted to read that. It’s research for my next book, whereas everything on my electronic devices is for family history, research for later books, or recreation. On the first flight I pulled out AoA and read the entire flight. I did the same on the next flight, and in the hotel room the first night. I often have trouble focusing on the entries in this book, but on this trip I didn’t. I was able to focus on each article I read, making marginalia, finding great quotes, and possibly adding to my civil war book. It was a good choice. Not sure why I could focus this time when I’ve had trouble doing so most times, but I’m glad for the result and won’t question it.

Life is an emotional rollercoaster. Sometimes I don’t handle it very well. Wednesday was one of those days. I’ve recovered (mostly), and am ready to plow ahead. Hopefully my Friday post will be an author interview. Next Monday, maybe I’ll be able to report good things about DLA and PTR.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

Round 1 is Done; Bring on Round 2

February 20, 2017 David Todd 2 Comments

The first page in the manuscript of "Preserve The Revelation", with my edits. — The first page in the manuscript of “Preserve The Revelation”, with my edits.

No, that’s not of a prize fight. That’s rounds of edits in my novel Preserve The Revelation.

Though, I’m not sure but that thinking about novel writing, or maybe any book writing, might not be better described in terms of a boxing match. In this corner is The Manuscript, in rough draft. It needs much work to be able to win the fight. It’s rough around the edges, maybe even in the middle. It has great potential, but can it be molded into a quality work?

In the other corner, is Mild-Mannered Author. He thinks he can win this fight and make Manuscript do anything he thinks it should. But does he know his characters? Does he manage conflict in a way that keeps the reader engaged and turning pages? Does he know scenes and sequels; or, if he doesn’t know that writing technique, does he intuitively grasp the principle behind it and pace the book according to it? Does he understand the Magic Paragraph, and does he space these throughout the book? Can he even find his notes from the conferences where those concepts were taught?

How many rounds will this take? For the prequel to this, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, I think I went through four rounds. That was my first novel, and should take longer to craft to perfection, right? If that took four rounds, surely this one will take only two.

I e-mailed a copy of the Word file to my next beta reader, asking him to have it back to me by March 1. I’ll print a clean copy of it tomorrow, to take with me as I travel this week. I’ll be on a plane to Atlanta on Tuesday, to attend the annual conference of the International Erosion Control Association there from Wednesday through Friday, returning home late on Friday. I’m hoping in those days to get all the way through it myself. I’ll hole up in my hotel room for three nights and read-away. With luck, I’ll have my second round of edits done and typed by the time I get comments back from my beta reader.

That means, if two rounds of edits will really be enough, I’ll have the book ready to publish some time around March 4. I’ll take three or four days to format for e-book and print, and publish them. The cover is well underway. The cover photo is chosen and approval to use received, and needed artwork on it is commissioned and will shortly begin.

There’s many a slip, but it could happen on this schedule. I’m starting to get excited.

Christianity, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

My Church History Fiction Series

January 23, 2017 David Todd 2 Comments

Kindle Cover - DLA 3 — “Doctor Luke’s Assistant” is available for most e-reader devices

My first novel—and book—was Doctor Luke’s Assistant. Begun December 2000 and finished January 2003, I intended for this to be a stand-alone book. I had a story to tell, a story that came to me as a result of years of Bible study and a couple of years of daydreaming. Never did I think I would someday try to have a writing career. I had a story to tell, nothing more.

But, as I started to shop DLA for publication, I soon learned that publishers didn’t want to publish a book. They really want to publish a writer who wants a career as a published author. That meant I had to have another book. And then another, and another, till infinity, death, or the apocalypse. I went back to brainstorming.

The next books that came to me were my first baseball novel and my poetry book. Nothing came to mind concerning a follow-up to DLA. Nothing at first, that is. Eventually the brainstorming came back to it, and I thought of another book, a sequel. Thus Preserve The Revelation was born. The idea came to me probably around 2009-2010; I don’t remember exactly. For sure it was by 2012. PTR would feature Augustus, the point-of-view character from DLA. He would be called to help the apostle John write his gospel, then later The Revelation. It would involve his sons in kind of a torch-passing event. This sequel was on my radar and in my mind for those several years. Finally the circumstances were right to write it, beginning last October and ending January 14th. It’s currently waiting for me to come back to it and edit it, then publish it.

As I thought about PTR, and the need to have a constant supply of books for the publishing mill (even though by this time I had decided to go the self-publishing route), and, as I read various documents preserved from early church history—something I do for enjoyment and edification, other possible books in the series came to me. To explain exactly what I mean by this, I need to briefly describe a little more about DLA for those who haven’t read it.

The premise behind DLA is that Luke goes to Judea to write a biography of Jesus. He hires Augustus, a Jew from a family that has given up on Judaism and embraced Roman ways, to assist in the research. The story is told from Augustus’ point of view: the research, the writing, the troubles with both Jewish and Roman authorities. In the end the gospel of Luke is written, though it’s nothing like what was originally intended.

So the story is how a lowly clerk/scribe, called an amanuensis back then, should have a big impact in telling Jesus’ story. That’s the same theme carried into PTR, with Augustus and his sons playing the same role, with similar results. As I brainstormed more books, I realized the number of documents in early Christianity, documents which survive in whole or in part, or which are referenced by just slightly later documents, is large. How large? In just the First Century and the first half of the Second Century, potentially eight to ten over and above the scripture. To the end of the Second Century might add that many more, and more and more as each century progresses. In the first four centuries I would probably have 100-200 documents to choose from.

I eventually developed a plan for the series from this. At present, the plan is for only eight books, taking it from the early New Testament era to the middle of the First Century. Here’s a list of the books in chronological order. Given that the first book is a prequel, I’m obviously not planning on writing these in that order.

Adam Of Jerusalem: Backstory for Augustus’ family. The document(s) in question will be those thought to be the sources for Matthew and Luke in writing their gospels, the Passion Narrative and “Q” (Jesus’ sayings/teachings). Time frame: 39-40 A.D. Main character: Adam, Augustus’ father. His decision to leave Judaism and embrace Roman ways will be part of the story.
Doctor Luke’s Assistant: Explained above. Time frame: 63-66 A.D. Main character: Augustus
The Sayings: The writing of the Didiche, the sayings of the apostles. Time frame: 70 A.D. Main character: Augustus
Preserve The Revelation: Explained above. Time frame: 95 A.D. Main characters: Augustus and his sons
The Corinthian Problem (tentative title): The writing of “1st Clement”, an epistle written in Rome to the church in Corinth. Time frame: about 100 A.D. Main characters: Augustus’ sons, Adam and Daniel.
Ignatius of Antioch: The story of Ignatius being marched from Antioch to Rome, to his martyrdom, and the epistles he wrote during this trip. Time frame: 111 or 112 A.D. Main character: Augustus’ son Daniel
The Heretic: The story of Marcion, a Christian of the day whose views were eventually determined to be heresy. Time frame: 140 A.D. Main character: uncertain at this time. It may be one of Augustus’ descendants, or may be another family of scribes—or both.
The Martyr: The story of Polycarp, especially his being martyred. This story will actually tie in with Preserve The Revelation. Time frame: 150 A.D. Main character: uncertain, but one of Augustus’ descendants.

Some of the dates above are approximate. I’m writing this blog post from memory of past research. Oh, and a ninth book from this era might be The Shepherd.

So eight (or nine) novels planned at the moment. One written and published; one written and awaiting publication. Four I’ve been thinking of for at least three years. And three that came to mind in the last six months. That ought to keep me busy for a while, especially when all my planned books in other genres are factored in. If I get most of these eight or nine written and published, I’ll have time enough to extend the series to the next hundred years of church history.

career, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, Headshots, Preserve The Revelation, self-publishing, Writing

2017 Writing and Publishing Plans

January 16, 2017 David Todd Leave a comment

So, as stated in my last post, 2016 was a dismal year for book sales. And, actually, I had only one new item published in 2016, plus a couple of re-dos, and one print book added to an e-book that was already out. But now it’s 2017. Time to make new plans to feed old hopes. We’re 16 days into 2017, and I’ve already made progress.

I’m going to give two lists. The first is the new material I hope to work on this year, without regards to priority. The second is a sort of to-do list for the first few months. I can’t really see beyond that right now. I’ll need to update that to-do list based on what I actually achieve. I might do that quarterly.

Here’s the first list.

Finish my novel-in-progress, Preserve The Revelation, and publish both as an e-book and in print. When the year started I was about 80 to 85% done (best guess).
Finish my non-fiction book-in-progress, Documenting America: Civil War Edition, and publish both as an e-book and in print. I believe I’m about 40% done with this.
Finish my workplace humor novella-in-progress, The Gutter Chronicles: Volume 2, and publish both as an e-book and in print. I think I’m around 30% done with this.
Write a new story in the Danny Tompkins short story series. I think this will be the last. But, then, I also thought that about the last one. I’ve put a few words on paper, but haven’t yet typed anything.
Write a new story in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series. While this series hasn’t sold, I want to stick with it for a while. I know where in the world the next story will take place, but a plot hasn’t yet come to me.
Finish Carlyle’s Chartism Through The Ages, a non-fiction work. It’s close to 80% complete, but the last 20% is going to be a killer.
Continue working on Thomas Carlyle Chronological Composition Bibliography. I’m not sure how close I am to finishing. I plan on working on it a little each morning at work. Perhaps I’ll finish it some day, perhaps not. I’m going to plod away at it for a while.

Here’s the second list. Some of these will have target dates, some won’t. The order is approximately first to last, though with plenty of overlap.

Jan 1: Begin reading for research for Documenting America: Civil War Edition. I achieved this. I’m reading a little almost every day for this.
Jan: Complete the first draft of Preserve The Revelation. I actually did this Saturday, Jan 14, at 8:10 p.m. It’s now with a beta reader while it simmers for a week or two before I tackle the edits on it. However, don’t think I’m ahead of schedule on this. My original goal was to finish it in 2016. I came close, but missed it.
Jan 31: Edit Doctor Luke’s Assistant and republish it. I re-read this in 2016 with an eye toward making edits in it. I’m ready to go with typing. This schedule should be doable.
Feb 15: Edit Preserve The Revelation once
Feb 28: Edit Preserve The Revelation again, which I hope will be the final edit.
Mar 15: Publish Preserve The Revelation. Much must be done for this to happen, some of which I’ve already set in motion.
Apr 1: Publish Headshots as a print book. I’m unclear of where I stand with this. In 2016 I edited and re-published the e-book version of this. I don’t remember how I did my edits, whether to a master file or to the e-book file. I’ll know more when I get back to this, probably early to mid-March.
Apr 2: Resume writing on Documenting America: Civil War Edition. Actually, I hope to write some on this much sooner than that. But I’ll be satisfied with not doing so until early April. My guess is I’ll have two months of writing to do on it.
Blog on a regular Monday and Friday schedule. I’ve already missed a couple of those. I’ll be satisfied if I have 40 to 50 blog posts for the year.

So, that’s my first quarter to-do list. How close I’ll come to achieving it the posts of this blog must tell. Stay tuned.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, home improvements, letters, Preserve The Revelation, reading, self-publishing, Writing

Staying Busy

September 20, 2016 David Todd Leave a comment

I’m a day late with this post. The last two months, since I established my Monday and Friday posting schedule, I normally try to write my Monday post on the weekend, or at worst on Monday morning before the start of my workday. I’ve missed a couple of times, but I’ve been doing better about regular posting.

This weekend, however, I did nothing concerning a post. By the end of Sunday I realized that, but it was too late in the day to write it. I decided I’d do it Monday. Monday came and went, and alas, I did nothing on it. Shame on me. I’ll do better going forward.

So what’s keeping me so busy that I didn’t do my blog post? On Saturday it was first work around the house, followed by writing on Preserve The Revelation. The house work included a major cleaning job on the refrigerator, thinning the blackberry vines, cutting a lot of low hanging branches, and weeding in our back yard. I also had chair set-up at church, and trips to Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Sunday was Life Group and church, followed by lunch at a community event. That put me home around 1:45 p.m. I should have written.

Instead, I began work on the print cover of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, using G.I.M.P. to assemble the graphics. As always, G.I.M.P. defeated me. I was able to create a palette the size of the cover, and add and size the front and back covers. But on the back cover I needed to hide three corporate logos. I had planned how to do this, and got two done quite easily. However, when it came to the third one, I stalled. I was using the same procedure as for the first two: cover it with an opaque layer. Only on this one I had to add text. Somehow the layer that is the back cover was deselected, and I couldn’t add the opaque circle. Without the circle, the text was meaningless. I worked more than three hours on it, and finally quit in frustration. I went back to Wal-Mart to pick up one thing I hadn’t the day before, then spent the evening reading.

Yesterday was the normal busyness of work and house. In the evening I went to The Dungeon, intending on writing. But there, on my work table, was the box of photos from our time in Kuwait, with several batches of photos out on the table. I had dug into the box last Wednesday to select some photos to scan and post on Thursday. In the box I found batches of photos not in envelopes, hence not matched with their negatives. I decided getting those photos matched was a better use of my time than writing. I don’t say that facetiously, either. Some day we’ll pass those photos on to our children, and having them properly organized is critical. It was a good use of my time—not that I finished, but I made significant progress. But by the time 9:00 p.m. came I wanted to be about my evening reading. No time to write the blog.

So here I am on Tuesday, writing Monday’s post, and it’s about nothing but why I didn’t write on Monday. But it lets my few readers know what’s going on in my world.

Since the weekend, one of my cover designers contacted me, saying he’d done work on it. We discussed it. Hopefully he’ll complete it very soon. In case not, I’ve contacted a third cover designer and am in discussions with her. Today I sent off a letter to an influencer, a seminary professor, concerning Doctor Luke’s Assistant and things he’s written that dovetail nicely with it. This is by snail mail, as the seminary doesn’t post faculty e-mails. We’ll see what comes of it.

Tonight, when the work day is through, I plan on staying about an hour after to do some research and typing on our fact internet and computer. When I get home, I have one small task to do in the yard, then I’ll heat some soup for supper, and descend to The Dungeon. No photos tonight. I need to add at least 1,000 words tonight, and 3,000 in total, before I will allow myself to return to those photos and finish that big task. I’m looking forward to it.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Preserve The Revelation, self-publishing, Writing

What’s Next?

August 29, 2016 David Todd Leave a comment

So, yesterday I finished the short story “Hotel Whiskey Papa”. It’s 5,839 words, though that could change in the final edit, which will start tomorrow and take only a day or two, I think, and then I will publish it. That is, if I can get the cover made with no trouble. That will give me four stories in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series of stories:

Whiskey Zebra Tango: set in Cranston, Rhode Island
Charley Delta Delta: set in Greece
Sierra Kilo Bravo: set in Italy and Switzerland
Hotel Whiskey Papa: set in Austria, mostly Salzburg

As far as how many there will be in the series, I have no idea. The number of places I’ve visited give me enough fodder for 50 to 60 stories, if I can get enough ideas to wrap around the locales. That will be a good series. I’m hoping the fact that I’ve been to the places that I will put Sharon and her antagonists in will add authenticity.

Conventional wisdom says I should continue with this series and whip out several more fairly quickly. I’d like to do that, and I may change my mind and do at least one more next. But the fact is that coming up with C.I.A. operations that work as short stories and involve Sharon and seem like they will be interesting has been more difficult than I expected. The inspiration for “Hotel Whiskey Papa” came slowly. It was ten months after I published “Sierra Kilo Bravo” before inspiration came for HWP; and HWP will be published almost a year after SKB. At present I have no inspiration for the next, though I believe I have the title an setting: Tango Delta Foxtrot, set in Paris, France. But I’ve sort of wrote myself into a corner with this last one, and I’m not sure how the next one will flow. So, for now, I’m not going to rush into the next one. Besides, when did I ever follow conventional wisdom regarding what would be best to write next?

No, when I finish editing HWP, the next thing I do will be to edit chapter one of Preserve The Revelation, and start on Chapter 2. I have a little research to do, so I may do that before plunging into the writing.

But that’s my project. It will be good to once again see Augustus ben Adam on my screen, and to add his two sons, Adam and Daniel. I’m looking forward to it.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Headshots, Preserve The Revelation, self-publishing, Short Stories, The Gutter Chronicles, Writing

Unfinished Writing Projects

September 30, 2015 David Todd Leave a comment

My intention for today was to write a lengthy post on the status of several writing projects. However, two things intervene. First, I’m in New Orleans on a business trip. I’m not sure I feel like taking time to do a detailed analysis of my writing-in-progress. Second, since around Sunday my gumption for writing has tanked. At present I don’t know that I care much if I write any more or not. The reasons for that are complicated and I won’t go into them here. Suffice to say these are not the days for me to be making bold plans for adding to my published titles.

I will say a few words about my projects. The easiest one should be to publish my last short story, “Sierra Kilo Bravo“, at Smashwords, making it available to Nook, Apple, etc. That means pulling up the file for the Kindle publication, making a few simple changes, and hitting Publish. Along with that I want to republish the other stories in the series to add a link to this one to it. Also fairly simple. But I haven’t felt like doing it, now a month since it went live for Kindle.

Another fairly easy project will be to correct typos in my two baseball novels, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People and Headshots. I re-read them some time ago on my Nook, found enough typos in each to warrant fixing them. This is a one-day project for each book. So far, I just haven’t felt like it.

Then, I have some typos to fix and new data to add to my family history book, Seth Boynton Cheney: Mystery Man of the West. This is a little more complicated. It’s a print book, so unless I want to have the cover redone due to pages added I’ll need to add the new data without too much lengthening. The good news is I sort of planned for this, putting a couple of blank pages at the end of the book. So long as the new data doesn’t take up more than them, I should be okay. I have some of these marked, and one of my wife’s cousins also marked some. She didn’t give them to me, but will when I ask her. This should be my priority, I suppose, but so far—you guessed it—I just haven’t felt like it. A related project, some cousins have asked me to publish a color edition of this. That will require rework of the cover, since the page thickness is different when you print in color, but otherwise is a simple thing. I need to do that right after making the corrections to the black & white edition.

So what does that leave as far as w-I-p go? I have three books started:

Preserve The Revelation. This is a sequel to my first church history novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant. A couple of years ago, when in a period of uncertainty as to what my next project should be, I wrote the first chapter of this. Since then ideas for the book continue to find their way into my conscious thinking.
Documenting America: Civil War Edition. This would be the next in my Documenting America series. I got well into this last year and early this year. I’d guess it’s 40 percent done. I have pushed this far from my current thoughts.
The Gutter Chronicles, Volume 2. The first volume was a reasonable success at the office. I’ve completed three chapters in that, and am well along with the fourth. It’s been over a year since I’ve worked on it, but I’d say I’m about 20 percent done. Ideas for remaining chapters of this have been bubbling up of late.

That leaves my two Thomas Carlyle projects, wanting to join their brother on my virtual bookshelf. These are the two I’m actively working on. At the office I use my free time to work on Thomas Carlyle Chronological Composition Bibliography. At home I use free time to work on Thomas Carlyle’s “Chartism” Through the Ages. Both are well along, though neither is close to being done. They are perhaps silly things to work on, as neither would be a commercial success. However, at least these two are holding my interest.

Well, this post ran longer than I expected. Still, it’s the short version. I write it not so much as to inform you, my loyal readers, about what’s coming, as to help me bring order to the chaos that’s happening in my head and finding it’s way to paper and pixels. May the order come soon.

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, self-publishing, Writing

Four Years of Self-Publishing

February 13, 2015 David Todd Leave a comment

February 13, 2011, my first self-published item went up for sale. It’s a short story, “Mom’s Letter”, a fictional piece which has autobiographical elements to it. It was a practice piece. When I made the decision to self-publish, I figured my first novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, would be first. But it wasn’t quite ready, I wanted to get something published, I had the short story ready from work-shopping and a contest submittal, so I self-published it to practice the mechanics of the self-publishing platforms at Amazon and Smashwords. It went live on Amazon four years ago today.

Then I thought it would be good to do a book-length item, but I still wasn’t quite ready to put up my novel. What else to do? I decided I could put together fairly quickly my historical-political book, Documenting America: Lessons from the United States’ Historical Documents. So I did that, and it went live for sale in May 2011. Later in the year I managed to get out a paperback version of it.

Eventually I published that novel. Then another. Then another. Then a novella. Then another novel. Along the way I added more short stories, and an essay, and three more non-fiction books. By the middle of 2014 I had 17 items published, six of which were print and e-books, the rest e-books only.

I won’t say it’s been a wild ride, but it has resembled a roller coaster at times. Get a day with a sale and my spirits rise. A week with two sales and I’m really high. The come the months with one or two sales, or none, and I’m in the dumps. Just when sales seem to be increasing, Amazon changes something, and what few sales I have dry up like a tumbleweed.

Several things I’ve learned through this. I discovered I really don’t feel comfortable tooting my own horn and promoting myself. This is a disaster for a self-published author. Then, I really hate the process of making covers, doing the graphic arts work. I have no talent in the graphic arts. I’ve done some of my covers. They probably aren’t very good and should be replaced with ones professionally done. But then, I really enjoy the formatting process, both of e-books and print books. Except for the cover, I think I do okay with formatting. And, I enjoy editing my own work, something that most writers say they don’t enjoy.

Last, I have no idea what the future holds, but I know the busyness of life can sure sap what little writing time a person has. I have one completed project—a poetry book from years ago. An artist is working on a cover for it now. If she finishes it, I’ll publish the book within a month. It was done in 2006 and has been sitting, waiting for the right time. I have four other works started, all temporarily abandoned, waiting to see if life will turn in my favor any time soon. I’m purposely suppressing ideas as they come to be. No point in aggregating ideas for works that most likely will never be written.

Hopefully, this will all turn around in a year. Life will grant me time to write again, and I’ll get those four works done and many more. Meanwhile, I seem to be stuck on 345 sales of 17 items over 48 months.

David A Todd