Category Archives: Documenting America

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

February 2021 Writing Plans

Leave a comment

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.

Bible study, Documenting America, poetry, self-publishing, Sharon Williams short stories, The Teachings, Writing

Writing Goals for 2021 – A Starting Point

4 Comments

Dateline 3 January 2021

For the first time in many years, I start the new year with uncertainty as to what I want to accomplish in my writing. Perhaps this is a residual effect of the corona virus pandemic, which caused a general uncertainty in the world and made life difficult to plan. I didn’t get as much writing done in 2020 as I wanted to, not so much because of corona virus but because of being diverted to other things (health issue, de-cluttering work, letters transcription).

But, a writer who is publishing is running a business, which should have a business plan if it wants to be successful. So here is my plan. It’s a starting point. I will be thinking much about this over the early part of the year and may modify it based on further consideration.

  • These books have been waiting for the book that goes between them to be written. I’m finally back to working on it.

    Finish and publish The Teachings. A little over a week ago, I got back to serious work on this novel. As of today’s effort, I have 37,000 words in the first draft. If 80,000 is the minimum size of the book, I’m closing in on halfway done. But I don’t feel that the story is halfway done, so perhaps this will be a 90,000 word novel. Either way, at my current pace I could be done in mid-February, which means I might have the book ready to publish in April. For now, those are my goals.

  • Write and publish one Sharon Williams story. Believe it or not the next story in my series Sharon Williams Fonseca: Unconventional CIA Agent, is starting to roll around in my brain. This is happening unsolicited. I’m not trying to think about it, yet the story is developing. That may be a sign that I should write the story this year.
  • Write and publish one Documenting America volume. I’m planning for this to be Run-up To Revolution, covering 1761-1775, the documents that led to our rebelling against England. I did some reading for research in 2019 and a little more last year. I need to figure out where I was and see how quickly I could do this. Writing these volumes is always pleasurable, and I’m looking forward to this.
  • I know which Bible study I want to write and publish next, but it’s going to take some work. Not sure I’m quite ready to do that..

    Write and publish a Bible study. I’ve planned out what I want the next one to be: Entrusted To My Care: A Study of 1st and 2nd Timothy. I have a fair number of notes on this, have taught it twice, and think I could do this one with the least amount of effort among all those I’ve developed. Yet, it would still be a pretty significant effort. This would be later in the year.

  • Maintain a twice per week blogging schedule. The last two years have shown me I can do this. On occasion I may have to make a dummy post or even skip one, but for the most part I should be able to do this.
  • It’s been a long time since I wrote most of the poems in this, around 2005-6, I think.

    Write some poetry. The desire to write poetry again has become active, even if the words aren’t rolling around yet as they are for the short story. I know the poetry book I want to write. My question is: do I wait for inspiration to strike or do I apply some perspiration and just get on with the writing? That’s what I’ll be thinking about the next few weeks.

As I say, this is a start. For now I’m concentrating on my novel. Once I get that done, I’ll give this plan serious re-evaluation.

America, Christianity, Church History Novels, Documenting America, Genealogy, self-publishing, Sharon Williams short stories, The Teachings, Writing

2020 Writing Recap

Leave a comment
The 5th story in my Sharon Williams Fonseca – Unconventional CIA Agent series. Published in January 2020, I’ve sold one copy.

Ah, 2021 is starting out good, with January 1 falling on Friday, my regular blog post day. I always start a new year here by summarizing the year just ended and making some goals for the year just starting. I’ll do that today with a recap of 2020. On Monday I’ll put some writing goals for 2021, assuming, that is, that I formulate some goals between now and then into a publishable state.

Retired from my day job (for the 2nd year), cooped up due to the corona virus pandemic, you’d think I got a lot of writing done, right? You’d be wrong. I’ve said all this before on the blog, but let me go through it again.

In January I published “Tango Delta Foxtrot”, the next short story in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series. That was written in 2019 and passed through my critique group. It all came to January and I published it then. So far I’ve had one sale. Yippee.

Also in January, I continued work in the next novel in my church history novels series. Begun in late 2019 and tentatively titled The Teachings, it falls chronologically between Doctor Luke’s Assistant and Preserve The Revelation. The action takes place during the first Jewish war of 66 to 70 A.D. I got a few chapters in, running them by the critique group, when I bogged down on making my story fit into the historical events. I spent a lot of time reading in source materials, adding a little text, setting it aside, and going back to the sources again. By mid-March I had about 21,000, or between 20 and 25 percent of the intended length. Feeling frustrated with it, I decided to stop my major work on it.

Stephen Cross was quite a character. Frequently in court, involved with a pirate, taking part in two military excursions, he left a lot of footprints that I’ve been able to follow.

Instead, I pulled out some genealogy work I had begun some time ago. This was the lives of Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney. Elizabeth is a gr-gr-whatever-aunt of Lynda’s. I began studying them two or three years prior and realized I had enough material on them to make a short book. I organized the material back then and wrote the beginnings of a book. I picked up that work again and saw that yes, I could make a book out of their lives, but I really needed to do more research. I worked on that the second half of March, making good progress.

Then Lynda went into the hospital on April 3. I couldn’t go in to see her, of course, so to keep myself busy, instead of going back to The Teachings, I focused on Stephen and Elizabeth. By the time Lynda got out on April 21 I had most of the research done and was back writing the book. My labor on it continued after Lynda came home. It all came together around the end of May, I edited and formatted in June, and published it in July. Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney of Newbury has—wait for it—one sale so far. That’s fine. This isn’t intended to be a best seller. Hopefully some day a few Cross and Cheney researchers will find it.

From there I moved to decluttering/dis-accumulation work at our house. I dug into boxes of papers left behind by my mother-in-law. That caused me to also look at our own boxes of papers and begin culling. In the process I found our Kuwait years letters. I collated them, indexed them, and then decided to transcribe them. This took up some of July, all of August, and some of September. Someday I will add photos and make it a book for the family. For now, it will sit in the cloud.

During this time, I occasionally picked up The Teachings and did a little work on it, either research or writing. I added 500 words here and there. But I still couldn’t focus on it.

I updated my first Documenting America book for conditions in 2020: correcting typos, correcting formatting, adding new text for 2020.

In September, I think, I decided to re-publish my first history book, Documenting America: Lessons From the United States’ Historical Documents. I published it first in 2011 and decided it could use some updating for conditions in America in 2020. I think it was September to early October that I: re-read it; corrected a few typos; and added text to each chapter for what’s going on now. I also had to improve the formatting because, in 2011, I didn’t know much about print book formatting and made some errors. I completed this work in mid-October and re-published it.

Meanwhile, I had been dissatisfied with some formatting and illustration quality in the Cross-Cheney book. I tackled that in October as well, substituting some figures, improving the pixel quality of others, and re-published it. I still wish they were better than they are but at least they are better than they were.

Writing related, but not new writing, was taking part in two week-long on-line seminars about using Amazon advertising to boost book sales, once in July and once in October. I saw an increase in sales as a result, though the ads really are not paying out. I’m still within the budget I set, so I’ll keep the ads running. I’ll take the challenge again this month, then see where I go with it.

Finally, in the second half of December, I was ready to return to serious work on The Teachings. Over the last few days of the month I added over 5,000 words, bringing my total to just short of 33,500. I have much of the rest of the book planned, and should be able to make good progress, so long as other things don’t get in the way.

Here’s where my Church History Novels series stands. Working on that “gray” one.

Things such as a new short story, or deciding to transcribe more letters, or let decluttering overtake me again.

Was it a productive year, writing-wise? Perhaps. I wish I had more to show for it. May 2021 be better.

America, Documenting America, History

Peaceful Transfer of Power: A Defining American Characteristic

Leave a comment
Both the people of the new nation and those who ran the government wanted power to transfer peacefully. With all in the same mindset, peaceful transfer happened.

This is now the third (and I think the last) post in my series on defining characteristics of the USA—those things that make us stand out from all other nations: peaceful transfer of power.

When we made our second attempt at being a new and independent nation, under a new Constitution, George Washington became our first president. So revered was he that he could have been president for life. Actually, Americans might have accepted him as king. But Washington knew that someday power would have to transfer from him to someone else. Two terms was enough, he thought. Let the transfer happen peacefully.

My book on the Constitution doesn’t spend a lot of time on transfer of power, but it’s a good primer on how we got this amazing document.

You see, historically, transfer of power had been a violent affair. If it was peaceful, it was because a monarch’s heir was clearly popular with the people and with those in leadership who had surrounded the now dead sovereign. Going back a long way, it was common for the new king to kill the other potential heirs, assuring that he wouldn’t be challenged in his position and that, sometime in the future, power would transfer to his own heir, without challenges. Yet, even at that, the new king (or queen) would often be challenged. Looking through the kings of Israel in the Bible books of Kings and Chronicles shows frequent struggles in the first few months of the new king’s reign.

This also happened in Europe. At least three times in British history a king was overthrown. Sometimes it occurred without bloodshed. The nation had become more sophisticated, so potential rivals weren’t killed off. Heirs in other nations weren’t always so lucky. A study of the transfer of power in Europe would be fascinating. The same for other countries outside Europe.

I just updated my first Documenting America book for conditions in 2020.

What about in America? Washington declined to run for a third term. The nation elected John Adams as president in 1796. Power transferred peacefully and the baby nation chugged on. But Washington and Adams were of the same political mindset. What would happen when someone with different beliefs came to power?

That happened in 1800, along with the first of what would later come to be called a “constitutional crisis”. Thomas Jefferson was elected president. Actually, he tied with his vice presidential running mate, Aaron Burr. It took a vote by the House of Representatives to break the tie, and a constitutional amendment to correct a minor flaw in the relatively new document so that such wouldn’t happen again. The point is, however, Jefferson, of a different political party than Adams, came to power and all was peaceful. The nation chugged on. Adams wasn’t exiled; his children weren’t killed; Jefferson didn’t kill off or exile other potential rivals. The people didn’t riot in the streets over who became president. All was peaceful.

The new nation was showing that we could govern ourselves. Peaceful transfer of power from one party to another occurred. No coercive force was necessary. The American experiment was succeeding.

Looking at future elections, the peaceful transfer of power occurred all the way up to 1860. The South couldn’t accept Lincoln as president and his new political party as the one that would be setting policy and making laws. Rather than accept that, they declared themselves no longer part of the United States of America. The government said no, you can’t do that. We have property in your state and we will defend that property. The southern states said oh yeah? Just try it. And civil war broke out. The North won (as we know), and the nation stayed as one nation.

After fourteen peaceful transfers of power, including once at the death of a president, we had our first experience with violent transfer. It wasn’t pretty.

We had a questionable transfer of power in 1876, as the winner of the election was in dispute. I have more study to do of that transfer. Suffice to say that a compromise was reached, a president was selected through a combination of constitutional provisions and cooler heads who didn’t want to go through another bloody transfer prevailing.

From that time on, we had peaceful transfers all the way up to 2000. Even in 2000 the transfer was peaceful, though the closeness of that election required the judicial branch to get involved. Some say the judicial branch stole the election from Gore and awarded it to Bush. Some say Bush won it outright (by a tiny margin) and the courts simply prevented Gore from demanding endless recounts. Either way, while the transfer of power was in question, and while we wish it hadn’t come down to the Supreme Court,  it happened peacefully.

Then came 2016. Trump won. Many people didn’t like it. The people who favored the other candidate took to protesting in the streets, though that died out. Transfer was contentious but, as the election wasn’t in doubt, was peaceful.

That brings us to 2020. While Biden appears to be leading and heading toward victory, that’s the way it was in 2016 and the outcome is not certain. But what is certain is that if Trump wins again there will again be protests in the street. Will these turn violent? Will the transfer of power—actually the need to not transfer power—be peaceful? Or, if Biden wins, will Trump peacefully allow the transfer of power to take place? Will we have a clear winner, or will the courts have to intervene again?

Peaceful transfer of power, a defining American characteristic. We are not far from seeing it end. It has happened because the people and leaders wanted it to happen, and because we had a supreme law that everyone accepted and revered. Right now we don’t know if either of them do. And that could have disastrous consequences of our country.

ancient letters, Carlyle, Documenting America, letters, self-publishing, The Teachings, Writing

Still Not Making a Lot of Progress

Leave a comment

Dateline 1 Oct 2020

“Adam Of Jerusalem” is a prequel to “Doctor Luke’s Assistant”, and is the first in my church history novel series. “The Teachings” fits in as book 3 of the series.

In January of this year I began writing The Teachings, the third (chronologically) novel in my Church History series. I had been reading for research some time before that. I worked on it consistently through January and February, then bogged down in March. My problem was I wanted to be historically accurate to events in 66-70 A.D., but didn’t want to overdo the historical stuff and not have the novel interesting for the characters and the plot. I started re-reading my main source, Josephus, but that just made me more uncertain of how to proceed.

So, as I have a habit of doing, I went to another project, my family history/genealogy research into the children of John Cheney of Newbury (1600?-1666). Genealogy research is always a pleasure and I figured it would be a brief, rejuvenating diversion. Some years ago I began this work on his youngest child, Elizabeth, who married the mariner Stephen Cross of Ipswich. I found much about them (mainly about Stephen, but that helped define Elizabeth’s life as well), and realized it would be a stand-alone book about them. I brought that book to about 60 pages in 2018, then set it aside. In March I picked it up again as the diversion, and by April 3 I had it up to around 80 pages and, I thought, close to finished.

The colonies did well governing themselves, until the King of England tried to impose new government on them. Resistance to that became the seeds of the American Revolution.

On April 3, Lynda went into the hospital with her burst appendix and was in 19 days, requiring two surgeries. It didn’t look good for a while. Since due to the pandemic I couldn’t be with her at the hospital, to keep myself occupied I worked feverishly on the Cross-Cheney book. Before long I had it up over 100 pages. Lynda finally came home though was still weak and recuperating. I got the book up to 116 pages, polished it, and published it. So far, with 1 sale, it’s doing about as expected. A few of the figures were of poor quality, so I haven’t advertised it to the Cross or Cheney genealogy boards and won’t till I get those figures replaced.

After getting my diversion done, it should have been back to The Teachings, right? Well, a little bit. But soon I was working on another diversion. It started as decluttering, going through the many papers my mother-in-law left behind at her death. But that soon evolved into transcribing our Kuwait years letters. That took the better part of August and early September. That’s now done. I will someday turn that into a book for my children and grandchildren. That will take editing, adding commentary, and illustrating it with photos. I don’t see doing more on that for the rest of this year—although, I don’t rule out occasionally opening the file and adding some commentary.

Published in 2011, I really need to do something with this, update it for later publications and correct some formatting errors. So, I began the editing work in early September 2020, and hope to re-publish by the end of September.

That brought me up to mid-September. Time now to work on The Teachings. Except I still didn’t feel like it. I decided I would take another Amazon Ad Challenge in October, and that I would focus on the first Documenting America book as the next to advertise. But this book needed significant work. It was the first I published, long before I understood formatting.  I also figured I should add new material to bring the book up to date for 2020. I worked on this the second half of September, and began the re-publishing process on Sept. 28th. The last couple of days have been sufficiently busy with life that I haven’t had much time to work on it. But that’s now a today task for the e-book. I’ll have the proof copy of the print book on Saturday, so by Sunday Oct 4 the re-publishing process should be complete.

Then what? Work on The Teachings, finally? Maybe, maybe not. I want to get the Cross-Cheney book figures corrected and that book re-published and advertised. There’s always file maintenance. Plus, evenings in front of the television, I do e-mail “maintenance” and saving my correspondence to Word documents. That’s a tedious but fun process, something I can do multi-tasking, a non-urgent item to make progress on. But next on the list of items I posted on Monday is The Teachings. Will I finally get back to this?

Today, instead of working on finishing the Documenting America changes, I dusted off my Thomas Carlyle Bibliography.  Last night, as part of my TV-watching-multitasking, I opened the Carlyle Letters On-line and read a couple of letters. I discovered a short translation he did of a Goethe autobiographical passage that wasn’t in my list of his writings or publications. How could this possibly be? I have three other full Carlyle bibliographies, plus a partial bibliography that covers the period in question. Why would they leave this out? I documented it on paper and, since it was late, went to bed.

This morning, as my first item of business after devotions, was to add this entry in my bibliography. First, however, I found the document on-line, at a previously unknown (to me) site called the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Sure enough, in the January 1832 issue was the Carlyle translation. I checked the two thick bibliographies on my shelf and confirmed that this composition wasn’t in it. Maybe they didn’t add it because it’s a translation with just a paragraph of Carlyle commentary rather than an original piece? Maybe so, but those bibliographies include his other translations. I added all this to my bibliography. While I was at this, I found an essay on Carlyle I hadn’t seen before and downloaded it for future reading.

The fact that I keep pulling off my novel in favor of other, less important publishing tasks, is perhaps testimony that I’m not thrilled with how the novel is going. Or that it’s consuming a lot more brain power and I’m unwilling to expend that brain power at present. I’m not sure what it is, but, if I ever hope to get this novel completed and published, I need to get on it. Even if it takes a lot of brain power.

Stay tuned to find out if I manage to get to it.

American Colonial History, Church History Novels, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Documenting America, Short Stories, The Teachings, Writing

So Many Choices, So Little Time

3 Comments

I’m a little late with my post this Monday morning. The weekend was busy and I didn’t get it written ahead of time. Then, this morning Lynda had to go for a Covid19 test ahead of a procedure on Wednesday. Her appointment was at 7:50 and we were to be there fifteen minutes early. It was a drive-by testing site, and the long line of cars moved quickly through.  A stop for gas and pastries on the way home, and here I am, finally writing this.

Over the weekend and late last week my thoughts began to gel about my next writing tasks. It was Friday (I think; maybe Saturday) that I documented a couple of book ideas and wrote them in a Word document and saved them to my “Ideas” folder. They’ve been bugging me and, while I’m now purposely suppressing writing ideas as come, these two pre-date my decision to suppress, so I wanted to be done with them to free up brain space for other things.

What to do next? I have a novel-in-progress that’s stalled. I have a book I’m updating. I have a short story that’s bugging me. I have the next book in the Documenting America series to begin. And that’s not everything. I needed to prioritize.

So I took a little time to brainstorm that and decide what to do next, and why. Here’s what I decided.

  1. Published in 2011, I really need to do something with this, update it for later publications and correct some formatting errors. So, I began the editing work in early September 2020, and hope to re-publish by the end of September.

    Republish Documenting America: Lessons From The United States’ Historical Documents. I had already done most of the editing. An hour and it would be ready for publishing tasks. My reason for putting this first is I want to run some Amazon ads on it, beginning in about two weeks when I participate in the next Amazon ads challenge. I want an updated book to advertise.

  2. Edited to add: I forgot, when I posted this earlier, that I have to make a few corrections to my second genealogy book, Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney of Ipswich. A few of the figures were of poor quality. I need to load them into G.I.M.P and improve the quality, put them in the book file, then upload the revised file. As much as I hate doing graphic arts with G.I.M.P. I’ve been putting this off. I think, however, that I’ll slip this in after I finish re-publishing Documenting America.
  3. Return to work on The Teachings, the volume 3 in my church history novel series, which will plug the gap between volume 2 and 4. I’m about 1/3 done with it, and need to get back.
  4. Write, or at least start, the next story in the Danny Tompkins series of short stories. I had once thought the series finished, but an idea for one more story just won’t leave me, so I need to write it to get it out of my head. My problem is I know the main idea I want to convey, but not the full story. So when I start on it I’ll perhaps stall almost right away. I won’t know till I start the writing.
  5. The transcription is now complete (28 Sep 2020). Time to add some commentary.

    Add commentary to the Kuwait letters book. I’ve written about this before. After finishing the transcription, and before I put the letters back to storage and relegated the file to its folder and out of my mind, I added a little commentary. I’m ready to open the file and add some more commentary. I don’t know that I want to take the time to finish it, but I want to add something to it. This may be something for the odd hours between other things.

  6. Begin reading for the next book in the Documenting America series. This is tentatively Run-up to Revolution, covering the period from 1761 to 1775 or 1776. It will be the realization that the Colonies were no longer aligned with Great Britain and a separation was inevitable. I’m not sure how I will research this. Everything I need, just about, is on-line, but how to access it and when to read it is unknown at this time.

I had a couple of other things I wanted to put on this list, but will wait. As I sit and write this nothing else is coming to mind. If it does before the end of the day, I’ll edit this.

Now, if I can accomplish half of this by, say, the end of 2020, I’ll feel like I’ve made progress.

America, American Colonial History, Documenting America, History

Land Ownership: A Defining American Characteristic

Leave a comment

My research into US history and genealogy has convinced me that widespread ownership of land was a uniquely American phenomenon. I have more research to do, especially into European land ownership, but what I’ve been able to glean from American documents has been instructive.

In Documenting America: Lessons From The United States’ Historical Documents, I cover a curious 1792 writing of James Madison. Then in the US House of Representatives, Madison wrote about an unfortunate situation in Great Britain, then, concerning his fellow Americans, wrote:

“What a contrast is here to the independent situation and manly sentiments of American citizens, who live on their own soil, or whose labor is necessary to its cultivation….”

Madison realized that Americans tended to own their own land. Since that contrasts with the situation in Britain, I conclude most Britains didn’t own their own land. It seems to me, from history readings years ago still clinging to a few gray cells, that the feudal system was long gone in England by the time Madison wrote this, but clearly elements of that system remained. Land was owned by English nobility—princes, dukes, earls, and whatever other titles there were—had huge holdings of land and leased it to the poor peons who worked it for the lord, dividing the proceeds with him.

Land ownership in America wasn’t universal, but it was widespread. As I study my wife’s genealogy on her father’s side, which stretches back to the earliest days of Massachusetts Bay Colony, I read a lot of wills and inventory of estates. Most of them include land. Upland lots, marsh lots, lots on “The Way”, town lots, farms. Defined by maple trees, stone walls, and nascent rights-of-way, almost every estate, be it modest or great, had land in it.

That’s not to say that everyone had an equal amount of land. In Ipswich, Massachusetts, many people received a 2-acre lot in town, but some lots were better than others. One man would sell “the eastern 15 feet of my said lot to….” Another man carved a small house lot out of his 2 acres for his wife’s sister and husband. Land was subdivided and sold at a brisk pace. But it was people’s to sell. In England, none of these people would have had land.

I realize, of course, that much of this land was stolen from the native peoples. Or they were enticed with alcohol and sold their land for a fraction of its worth. This is a shameful chapter in our history. Wealth was stolen or coerced away from the rightful owners.

My research into three Ipswich families in the mid to late 1600s led me to the issue of Mason’s claim. It seems that John Mason had been granted title to a large tract of land in what is now Northern Massachusetts. The towns of Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, and others were settled on these lands beginning in 1633. Land was apportioned to the settlers, who built houses, established farms and trades, and lived a rugged existence. Civil war in England, the Cromwell years and then the restoration, made enforcing Mason’s claims difficult. He died without ever seeing “his land”.

But come the 1670s and Mason’s grandson said, “Hey, that’s my land!” Court battles took place, one court ruling in favor of Mason’s claim, another overruling that. It must have been quite the legal doneybrook.

But, in the town records, in extant pamphlets and broadsides, you see the fear of the people. Their land might not be theirs after all. Some feudal lord who was the king’s friend had a title to it. People were scared. In England, Scotland, and Wales they could never dream of owning land. Here in the New World they had 20 upland acres and a town lot, plus some marshland that was really arable. And some grandson of some wealthy person is going to take it from them? Fortunately for the colonists, the grandson eventually gave up.

As New England and other Atlantic seaboard places filled up, the march west began. At times seeking gold, most settlers were after land. Somewhere beyond the mountains was land for the taking, and they would go get it. Once again, England, France, Germany, Spain, and other European nations had no equivalent.

Even today, the quest for land goes on. It’s not quite the same as it once was. A hefty bank account is also a sign of wealth, and you can have that while renting. But home-ownership remains a strong American goal. Americans want land, at least a lot of us do.

But times have changed, and with the size of our population we no longer have as high a percentage land ownership as we did in the colonial years and soon after. Not being a landowner changes one’s perspective.

So far I’ve covered two unique aspects of the USA that I consider worth studying: self-determination and land ownership. Stay tuned for the third, which will be coming in about a week.

Documenting America, goals, Health, home improvements, reading, Writing

Weary Once More

Leave a comment

My plans for today’s blog was a book review. But it would be an intense book review, and I don’t know that I have the strength of mine for it at the moment. So I’ll write about weariness.

Published in 2011, I really need to do something with this, update it for later publications and correct some formatting errors.

After having written about the Kuwait years letters in a recent post, I did a little more searching in the storeroom and found a few more items and transcribed them. The collection is now up to 143 items, the computer file running to 152 pages and 89,000 words, maybe 300 of which are commentary I’ve begun to add. I think I’m done with it. I hope I’m done with it. The Saudi years will be some time from now, after I get the Kuwait years into published form.

The last two days have been full, though in some ways I wonder exactly what I accomplished. In the evenings I worked on saving e-mails to Word documents for my letters file. I also collated five notebooks of printed correspondence, a task that’s not quite complete. Wednesday morning I worked outside for an hour. I intended to yesterday, but rain quashed that notion.

Then I’ll get to correct this one in the same way.

I attended a writing group meeting via Facebook live stream and Zoom conference on Wednesday. On Thursday I attended a writing workshop on improving books for getting noticed on Amazon. Much to consider.

A writing task I’ve been planning to do was to correct and republish my original Documenting America book, updating the works by this author section all versions, and correct the running heads and locations for page numbers for the print version. I then will republish it, then do some Amazon ads for it. I originally published this in 2011, and I don’t think I ever updated it.

And, this one will also need some updating.

Alas, I found my computer files in a mess. I had files here, files there, folders inside of folders, duplicates and triplicates. I couldn’t tell for sure which was my latest file. So, while listening to the webinar yesterday, I multi-tasked by creating a good file structure and move files into it from their scattered locations. I found that work mentally exhausting, and I was good for nothing after doing that. Except I did figure out which was the latest print book file and began working on it.

That came after Thursday normal stock trading work, a Wal-Mart grocery and meds run, and getting a roast started for supper, adding the veggies after the webinar. Then it was off to the sunroom and reading in a David Morrell novel. Then to the living room and more work on e-mails. I eventually dished up supper, and store-bought pie for dessert, and went back to e-mails.

Then, I was exhausted. We had The Curse of Oak Island re-runs on, which are easy to tune out and do other things. Then it was read aloud in an Agatha Christie mystery. Now, Friday morning, I’m doing trading, and work on the book revision. Soon we’ll head on a 45 mile drive for some medical tests for Lynda.

And I’m weary. Weary in well-doing. Weary in from doing too much. Getting my book corrected and re-published has to be my top priority. I hope, when we get back from the distant lab, to get back to the print book. I could finish that today and get on to the e-book. I’m hoping some energy will return.

Church History Novels, critique group, Documenting America, Genealogy, goals, Sharon Williams short stories, The Teachings, Writing

2020: March Accomplishment, April Goals

Leave a comment

Here’s what I had for my March goals and how I did relative to them.

  1. Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Did this. Once I did a “can’t write much today” post, and once I didn’t get my Friday post in till Saturday, but I got them done.
  2. Make significant progress on The Teachings, my novel-in-progress.  I need to make this measurable, so I’ll set 20,000 words to be added this month. That means, at the close of March 31st, I should be at 32, 122 or better. Failed miserably on this when my genealogy book and research took over practically all my waking hours. I ended the month with around 23,250 words. Not awful, but not what I hoped for.
  3. Make a final decision on what Bible study to work on this year. I decided this: it will be Entrusted To My Care: A Bible Study of 1 & 2 Timothy.
  4. Attend three writing group meetings this month, two for Scribblers & Scribes of Bella Vista and one for Village Lake Writers & Poets. Due to the corona virus outbreak, two of these three meetings were cancelled. The first one, on March 4, we did at the Rogers library. The 2nd Wednesday Noon group will meet as a Facebook livestream followed by a Zoom conference this month, and I’m the speaker.
  5. Spend a little time going through the genealogy book I started over two years ago. My goal is to make a judgment of how much work would be involved and whether I could publish it this year. I haven’t talked much about this on the blog. I’ll have to do a post or two on it. I accomplished this—big time. I’m working hot and heavy on the book, to the detriment of all other writing tasks, and it’s coming along well. Up to 88 pages and the end is not yet.
  6. Republish the two stories in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series I didn’t get done last month, to add my current list of published works (and correct any typos I might find). Did this! All five Sharon Williams Fonseca stories are re-published with most recent data on my published works, as well as a correcting a few typos in each.
  7. Continue reading for research in the next Documenting America book. This will include searching for available documents. I have a few already chosen, but more are needed. This month I may be searching for documents more than reading them. I don’t know if I can claim having done this or not. I found some new on-line sources and skimmed one and bookmarked the site. I guess I can claim it.

So, what about April? I’m somewhat uncertain due to this genealogy obsession that has to run its course before I can get back to other work. Thus I think my goals will be modest this month.

  1. Blog twice a week.
  2. Get as far as I can with the genealogy book.
  3. Spend at least some time in The Teachings. I should set a word goal. Let’s say 3,000 words is my goal for the month.
  4. Give my talk to the Village Lake Writers & Poets on April 8.
  5. Do some research into the next Documenting America book. Maybe it will just read the document I found. Maybe it will be to peruse the site that document came from and note other documents for use and at least skim them.

That’s all for April. It will be a busy month, just not in the things I had on my master 2020 list.

Bible study, Church History Novels, Documenting America, goals, Sharon Williams short stories, The Teachings, Writing

February Goals

Leave a comment

As reported in my last post, I had a good, productive January, at least in reference to my writing goals. Time now to set writing goals for February. As I’m traveling I’ll back off a little on my goals just a little. I’ll have fewer of them, but hope to spend a fair amount of time on writing.

  1. Blog twice a week. Based on past experience I feel good about this.
  2. Attend the mid-month meeting of Scribblers & Scribes of Bella Vista. I’ll be away for the other two writer group meetings I normally attend.
  3. Write a large amount in The Teachings. I started this last month and would like to get a lot done. I hesitate to set a word goal, as I’ll be doing some research/reading simultaneously. However, goals should be measurable, so I’ll set 10,000 words as my goal. Ideally I should be writing more, at least 1,000 words a day. Maybe, as I get further into it, I’ll write that much a day.
  4. Review the Bible studies I’ve written before, and ones I have planned, to see which one I’ll write next. I don’t plan on beginning it just yet, but I want to know which one I’m doing so I can be thinking about it.
  5. Finish re-publishing the Sharon Williams Fonseca short stories. I have two more to go. Doing this to correct any typos and to add all my books and stories to the document.
  6. Do more research for Documenting America: Run-up to Revolution. I have two main research books in hand, but will look for other sources, including on-line.

That’s all the official goals. Possibly something else will come up during the month.