Category Archives: Documenting America

Documenting America, Engineering, Life Group lessons, miscellaneous, Writing

Days of Accomplishment

Leave a comment

For today’s blog post, I had originally planned on a book review. I’m not sure which. I recently finished two books and will review both. I’ve been debating which would be first. As late as Wednesday I was still debating that, unsure. This isn’t a critical decision, but I just wanted to let you all know what’s going on with me.

Caught this little guy on camera this week. It’s always so nice to see the blue color on the deck.

Then came Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Actually, I could lump Monday in with that. All four days were days of incredible accomplishment. I got a lot of stuff done. Not only me: Lynda accomplished much decluttering, sorting through piles of children’s books to find duplicates, the unused/unread, and prepare to give away many and organize the rest. That’s on-going. The house is a mess, but it won’t be long before it looks much, much better.

As for me, each day I kept up with my routine things. I did my devotions first thing. I kept up with writing and publishing news. I did my stock trading, entering into a number of trades on Monday and seeing some success. And, I resumed my workouts on the elliptical—nothing major, but after a month layoff, it felt good to get back to that routine.

I then shifted to working on Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition. One day I edited the final three source documents. One day I wrote my part of a chapter, then next day on two chapters, and then yesterday did the last chapter. So, the first draft is now done, excepting whatever I choose to do for an Introduction. This is a very good feeling.

In the afternoons I worked on a construction specification for my former employer. This was the first major work I had for them. It’s major not because it will require a lot of hours (it’s a small construction project), but because it’s something other than random site inspections and correspondence. I had to remember again how to put a spec together. Strange how much you forget in not quite six months of retirement.

The spec was also good because the work of the project is unusual, the widening of a ditch, which requires a farm pond to be moved, both of which require some heavy-duty erosion control (temporary and permanent). I had to write one new spec section and significantly modify another. It’s always good to create something.

The amount of wild blueberries in the woods across from our house is massive. It’s no where near being fully picked, no where near all being ripe. And, blackberry season is about to begin.

Despite this busyness, I was able to do some things for enjoyment. I picked blueberries one day. Started reading two new books on consecutive days, and they both look like good ones that I’ll read through to completion.

In the evenings, I began work on a Bible study. I’m planning on it being part of our Life Group curriculum at church, probably this fall. I had the outline done for over a month, but hadn’t started work on it. On Tuesday evening I tweaked the outline and wrote it out anew. On Wednesday evening I began putting a Word document together, only to end the night finding the file had major corruption issues, about the strangest I’ve ever seen. On Thursday evening (actually some during the day) I started the document over and made major progress with it.

Now it’s Friday. I plan on writing the Introduction to Documenting America. I might pick some more blueberries. I’ll read some more in the two books. I’ll begin one book review for Monday’s blog post. I’ll do some decluttering work of my own, perhaps split between my closet, the garage, and my writing papers. Hopefully, four days of great accomplishment will become five.

Documenting America, Writing

Starting the Week Off Right?

Leave a comment

I greet my few readers this rainy Monday morning. It looks as if this is going to be a normal week. Not much taking me away from what I want to be a normal routine.

I was up at 6:30 a.m. and in The Dungeon, and had my devotions before 7. I just finished checking a publishing website I keep up with, which reminded me this is my day to blog. Yes, having been so out of the habit I needed that reminder.

Tomorrow I have an afternoon dentist appointment for some major work. I also have an assignment for my former company that will take ten to twelve hours to complete this week. Beyond that, blueberry picking is before me. I’ve yet to search the full extent of the field in the woods across the street from our house. I would do that today, but it’s raining right now. The showers should pass before long, but I won’t go out into a soaking wet wood.

Beyond that, this is a week for writing and other author tasks. My critique group meets Wednesday evening. I’ve submitted my work and have only one piece submitted to me at present.

In The Dungeon, I anticipate the normal stock trading activities, and writing. I have five chapters left (actually 4 and a half) in Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition. I’d like to get one done per day and, by Friday, call the first draft complete. I have no writing tasks other than that this week. Well, perhaps a little clean up of my work areas.

Next Sunday I have another author event, at the Rogers Library, hosted by Ozark Book Authority. I think it will be just an author table for selling and signing books, though the organizer said something about having writer panels. I have a hard time believing the turnout will be enough on a Sunday afternoon in June to justify that, but we’ll see. Two author events in one month: that’s a first.

On to the writing now.

Documenting America, Engineering, travel, Writing

Not Quite Back to Normal

Leave a comment
The grandkids found a wild blueberry patch in the woods across the street from our house. How many years has that been there and I didn’t know it?

After 2,700 miles in the last 24 days, consisting of two round trips from home to West Texas, first to pick up grandchildren to stay with us then to return them, things are back to normal today. That also includes our special bug infestation earlier in May, something I haven’t written about here.

I took the grandkids to a Wednesday evening service project at our church, packing meals for the food challenged.

Well, not quite back to normal. This afternoon we have our quarterly pest treatment. We always have some prep work to do for that and putting things back afterwards. Then there’s the question of groceries and whether we have enough or if we need to make a quick trip to the store. Then there’s getting the checkbook and budget up to date for all the debits on the trip, and filing the receipts. The latter isn’t critical, but I like to have finances up to date always.

Then, there’s my speaking engagement tomorrow, to the Village Lake Writers and Poets. This was supposed to have been in April, but I got bumped when another speaker was booked over me. I’m mostly prepared, but would like to run through it a couple of times today and tomorrow morning. My topic is “Genre Focus Disorder: Is Poetry the Cure?”

One other thing is an assignment from my former company to write a construction spec. I’ll need to look at that a little today, consider the deadlines, and decide how much time I’ll need to put into it. It isn’t huge, but it’s the first “major” assignment they’ve given me since I retired on January 1st this year.

Couldn’t let them be on screens all day. Chores were assigned, and done cheerfully—for the most part.

As for blog post, I have nothing planned. I’ll be thinking about them over the next few days. I hope to quickly get back into my rhythm of Monday and Friday blog posts. I normally try to plan ahead for those, knowing a week or two out what I’ll be posting about.

Trips aren’t over yet for the summer. We will soon make an overnight trip to Oklahoma City for a church event. Back to Texas a little later to help the kids out, and maybe one more time for the oldest grandchild to come stay with us for a week. It’s all good. I enjoy long distance driving, as does the wife. A road trip us usually a joy.

Now, will I be able to accomplish a little writing today? Documenting America waits. Stay tuned.

Adam Of Jerusalem, Church History Novels, Documenting America, Writing

Busy, with Progress, but Only a Little

Leave a comment

At the moment our grandchildren are with us, the three older ones, ages 11, 8, and 6. They’ll be here until next week. That’s after we spent ten days with them and their parents in Texas. So it’s been a busy time for me, for us, and I have little progress to report on writing.

The Kindle e-book was published on May 6, 2019. Print book was published May 27, 2019.

But I do have a little. Adam Of Jerusalem is now published in paperback. Sophie did a good job with the cover, and Amazon accepted it on the first submittal. At the last moment I found a stray comma in the introduction and had to correct and upload that. I’ll need to do that to the e-book as well. That will be after the kids leave.

I was able to complete tasks on my friend Bessie’s book and it is now published in both e-book and paperback. Once Again Upon An Island follows upon her first book of similar title. I did the cover: me, with my limited skills. It had been a year since I worked with G.I.M.P., and forgot much of it’s use. Fortunately, I had made some cheat sheets for some tasks. I think, once we are a quiet house again, I’ll do more G.I.M.P. practice.

OAUAI print cover 2

I edited the first chapter of Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition while we were in Texas, and yesterday I typed it. Tonight I’m going to either edit more early chapters or write my portion of two or three later chapters. At least I’ll be able to show some progress in the midst of busyness.

The weekend will be full, between yardwork and grandkids and preparing to teach adult Life Group. Still, maybe I’ll get a little writing done. That’s the plan.

construction, Documenting America, Engineering, reading, self-publishing, stock market, Writing

Random Friday Thoughts

Leave a comment
Can a graphics duffer create the print-book cover to go with this? Enquiring minds want to know.

As I look out from The Dungeon windows at 06:47 a.m., the sun is hidden by the tall trees at the rear of our backyard. But enough sun gets through I can tell it will be a sunny day, at least to start. Storms are predicted for tomorrow, and might start in a small way sometime today.

Yesterday was a busy day. In addition to stock trading in the morning, I did a few writer things. I’m trying to create the print book cover for my friend’s book. I made a good start on it despite the fact that it’s been a year since I created a cover. Using G.I.M.P., a no-cost alternative to Photoshop, I managed to get the overall sizes of each part of the cover in place. I found some good notes I wrote on that. Alas, I’ve forgotten enough that I didn’t get it done in the time I had. Hopefully I will this morning.

I then at a quick lunch, hopped in the van, and went to do some engineering work, final inspection of one site and monthly inspections on three other sites. I completed the final inspection, with a little arguing with the contractor thrown in. Not bad arguing, just them obviously not appreciating the things I found. I got a little testy at one point when they gave new information about a structure I’ve been trying to get them to modify. Why they didn’t give me that info months ago is a mystery.

I went to the first monthly inspection, walked the site, saw only one or two things out of the ordinary. This has been a problem site, with me constantly finding things they are doing in violation of City codes. They’ve started to get much better. They had installed almost all the handicapped ramps incorrectly. I decided to let the first few go, but I found a new one wrongly constructed. They will have to change that. They also had one where they attempted to construct it correctly, but came up short. Fortunately the correction is inexpensive.

The engineering work to that point took me from 12:30 p.m. to about 3:30 p.m., with two more sites to go. I was beat and dehydrated, as I hadn’t taken water with me. I decided not to do the other two inspections, leaving them to the employee of my former company who joined me yesterday for training purposes. I came home, rested an hour, then wrote the reports for the two inspections.

Then I took it easy in the evening. We had plenty of leftover chili to use for taco salad, so had that for supper, and a slice of turtle pie for dessert. I spent much of the evening on the computer working on the reports as well as trying to find some photos in the company files to prove the point I tried to make on site.

I’ll soon be creating a cover for “Documenting America: Making the Constitution Edition”. It will be a simple re-creation of this one.

I wrote an e-mail to the CEI project manager, telling her my inability to do the two other inspections was “most likely a combination of too much sun, frustration with [the other] engineer and developer and contractor, age, and perhaps a creeping retirement-starting-to-care-a-little-less each month.” I haven’t heard back from her yet. I have trained the other man to do these inspections and had no doubt he could do the remaining two and write acceptable reports.

I spent no time in the sunroom, didn’t work on my own books at all, didn’t make much progress on my to-do list. My wife and I did a little reading aloud, and we took a very pleasant call from our oldest grandson and had evening devotions with him. Our reading carried us after normal bed time.

So, up this morning after sleeping through the night, ready to “awaken the dawn” that I see unfolding out the window. It’s fully light out, though the trees still obscure direct rays. On to other things for a couple of hours, then back to the book cover work.

Adam Of Jerusalem, Church History Novels, Documenting America, goals, Writing

A Rainy Morning of Busyness

2 Comments
Here’s what I got up to this morning—a nice, steady rain. Yet, it didn’t put me back to sleep.

I’m starting this post at 7:05 a.m. I’ve been up since 5:20. I got up a little before 5:00 for a call of nature and never got back to sleep. My right shin was hurting and kept me awake. I finally got up, went to my reading chair and tried to sleep. It was raining hard. The noise of the rain from the open window behind my head, and on the skylights and the roof, was soothing, but didn’t do the trick for putting me back to sleep.

So, a few minutes before six I got up, put on the coffee, then came back to my chair and opened the book I’m reading on my cell phone. It’s Thomas Carlyle’s Miscellaneous Essays, specifically his 1829 essay on Voltaire. I don’t know much about Voltaire so was looking forward to this particular essay. Alas, 68 pages into a 73 page essay and I don’t know much more than I did before reading it. I’m either reading distracted or Carlyle’s style is working against comprehension. I won’t re-read it immediately to see which it is.

Now I’m in The Dungeon, typing this on the fly. It’s going to be a busy day. I have to call my dentist when the office opens. For some reason I think I have an appointment today that I failed to put on my calendar. Later, at 12:45 p.m., Lynda has a medical appointment in town that I’ll accompany her on. That will consume about three hours including the driving there and back.

Last night, via e-mail, I received the final information needed to publish Adam Of Jerusalem. At some point today I’ll plug that into the publication files, then complete the final formatting. I hope today I’ll get the Kindle e-book edition published, tomorrow the Smashword edition, and maybe Wednesday complete the print book and order a proof copy. This may sound like a lot but it’s all doable, depending on the time to make the print book cover from the e-book.

Of course, at 8:00 a.m. I’ll get on the elliptical for 5 minutes, then go into my Monday morning stock trading routine. Meanwhile, last night I completed my research in the source document for one chapter of Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition, a chapter I hadn’t yet done any reading for. I identified the excerpt I want to use and will today add it to my book file. That will give me three chapters edited, waiting for my original words to be added.

Somehow, when adding the photo to the cover, I caused the text to be offset from center. I’ll correct that later today.

Then, I also need to spend some time on books for two other authors that I’m helping. One is the retired missionary from our church. I’ve written about this before. I’ve created a rudimentary cover for it, which, while not professional, will likely suffice for this book. I have the same publishing tasks ahead for that book, that I can start any time.

A second book, for a different author, is not as far along. She came to my attention through the critique group I’m in, as she’s the church friend of a young man who has attended a couple of times. Her book is encouragement for women who have a church background but are working to recover a strong spiritual relationship with God that they either lost or perhaps never had. I may work on that some today, though more likely tomorrow.

So there you have the outline of my day. How much of this I will actually accomplish is a mystery. But, I’ll try. With God’s help and strengthening I’ll complete much of it.

America, Documenting America, History, research, Writing

Documenting America: From the Cutting-Room Floor

2 Comments
The United States Constitution. What a great system of government.

As I mentioned in a previous post, as I’m going through the source documents for Documenting America: Making the Constitution Edition, much good material gets edited out. It winds up on the cutting room floor, so to speak, using the movie industry term.  Some of this is good material. I’d love to use it in my book, but, alas, I need to keep the book a reasonable size.

The thought came to me to use it for blog post material. So, instead of just dumping it, I’ve been saving it for use when it’s time to write a blog post and I have nothing else in mind. It could also be newsletter material, I suppose, if I ever take the plunge to writing a newsletter.

But, again alas, something I put into a file last week, from one of the Federalist Papers, is now nowhere to be found. What did I do with it? Did I save it to my Documenting America Vol 3 folder? It’s not there. Did I save it to my Blog folder? It’s not there either. Maybe, without paying attention, I saved it to the root folder of my Documents. Nope, not there either. Did I fail to save it and let it go drifting off into the ether?

Whatever, the excellent item I was going to use for today is not on my computer. I could spend an hour looking for it, but think, instead, I’ll find something else. I saved other stuff.

Here’s one from an anonymous writing from someone from Pennsylvania who didn’t like the proposed constitution.

The wealthy and ambitious, who in every community think they have a right to lord it over their fellow creatures, have availed themselves, very successfully, of this favorable disposition; for the people thus unsettled in their sentiments, have been prepared to accede to any extreme of government; all the distresses and difficulties they experience, proceeding from various causes, have been ascribed to the impotency of the present confederation, and thence they have been led to expect full relief from the adoption of the proposed system of government, and in the other event, immediately ruin and annihilation as a nation. These characters flatter themselves that they have lulled all distrust and jealousy of their new plan, by gaining the concurrence of the two men in whom America has the highest confidence, and now triumphantly exult in the completion of their long meditated schemes of power and aggrandisement.

Whoever wrote this, a small part of a much longer article, was, I think, spot on concerning what happens when power is obtained and then applied to government. Wealthy and ambitious people do tend to lord it over their fellow citizens. They are successful, often from their own work, and they see this as a reason why they should 1) be held in high esteem by others, and 2) have positions of political power.

The writer of the original document seems to have been wrong, however, about the motives of those who wrote the Constitution and about how the government would function under it. Things turned out much better than his dire predictions. He knew things weren’t going well under the Articles of Confederation, and saw this new document as setting up a government of the rich and powerful. I believe most of our 232 year experience with it shows us that this isn’t so.

My Documenting America series focuses on our historical documents, and tries to inspire people to seek the documents out and read them.

Or is it? As I look on Congress today, I see lots of multi-millionaires. I see people who make laws that apply to others but not themselves. I see the rich and powerful say the government should take over your health care while they keep a very nice plan for themselves. Same with pensions and Social Security.

I could go on and on. Can you tell I’m not a big fan of Congress? I think most of the ills in the nation that are often attributed to the president—every president, no matter who it is—are often the fault of Congress, either due to their action or inaction.

So why didn’t this particular passage make it into my book? Simply a matter of space. This document, like all of them I’m using in the book, is chock full of good phrases and arguments. Some turned out to be wrong arguments, some right. It’s all worth reading. If someone reads Documenting America and then digs into the source documents, they’ll see this. All the better. If they don’t, this will remain obscure and unread.

Perhaps my book and this blog will help others to find and read it.

 

America, Documenting America, family

The Heckler’s Veto

Leave a comment

I haven’t said much about this recently, but our son is Dean of Students at the Law School at the University of Chicago. He’s been slowly working his way up through university administration since he earned his PhD in 2011, a degree he worked long and hard for.

In past positions (not at the Law School) he’s had a lot of interesting things come up, such as a student who presented letters saying he was a C.I.A. operative and therefore needed some type of special treatment. Or such as the student who forged her admission papers, showed up at registration, and tried to force her way into enrollment and housing. Some things weren’t so benign, such as student deaths to deal with when Dean on Call.

How may the right of free speech be abridged, if at all?

An interesting situation came up on April 9, 2019, when pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted a talk by a pro-Israel speaker. The talk concerned the boycott of Israel wanted by Palestinians. The talk was by a visiting professor. The Palestinians entered the room and began shouting, preventing the speaker from continuing. Someone called the campus police. Charles was close by in the law school, and so came down and tried to restore calm and allow the talk to continue. You can read about it in this article in The Chicago Maroon, the university newspaper.

Embedded in the article, in tiny print, is an e-mail Charles sent to the students later in the day, explaining what had happened, what his actions were, and how all this applied to University policy, especially the policy of free speech. I particularly liked this from his e-mail:

The heckler’s veto is contrary to our principles. Protests that prevent a speaker from being heard limit the freedoms of other students to listen, engage, and learn.”

This brings me to something concerning free speech that I’ve been thinking of for quite some time. It’s relevant to me now as I work on my next book, Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition, especially in relation to the discussions on the Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech is covered in the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble….

As has been pointed out many times, the Constitution was written in a way to restrict the government, not the people. Laws of Congress restrict the people, but not the Constitution. Over time this has been re-interpreted as applying to the people as well. In certain areas, people must restrict their behavior based on the provisions of the Constitution.

Well done, Dean Todd!

What about in this case? The professor who was speaking has a right to free speech. The protestors who were preventing others from hearing him have a right to free speech. Do those in the audience have a right to hear the speaker? Is there any free speech when hearing is prevented?

Which brings me to something I’ve thought of for a long time. The right of free speech doesn’t guarantee the one speaking or publishing will have an audience. This, I think, is sometimes a problem with the press, especially the broadcast press, who decry alternate voices that crowd them out when they consider themselves to be “legitimate” news outlets and the others not. Sorry, but no one executing their right of free speech or free press has the right to an audience. No one.

But what about those who came to hear the speaker? Do they have a right to hear? I’m not sure. Certainly civility would say that they ought to be allowed to hear the speaker they came to hear, and that the protesters should find a different way to protest. Silently holding signs, confronting the speaker before and after speaking, establishing an alternative talk in another place. These would all be ways for the protesters to be heard and seek to gain their own audience.

This brings me down to what I’ve been thinking about: when rights clash. I have freedom of speech, but not where that right clashes with someone else’s right. I have freedom to practice my religion, but not where that right clashes with someone else’s right.

In a clash of rights, whose right should come out on top? Maybe before I ask that I should say, when rights clash, find a way to accommodate both people’s rights. Then, if you somehow can’t do that, whose right should come out on top? In the USA we have always said it should be the right of the weaker person.

I hope our nation always takes that position. The government was established to protect our God-given rights. When the rights of two people clash, and when no reasonable accommodation of both can be found, then the right of the weaker person should prevail. I can think of one huge area where, in a clash of rights, the Supreme Court and some of the States have come down on the side of the stronger party, but that will be a subject for a different post and perhaps a different blog.

 

America, Documenting America, research, Writing

Too Many Sources

Leave a comment

Richard Henry Lee, while a true patriot, wasn’t happy with the proposed Constitution.
[Photo by Billy Hathorn, used under creative commons license]
As I work on Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition, my main problem is having too many sources or sources of too great a length with too many inspiring words. If I put in everything I want to, the book would be 200,000 words. In comparison, the first volume in the series was a mere 45, 000 words and the third only 70,000.

Clearly, I have much editing to do. A good example of this are some letters written by Richard Henry Lee right after the Convention. Published in a newspaper with a pseudonym, they were anti the proposed Constitution.

Since in the book I want to present both sides of the argument, Lee’s letters interested me. I pulled two of the five letters into my manuscript, and discovered they were over 9,000 words. Heavens! How in the world would I ever get them down to a reasonable length, which is between 1,000 and 2,000 words without throwing away valuable words?

I decided I had two different things I could do with the excess words. One is to take some excerpts from the letters and build blog posts around them. In furtherance of that, Here is a quote from Letter 3.

This, by a part of Art. 1, Sect. 4, the general legislature may do, it may evidently so regulate elections as to secure the choice of any particular description of men. It may make the whole state one district—make the capital, or any places in the state, the place or places of election—it may declare that the five men (or whatever the number)…the state may chuse who shall have the most votes shall be considered as chosen. In this case it is easy to perceive how the people who live scattered in the inland towns will bestow their votes on different men, and how a few men in a city, in any order or profession, may unite and place any five men they please highest among those that may be voted for and all this may be done constitutionally, and by those silent operations, which are not immediately perceived by the people in general. I know it is urged, that the general legislature will be disposed to regulate elections on fair and just principles: This may be true. Good men will generally govern well with almost any constitution: but why in laying the foundation of the social system, need we unnecessarily leave a door open to improper regulations? This is a very general and unguarded clause, and many evils may flow from that part which authorises the congress to regulate elections.

In the book I would make commentary on this excerpt. I would focus on how Lee’s fears were not met—except where gerrymandering occurs, but this is done by the States, not the Federal government. I would make reference to his statement that “Good men will generally govern well with almost any constitution” and quote it in my commentary, as I did here. While Lee’s letter is negative relative to the Constitution, I would present his side but find a way to make it positive.

And, perhaps, a fourth to this one? Yes: Making The Constitution Edition, hopefully in 2019. Update: It will come in 2019!

So why didn’t I? Why did so much of Lee’s words end up on the cutting room floor (my final excerpt being only 1450 of Lee’s 9200 words)? Chalk it up to editor’s license, and the fact that I have a surfeit of material, and that I judged other of Lee’s words to be better for my chapter.

It has occurred to me that I have a second way to use some of these deleted words or other sources that I have cast aside in my editorial duties. For years I’ve thought about starting a writer’s newsletter, to be shared via e-mail; something to “market my wares”, so to speak. I’ve hesitated doing this because of the work involved. For a while I thought I would wait until retirement to start it. I’m there now, and still hesitate due to the work.

I wanted to title the newsletter Citizen and Patriot, after the words of James Otis in his argument against the Writs of Assistance in 1761: “These manly sentiments in private life make the good citizen, in public life, the patriot and the hero.” That didn’t seem appropriate for a writer’s newsletter, however.

Then I thought, perhaps it could be a column in my newsletter. Since I hope to be forever working on books in my Documenting America series, this could be the column where I promote them.

Still another thought came to me. Perhaps I could make this a stand-alone newsletter, one that, through using the words from America’s historical documents, to urge good citizenship and patriotism. I could even make it a paid newsletter and maybe make a little money from my research.

Well, of necessity I’m going slowly with that. I would need a design, a simple masthead, and a few sample newsletters prepared to see what it looked like and how much time each would take. I’d need to establish a frequency, and utilize some time of e-mail marketing service to make it happen. All much work, it seems to me.

So, for now I’ll accumulate sources. I’ll relegate many unused sources, and large parts of used ones, to my editor’s waste pile—but I won’t discard them, not just yet. Perhaps I’ll have more blog posts about them, and maybe a newsletter somewhere in my future.

Adam Of Jerusalem, Bible study, Christianity, Documenting America, History

We Interrupt this Book Review to…Write

Leave a comment
This is close to the cover I want to use for “Adam Of Jerusalem”, but I can’t find the copyright holder of the photo. I’m probably wrong in even posting it here.

In my last post I wrote part 1 of a two-part review of John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government. I said I would do the next part soon. However, soon is not today. Instead, I’m going to write about what I’m writing, and what I’m preparing to write.

I have two books in progress, one complete and being edited, one being written. The first is Adam Of Jerusalem. I finished this in mid-December 2018, let it sit a few weeks over the holidays, then began editing in mid-January. I think those dates are right; it’s all kind of blurry without looking at my diary. I’ve made three editorial passes, and given the book to three beta-readers. I have figured I would publish it then.

But, in January I joined a newly-formed writers critique group. I decided to run AOJ by them. They didn’t like chapter 1 in January or chapter 2 in February. Not enough description they said. Too much getting from point A to point B without flourishes. Alas, that must be the engineer in me.

So I went through these two chapters looking for places to add some description, some of what I call extraneous information that gives the reader a better experience, that makes them feel like they were there when the action was taking place. It caused chapter 2 to increase in length 25 percent. If I did that for the entire book, the novel would go from 72,000 words to 90,000 words. That’s not awful, but I would have to think about that.

Still, I decided to go on with this for a few more chapters at least. Last night I re-edited chapter 5, having completed 3 and 4, and found a number of places to add those flourishes. I’ll type these last edits sometime today and step back and see how it looks to me. I imagine I’ll go on with this while waiting on beta-readers to get back to me.

And, perhaps, a fourth to this one? Yes: Making The Constitution Edition, hopefully in 2019. Update: It will come in 2019!

Then, my current writing project is Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition. I’ve written about this series before many times, and this particular volume. At some point, around February 12, I began gathering source documents and completed the editing and writing of one chapter on February 18. Yesterday I completed the twelfth chapter (out of 31 or 32) and edited the source document for the thirteenth. I did that in the evening in manuscript, so will be typing that today.

Meanwhile, as I work on DA:MCE, I’m coming across material I realize I can use in a future edition. I don’t know what I’ll do next. The choices are many. I read some inspiring, early abolition works, and thought that a volume on the abolition movement might be good. So I created folders on my computer and began seeking out source documents for that. I’m a long way from doing anything with this book, but maybe, just maybe, I’m starting it the right way. Except, I should start a writing diary for it, even if it will have major time gaps in it.

One other project that I’m (somewhat) actively working on is a Bible study I developed and taught some years ago called Sacred Moments. It’s a study of the sacraments and the importance of them in the life of the Christian. They are sacred moments. I had a little trouble finding the files I created on that years ago. On a shelf in my closet, in an unmarked, green three-ring binder, I found the paper copies—preserved in sheet protectors, no less. Digging around in files transferred from an old computer, I found the computer files. I transferred them into my cloud storage.

I have no schedule for working on Sacred Moments. I feel I must do more research if I’m to publish it as a Bible study. It will be the first of those critters for me, and I would want to do it right. I did lots of research before, and even some after, but too many years have passed since I developed and taught it, so I’ll have to re-do some of that research.

That’s pretty much it. One other, more minor, task I want to work on soon is to get my ideas notebook in shape. I found it this week, on that closet shelf. I can’t remember the last time I looked at it. I’m thinking that may be a Sunday task, with a mug of coffee, in the sunroom.