Category Archives: Fifty Thousand Screaming People

Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Health, letters, Writing

Well, not quite normal yet

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In my last post I reported that I was back to normal after the food poisoning the week of March 16th. I was wrong, though: I’m not really back to normal. Oh, physically I am, I guess. But mentally I’m not. All the good I was doing on weight loss is in danger of being reversed, as since the sickness I have no desire to eat right. The three days out of town, on conference fare, didn’t help. But at home I just haven’t felt like doing what I need to do to have the right kinds of foods for lunch or supper. Consequently, when I weighed in today, I was way, way up. I’m still a good amount ahead from where I started, but if I don’t get back at it today…. It probably hasn’t helped that Lynda is still away. No accountability partner.

This weekend I could not focus very well. I started Saturday with a couple of household things. We added a console TV to the living room, which hides the lower shelves of a corner cabinet. This cabinet (not a built-in) needed to be raised anyway, since it is 18 inches shorter than the built-ins on the other end of the wall. So Saturday morning, using some salvaged 2×6 boards, I “built” an 18 inch riser for it and installed it. Then I reloaded all the shelves with the nicknacks that had unceremoniously cluttered the hearth for a month. The console TV hides the riser very nicely. Oh, I also raised the console TV the thickness of two 2x6s, as it was a bit close to the floor for comfortable viewing. This all consumed the morning, much of the time working with the salvaged wood to back out nails and separate pieces prior to sawing.

After that, though, I had a very hard time tackling my next project: income taxes. I made a good start, but my concentration faded. As it was snowing outside, I didn’t particularly want to walk as a means of clearing my head. So I puttered on the taxes, got a little done, surfed the web, played mindless computer games, and watch a little NCAA basketball.

I also read in my recent book purchases (the Tolkien letters, the C.S. Lewis letters, and misc. C.S.L. writings), in the Mark Twain Hawaii letters, and in a writers mag. Even with those, I found my mind wandering, and I went from item to item with little comprehension. I gave that up and, as the snow had stopped, drove to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things urgently needed (peanut butter among them), then did laundry and dishes. That got me through 6:00 PM, and a PB&J sandwich through 6:30 PM. I tried the taxes again, and made a little more progress.

Saturday evening was better as far as concentration was concerned. I worked on my outline for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, and outlined the next seven chapters. That will get me about half way through the book. I was able to read with greater comprehension after that.

Sunday, at a church dinner, I thought my sickness was coming back. Fortunately, it was only one episode and I seem to be fine physically. Still, that gave me a too-easy excuse not to walk or exercise. The taxes again resisted the five hour concentrated effort needed to complete them. I outlined the rest of a political essay I started, then went back to my reading. I found some of C.S. Lewis’ letters on his spiritual life quite interesting, Tolkien’s letters to his son during WW2 less so.

So what will this week hold? I need to get back on the stick as far as exercise and diet are concerned, and get back in the form I was in two weeks ago. I need to have that concentrated time to complete our taxes. It looks as if we will get a nice refund, and I need to get that in the works. And I need to get back to writing, so that if I do get to go to a conference in May (hopefully the Blue Ridge one again), at least I’ll have something to present to editors/agents.

Tonight I get my wife back. Yeah!

Fifty Thousand Screaming People

Obverse or Reverse

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I love the wisdom of Victor Henry, the old sea dog who served his country so well in two world wars, confidant of two presidents, father of three including a fallen war hero. A man could learn much from all that was written about Victor.

Some of you are wondering who Victor Henry was, why you don’t recognize the name of such a famous person, and why I should be writing about him. Well, he is a fictitious character, the hero of Herman Wouk’s two epics, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. So actually Victor’s wisdom is Wouk’s wisdom, explained through his character.

The particular bit of V.H. wisdom I’m thinking of today comes from The Winds of War, near the end. Henry is en route from temporary duty in the Soviet Union to Pearl Harbor to take command of the battleship California. The Japanese sneak attack comes while he is on the last leg of the trip, from Quam to Wake Island to Pearl via Midway Island. He gets to Pearl Harbor and learns the California took torpedoes in the attack, and he has no ship to command. In the pile of letters waiting for him was one from his wife, asking for a divorce, and one from his daughter, saying she was being named in the media as the paramour of her boss. Henry, temporarily staying at his son’s house (a naval aviator), finds a bottle of brandy and drains it in a few hours. He wakes up the next day with the pain deadened but unable to function.

At breakfast he learns that the Japanese had bombed submarine installations in the Philippines, including the navy base where his other son was an officer on a submarine. As Wouk writes concerning what Victor thinks, “When things go bad, his long experience told him, they went very bad”.

That seems to be happening at present. Another computer crash, this time the computer I work at, with all my writing on it, very little of it adequately backed up. I don’t know that it’s lost totally, but I fear the worst. My truck, fresh from the shop for routine maintenance, the next day throws the new belt they just put on it and I am almost stranded 100 yards away from my destination. The economy goes from bad to worse and I’m pretty sure we are in a depression, though the data to confirm that is a couple of quarters away. And, it looks like a financial problem in my extended family is about to blow up and I may have to go half way across country to help deal with it–or maybe not. And, I am dead tired from the labors of clearing out my mother-in-law’s house (not even close to done), the rigors of diet, exercise and weight loss (not even close to any goal), and the rigors of work, trying to help save a company from ruin for 20 percent less pay than a year ago. Yes, after my somewhat euphoric post of last Wednesday, things have gone very bad.

Every coin has two sides, obverse and reverse. You can’t have one without the other. I tend to be pessimistic in my outlook of life, so when bad things come, similar as for Victor Henry, they seem normal. The hits will probably keep on coming. Such as today. I found out between beginning this post and ending it that the agent who was considering In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People is going to pass on it. Victor Henry was correct.

Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Harmony of the gospels

To Post or Not To Post

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I should post today, but I sit here at my computer in the office, 32 minutes before I start my work day, with a mostly detached mind. It’s not writer’s block, for I can think of twenty things to write about, but none of those seem well enough developed in my thinking to begin writing for public consumption.

My evening writing time for the last three or four weeks has been devoted to the Harmony of the Gospels I’ve been working on for some years. Right now I’m entering the NIV footnotes (my base text is NIV). This has been a tedious task. Sometimes the footnote will say that it applies to the noted verse and several other numbered verses in the passage. Since I don’t have numbered verses, I have to alter the footnote. I began the footnote work with Matthew, then Mark, then Luke, and am now to the 13th chapter of John. With each gospel, as I got to a parallel passage, I found fewer notes to enter, the same footnotes typically applying to the multiple versions of the passage. Also, as I typed much of the unique passages from John, I entered some of the footnotes as I went along. So, tonight I should finish John.

As I entered footnotes, I found a couple of places where I had missed something in the harmonizing. And, I left two or three places up in the air as I did the original work in manuscript, passages that were particularly difficult to blend, or to establish a most probably timeline, so I put them off to a later date. That later date arrives this weekend, it looks like.

Also, one difficult part of harmonizing is knowing how to fit the unique passages in John into the approximate timeline presented by the synoptic gospels. John Chapter 5, for example, a trip to Jerusalem. Where does that go in the synoptics? Assuming John’s gospel is chronological and not topical (a dangerous assumption!), all we know is it goes between Jesus’ second miracle in Galilee and the feeding of the five thousand. That puts it anywhere between Matthew 4:13 and 14:13, or Mark 1:2 and 6:30, or Luke 4:38 and 9:10–assuming each of those is chronological, again a dangerous assumption. The same can be asked for chapters 7 through 12 in John; where do they fit in?

In general, I followed the chronology suggested in the NIV Life Application Bible. After I was about a third of the way through my original harmonizing, I checked the harmonizing of events in the NIV-LIB, and found that we had exactly agreed up to that point. So from that point on I just followed the NIV-LIB order, rather than develop my own chronology. However, I now think I need to shift John chapter 7 to a later point than I have it. I also need to figure out what to do with Luke 9:51, which seems to upset much of my chronology.

All of this will not likely lead to publication. But it is fun; it stimulates my mind; and should produce something useful for Bible study, even if only for me.

I think, however, when I come to a good stopping point in the Harmony, which I see coming in about two weeks, I will shift back to In Front of Fifty-Thousand Screaming People, and try to finish that.

Daddy Daughter Day, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Harmony of the gospels, Life Group lessons, Life On A YoYo, poetry, Writing

What to write?

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This question is not about this blog, but about writing in general. At present, I have only two writing projects in progress:

1. Type the harmony of the gospels I did off and on over a three year period ending in 2005, then go through it to look for gaps, redundancies, potential changes in order, etc. After the typing and editing is done, type explanatory notes for the harmony, only some of which are written in manuscript form. This is likely to take all year.

2. Work on my “Life On A Yo Yo” Bible study, of the life of Peter the apostle. This is planned, and I begin teaching it on Sunday Jan 4, 2009. This is more of a teaching project than a writing project, but I figure that every such project might become a writing project given the right amount of time and energy.

But what to do about a writing career? As I’ve reported before, it seems that life will never give me, short of my retirement planned for 8 years and 2 days from now, enough time to do all that writing demands: write, edit, improve my craft, research the market, research agents, pour time into submittals/proposals/query letters/etc., follow-up on those, and prepare for the marketing work I would have to do should I become published. All this makes a writing career a pipe dream for now.

So I have an unfinished second novel, In Front Of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, that must remain unfinished. I have a completed first novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, which, having earned about ten rejections, must remain in the reject pile for the moment. I have my completed poetry book, Father Daughter Day, which, defying all rules of genre and degree of religiosity, sits in exile upon a closet shelf. My non-fiction book Screwtape’s Good Advice, has only one rejection, but finding time to tailor the proposal to new editors or agents seems, in light of the current state of publishing, an effort in futility. My newspaper column, Documenting America, being a good but unique work The long list of other novels, other non-fiction books, magazine articles, etc. will just have to remain in the ideas notebook for now.

What will the next twelve months hold as far as writing goes? Stay tuned.

Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Screwtape's Good Advice, Writing

Learning to Wait

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You’d think I’d know about waiting by now, that somewhere in my 56 plus years on this planet the understanding that waiting is sometimes a requirement of life would have sunk in.

I still find it difficult, however, especially as I seek publication. On July 2nd I mailed my Screwtape’s Good Advice proposal to the editor who requested it. No word yet. On July 30th I e-mailed the proposal for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People to the agent who requested it. No word yet.

Eight and four weeks are not long times for the publishing wheels to grind through the process, not by a long shot. It’s still difficult to wait, especially when these were requested after a face-to-face interview. Is no news good news? If they were looked at right away and were not rejected out of hand, if the editor and agent are mulling it over and comparing to other proposals in hand or maybe discussing them in committee or with other agents, then no news is good news. If, on the other hand, the proposal sits in the slush pile, despite specifically being requested, then I suppose no news is good news too.

It’s all in God’s timing, and up to His will through His servants, the editor and the agent. I just wish I could put them so far out of my mind that I could work on other works-in-progress.

C.S. Lewis, critique group, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Life Group lessons, reading, Screwtape's Good Advice, Writing

The July Report

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This was my first month for posting goals, so this report will be specific as to how I did on those goals. I’m posting this on the 30th because the 31st, right now, looks to be a day I won’t have time to post on.

Here are the goals I set on July 1st, and what I did toward them.

  • Type final edits on The Screwtape Letters study guide proposal; mail to the editor by July 3. I’m happy to say I accomplished this, mailing the proposal on July 2. Still waiting for an answer.
  • Complete proposal on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People; edit; mail to agent by July 10. This will include work on the first 30 pages of the book, which are to be included. I finished this, but not until last night, July 29, a few minutes before midnight Central Time. While I wish I had finished it sooner, I think the extra time I took made both the proposal and the sample chapters better. Now the waiting begins.
  • Begin work on proposal on the Elijah and Elisha small group study guide. By the end of the month I would like to see the proposal essentially complete, and the weekly study sheets I prepared for Life Group expanded into chapters. If I can have it ready to mail to the editor by then, fine, but I’ll be satisfied mailing it in August. Alas, I did NOT finish this, and barely began it. I started looking at it only yesterday, and accomplished very little. This one will take some work, as I have to convert two page student handouts into sample chapters.
  • Attend critique group twice. At the first one present the synopsis for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People; at the second present the concept for the Documenting America newspaper column, including marketing letter and one or two sample columns. I attended both critique group sessions, but at the second one, rather than taking “Documenting America” I opted for two more chapters of FTSP. Given that no one had seen these, I thought it best someone critique them before I turned them in with the proposal.
  • Finish organizing the scattered piles of paper about the house. Actually, I’d be satisfied to simply bring improved organization to this, even if I don’t finish it. At least I want to have all papers of all works in progress filed together, and drafts of all poems put in their assigned places. I did mostly accomplish this. Many, many things are in a proper place, logically filed and easily retrievable. I have some more to go, especially the poetry, but I feel much better about this. I can let the rest slide a month while I work on other things.
  • Organize the business end of writing, including establishing a mileage log so I can get rid of the scraps. As with the last item, this is mostly accomplished. I probably have 20 percent yet to be finished.
  • Continue to post to this blog, at least 10 posts this month, and preferably 15 to 18. Yes! I have been faithful to this blog, reaching my goal for posts–and none of them fluff posts, either.
  • Begin outlining the next life group lesson I’ll teach, and prepare it in a way it can become a small group study guide. I did this, and have the lesson series mostly planned (but not studied or written). However, based on what the class chose to do as the next lesson to be taught by the other teacher, I will have to choose another topic. I chose it, and began planning it. I’m not as far along as I’d like, but I have a good start.

Miscellaneous items accomplished include: reading for research and pleasure (but, as I learn more and more, a writer never reads only for pleasure); reading about ten blogs of writers, agents, or editors; a few poem critiques on Absolute Write; reading about promotion for writers.

So, all in all a productive, satisfying month for writing.

Bible study, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Screwtape's Good Advice, Writing

Almost Done With One More

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When July began, I had three book proposals due, based on meetings I had with editors and agents (well, one editor and one agent) at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. The one I concentrated on first was the study guide of The Screwtape Letters. I finished and mailed that on July 2. I still haven’t heard back on that, but the Christian booksellers convention took a week out of that editor’s schedule.

The second one I decided to work on was for my baseball novel, In Front Of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I began working on that parallel to the Screwtape one in June, but had not progressed much. For this proposal, I had some sample chapters writing to do. As I blogged before, I had trouble shifting gears from non-fiction back to fiction. Once I did, I was able to add to the chapters I already had completed, then finish the proposal itself. This all came together last night, when I typed the last edits on the sample chapters. I had typed the final edits on the proposal last Thursday. Now, when I say final edits, that is subject to one more read tonight, with any changes I might see as necessary. So, tomorrow, this will go in an e-mail to the agent who requested it.

Now it’s on to the third one, a Bible study titled The Dynamic Duo: Lessons From The Lives Of Elijah And Elisha. This one will take more work, at least in terms of sample chapters. As I stated before in this blog, I developed these lessons and taught them from March to early June this year. Each week I prepared a two-page student handout, which included comments on the text, sometimes and exercise, lots of maps for understanding, and lots of pictures taken from the web. For my sample chapters, I will have to do away with all the illustrations, and just go with words. So I really have to expand the writing from what I have now. My original goal was to have this one in by the end of July, but that clearly ain’t gonna happen. Maybe the end of August, but that might be optimistic.

Still, I have all the handouts with me today, to look at on the noon hour and decide how much of them I can use, how much I will have to add. It’s a start, and something I’m looking forward to. Though, I will have to change gears back to non-fiction.

Meanwhile, on the first proposal, waiting, waiting….

Bible study, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Life Group lessons, Writing

Something New

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Today I gave the beginning six chapters, thirty-four pages, of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People to my key beta reader. He is not a writer, or a critique group partner, but rather a rabid baseball fan. He read the first two chapters a couple of years ago, and loved it. From time to time he’s pestered me about where the book stood, if I was writing any more. I had to keep telling him no, so far life and other writing projects were in the way. We’ll see what he says about it. I thought of another man I could give these chapters to and see what he thinks about it. I may e-mail them to him tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I worked late tonight (till 6:30 PM) due to having taken time off during the day to run an errand, then went to Barnes & Noble to browse the writing books and magazines. I sat for two blessed hours with three books, two magazines, and a large house blend, and had a wonderful time. I took a few notes from two books of references I will use in an on-line poetry workshop I’ll be facilitating in a month’s time.

But about a week ago, as if I didn’t have enough writing related stuff to do, I began a new project, a new Bible study. I just finished teaching “The Dynamic Duo: Lessons From the Lives of Elijah and Elisha”. This is one of the projects I pitched to an editor at the Blue Ridge conference, and for which he wants a proposal. I have a lot of work to do converting my weekly handouts into passable sample chapters and writing the proposal, but my mind cannot focus on that right now, not until I have the FTSP proposal out the door.

However, I needed a project–something mainly for the future–to fill in the odd half hour when I don’t feel there is enough time to work on one of my major, current projects. Since I co-teach an adult Sunday school class, and it will at some time be my turn to teach again, and since I enjoy developing and teaching my own material rather than something prepared, I’ve been exploring what I will teach next. And, since preparing these studies seems to be something I can do, and something that editors might be interested in, I am approaching this new study with the idea that I will write the whole book before I teach the study, rather than just have handouts and expand them into a book later.

So, I have begun planning a study with the tentative title “From Slavery to Nationhood: How God Used the Forty Years of Wandering”. It will come from Exodus, maybe Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and perhaps a wrap-up lesson from Joshua. I’m planning a study that could be taught in from about eight to about sixteen weeks, depending on how a given class wanted to do it. So I’ve read selected chapters in Exodus and Leviticus, and most of the first twenty-one chapters in Numbers. Based on my reading, I already have sixteen potential lessons. I think, by the time I finish, I’ll have about twenty. Then I’ll have to cull out the weaker ones, and begin the actual lesson prep. That’s really the fun part. I get to combine detailed Bible study, research, and writing into one package.

I will probably teach this beginning in January, so I’ve got some time, but not much. Meanwhile, ideas for another umpteen Bible studies are beginning to compete with novels and non-fiction books and historical-political newspaper columns for space between my ears. At least I know ideas are not a problem.

Dune, Fifty Thousand Screaming People

A Productive Evening

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My wife is gone again, with our daughter and son-in-law in the big OKC, tending to our grandchild. When she’s gone, I try to maintain our normal routines. I found out I sleep much better that way. So last night, I fixed and ate supper first thing, but instead of then going into the living room to read (as we normally do), I went straight to the computer in the “Dungeon”, as we call our computer room, intending to do some personal business stuff. I found out I couldn’t do the task due to lack of the necessary papers, wasted a bit of time on computer games, and headed back upstairs to read. Twenty pages later in Dune, and I was ready for the Dungeon again.

The project: make some more progress on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I had hoped to have the proposal ready to send last Thursday, so I’m obviously behind on my intentions. The actual proposal document is done, subject to tweaking and expansion of the competition section. What I lacked was about five pages of text. I’m supposed to have the first thirty with the proposal, and I only had twenty-five.

Even though I have outlined the book, so that I know the major events that must take place to put my main character into the cross-fire at the World Series (more on that someday, perhaps), I have not outlined it to the point where I know each scene. Those are coming as I get the inspiration, still switching gears from non-fiction to fiction. I have two scenes out of sequence, later in the book, mostly finished, but I needed that next chapter, that next scene, to have the full thirty pages to send. Plus editing, of course.

Last night I couldn’t seem to concentrate on the task at hand. I got some other things done, such as filing, organization, reading writing blogs, re-read the last chapter in sequence and did a few edits. But what to do with that elusive scene wouldn’t materialize. Should I switch to one of the Mafia Dons, and have them going through the routines of business? Should I do a scene at the farm in Kansas, how the family was reacting to Ronnie’s success? Or should I do another baseball scene? None of these seemed right at that point in the story. I thought of scenes later in the book I could work on, but that wouldn’t get me where I needed to be as soon as possible. Was this my first case of writer’s block? Computer games became a diversion.

Then, about 10 PM, the perfect next scene hit me. I’ve been intending to have Ronnie, the main character, interact with a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, a man I’d introduced briefly in the second chapter. Why not have their first one-on-one interview now. I was immediately taken to the Tribune newsroom, to the sports desk, where John Lind was trying to figure out how to interview the farm boy cum pitching sensation, and pounding keys.

At midnight, I had an almost finished Chapter 6, and was up to thirty-one or thirty-two pages at the start of the book. That put me way, way out of routine, for I don’t normally go to bed that late. When I went upstairs and to bed, my mind was full of plot and dialog, and no way could I sleep. Twenty minutes later I got up and went to my reading chair. I couldn’t face another chapter of Dune, so I wrote some in my journal, then picked up my Bible and read in Numbers, deciding on the next two possible lessons in my desert wandering Bible study. The words on the printed page were big and bold, the way they always are when my mind is sharpest. How could this be, a sharp mind at 1:30 in the morning? Nevertheless, I had a great time until tiredness came over me in waves about 2:00 AM.

I used to think my most creative time was between 10 PM and 2 AM. Years ago this manifested itself in solving all kinds of engineering problems I took home with me. Then the routines of life crept in, and I no longer worked on creative things at those hours. Is a change coming? Stay tuned.

Fifty Thousand Screaming People

Worked a Plan

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Yesterday, before making made my late afternoon post, I made a writing to-do list. This included a couple of e-mails not strictly writing related, a couple of over-due replies to old friends. I did those, then tackled the list. As I completed each one, I recorded them in my writing diary with the time. Actually, making a post to this blog was one of the early items on the list, working on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People one of the last. By the end of the evening, all but one item on my to do list was done, and FTSP was more than 2,000 words further along. My dreams last night were of a completed novel.

I’m not a big fan of to do lists. Oh, I write them, not so much to guide me in what I have to do but to help me to realize all that I must do, to help not slack off before I have enough done. That was the purpose of yesterday’s to do list–although I did tackle it in the approximate order I wrote it down.

Today I faced a different problem of work, another time of shifting gears. Returning to work after a weekend for me is always difficult. Not that I don’t like returning to work; rather, that the weekend away from work causes me to be inefficient when I return, doubly so after a holiday weekend. I have one main project I need to complete ASAP, a flood study that refuses to cooperate with me. Consequently I’m looking for any excuse not to work on it. But, knowing I should work on it, I bring it to the table and try, but find myself allowing distractions to enter in. I’ll waste time on the Internet, even writing stuff or Christian studies stuff, I’ll read technical magazines I don’t have to read, I’ll organize over and over, etc–anything to not work on the difficult task.

I knew I should work on it today, but also knew I would be terribly inefficient if I did. I needed something to work on that would allow me to work efficiently and stick to my work during the time my employer pays me. As I made the 24 minute commute this morning, the perfect task came to mind: write a construction specification section from scratch. This is part of my self-start stuff I always have trouble starting, to keep up with standards. Yet, I love writing specs. It’s about the most favorite part of my job. I’d rather be writing a spec for a specific project, but there’s a certain satisfaction from taking a blank sheet and creating ex nihilo something the company really needs. So, after my devotionals, my reading in Wesley’s letters, and checking a few web sites (all of which happen before I’m “on the clock”), I began writing a guide specification for underground storm water detention systems, something we’ve been needing for a long time. In two hours I had the basic structure done, and about 80 percent of the writing for one of the eleven manufacturers that will be included in the specification.

Other scheduled activities got in the way, along with people needing assistance–always a welcome diversion, but I had a concrete task to come back to during the day as thirty minutes free came up. By 5:15 PM I had the one manufacturer fully specified and proof-read. Since much of what I wrote for that one manufacturer will work for the others, I’m really pretty far along for about a half day’s work. And I didn’t waste my employer’s time today, praise the Lord.

Of course, my brain is fried tonight. After reading twenty-some pages in Dune, and after an evening walk of about a mile, my brain is as tired as it’s been in a long time, and I’ve barely been able to complete this post. I feel a good sleep coming on. Will my dreams be of completed novels, Bible studies in the planning stage, or underground storm water detention structures?