Category Archives: goals

American Colonial History, Bible study, Documenting America, expatriate life, goals, letters

January Progress, February Goals

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UPDATE: Everything below I wrote last Friday, in anticipation of where I would be at the end of the month. I didn’t know I was going to have a stroke on Saturday. More on that in a future post.

I didn’t really set goals for January. It took me so long to think through what my goals for all of 2024 would be that it was well into the month before I could even think about monthly goals. So I’ll state some goals as if I had made them, or pull them from my annual goals.

  • Attend two writers group meetings. One meeting was cancelled due to weather. I attended the other.
  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. I accomplished this, with a meaningful blog on all days.
  • Get to work on A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 8. I started this on Jan. 22, a little earlier than expected. As of the end of the month, I’m more than 50 percent done with it. So far the writing has flowed easily. UPDATE: I’m not 50 % donel
  • Finish editing and publish A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 1. I finished the editing around Jan. 10th and got to work on formatting for publication. Bogged down a little on the cover, as I had to first create a template for the whole series. The e-book template was done on Jan. 26. 
  • Begin reading in a source for the next Documenting America book. I did only a little of this. I enjoyed what I was reading—about debates in the Boston newspapers in 1774-75. But I wasn’t sure, from the little I read, that this was the right subject for the next volume.
  • Finalize and publish the latest short story in the Danny Tompkins series. Nothing done on this.
  • Begin transcribing the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia. I’m hoping to start this in February. I started this in January, around the 15th. I’m not sure why; it just seemed right. As of now, I have completed all the letters for 1981 (a partial year), and made a small start on 1982. Lots more to go. UPDATE: I still have 6 or 7 letters to go.

So, all in all a good month. What about February? Here’s what it looks like to me.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
  • Attend two writers meetings.
  • Make major progress on Volume 8 of A Walk Through Holy Week. Based on January progress, I might be able to complete the first draft in February. UPDATE: Probably only 60 percent.
  • Finish all publishing tasks for Vol. 1 of AWTHW, both e-book and print version.
  • Make a couple of new ads on Amazon. Maybe one for There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel and one for A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 1.
  • Continue transcribing our letters from Saudi Arabia.
  • Continue reading in some source for the next Documenting America book.

And that will do it. My typing is impaired by the stroke. Still not ready to pound the keys at a rapid pace.

Bible study, Documenting America, expatriate life, family, goals, holidays, Writing

A Roaring Start to 2024

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Dateline: Monday, January 15, 2024, Martin Luther King Jr. Day

I was about ready to leave The Dungeon and go upstairs, grab my sledgehammer, and fix the modem that way. Fortunately, our internet came up before such drastic repairs were needed.

It’s my regular blogging day. But I woke up this morning to find we have no internet. Thus, I can’t get to the blog to type in a post. I’m writing this on my computer, and will post it whenever the internet comes back to us.

Actually, it has been a horrible weekend for technology. Friday evening our cable kept going haywire. Picture breaking up, sound breaking up, occasional total loss of signal. We suffered through and saw a few things. Wound up streaming something via Amazon Prime, which worked. Or was that Saturday? The days are running together.

Anyhow, called Cox. They said they would have a technician out between 3 and 5 yesterday, and said it might involve a $75 charge. We had internet all day yesterday, but no cable.

The Cox tech was a no-show. But it snowed yesterday, a little over 2 inches, and the temperature never got above 1°, so I kind of understand why the tech didn’t make it. A call telling us that would have been nice. Alas, service providers of every type have ceased being proactive in communicating with their customers in this age of easy communication. Will it do any good to call the office today, on the holiday?

My post today was to be about January being off to a good start. I am one or two days away from the last editing pass through A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. Granddaughter Elise got the cover art done. So either tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll begin publishing tasks.

The first week of the year, while in Lake Jackson, I had a conversation with Elise about the next book in The Forest Throne series, and she read the prologue I wrote based on our prior conversations. She loved it, reading it aloud while our daughter was in the room and putting much drama into the reading. So a good start there on a project just a little down the road. Also, youngest grandson Elijah wanted to have a conversation about the fourth book in the series, which will be about the youngest child in the Wagner family. That book is planned for about four years from now. But we had the conversation and I got some ideas on paper. I may type them up and see what that future book will look like.

Sven months of letters from the Saudi years. The ones on the left are transcribed. The ones on the right to be done. It’s a big project.

I began transcribing the letters from our Saudi Arabia years. This was one of my realistic goals. On Fri-Sat-Sun, I typed five letters each day. I’m going to limit myself to five a day so as to keep the project from overwhelming me as the letters from the Kuwait years did. I have no idea how many total letters there are. As I look at the piles, it appears to be about 300, which is close to double the number in the previous project. But as we had no typewriter (or computer in 1981-83), the letters will likely average a little shorter.

I did a little reading for research for the next book in the Documenting America series. Not much, but a little. What I read, however, makes me wonder if I’m on the right track with this volume. I’ll discuss that more in a future blog post.

I also have made a good start on an author interview for a future blog post. Possibly today I’ll be able to pull my interview questions together and send them to him.

Well, our internet just came up, so I will wrap this up and post this. I’ll have to leave The Dungeon to go upstairs to see if the cable TV is up. I’m not optimistic. But I’m still optimistic in general about 2024. I still expect to see those realistic goals met. But we will see.

Bible study, Carlyle, Church History Novels, Documenting America, Genealogy, goals, poetry, The Candy Store Generation

2024: Possible Writing Projects

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In my last post, recapping my 2023 writing work, I said that my next post would be goals for 2024. But before I set those goals, I want to take a moment to think through all the writing projects I have going. Some are actually in progress, some are close to the surface, others were started and buried in the past. Still others are nascent, just starting to come together in my mind. They may never get beyond the idea stage, but they are there. I need to talk through this, think about what I can accomplish given life constraints. Bear with me though this thinking-out-loud post.

So here are the projects worth putting in the mix for actual goals for 2024.

  • Finish editing A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. I’m almost there right now.
  • Write Parts 2, 3, and 8 of A Walk Through Holy Week. Publish Part 2.
  • Pull Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution into book form and publish it as a stand-alone book.
  • Reasearch (and possibly write) the next book in the Documenting America series. I have two possibilities for what the next one will be. Both need reading for research.
  • The next book in the Church History Novels series. I’ve identified what it will be and have brainstormed the plot. But nothing is yet on paper.
  • Transcribe the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia—maybe just half of them this year.
  • Next book in The Forest Throne series. I have made a minor start on it and discussed the plot with my granddaughter, who is my consultant on this volume. But this is unlikely to happen in 2024, unless it’s late in the year and after much other work is completed.
  • Begin the Alfred Cottage mysteries. I have made a minor start on the first volume and have planned out the series.
  • Update The Candy Store Generation for recent data and republish. I think this is about a two-week project.
  • Flesh out One Of My Wishes, a hoped-for poetry book. I made a start on this and have it half done. But the hard part remains.
  • A genealogy book. I’m torn between two books in the Cheney family. One has much research done and is mainly writing left. The other requires research from scratch.
  • One of the two books about Thomas Carlyle I’ve started. One I think I could have done with a month of intense work. The other I started and laid aside so many years ago, I’m not sure where I was on it, though possibly 60 percent done.
  • And last, take some time to decide what to do about a tentative project, Nature, The Artwork Of God. I’ve been thinking about this for a few months. It seems like it would be a good book. In some ways it’s a bit scary to think I could write a book that blends science and religion, so I’m going to take a long time to ponder this. I think that at most this year I’ll complete some reading research and flesh out a table of contents.

I’m not saying all of these are things I’ll work on in 2024. I’m just trying to figure out what are real prospects for this year. For sure I’ll be pondering these projects over the next few days, as I have been for nearly two weeks, and will have some firm goals for the year set in my next post.

Bible study, Documenting America, Genealogy, goals, self-publishing

December Progress, January Goals

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Time to post about my progress in December and set some goals for January. I know, I know, December isn’t over yet. Maybe I should wait until January 1st to post this. But I’m doing it now, and will either edit it or provide updates in a comment.

  • Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday. I did this, though at least once I was a day late, and another time I didn’t write it until late in the day.
  • Attend three writers meetings. I’m not sure the third one will be held, as it will be getting close to Christmas. We cancelled the third one, a combination of sickness, travel, and Christmas. I attended the other two.
  • Finish the first draft and much of the editing of A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1: To Jerusalem. …If I can maintain my writing schedule, I should finish the writing by December 10. That gives me two weeks to edit, enough time to go through the whole thing once. I finished the writing Dec 13 and the edits to the Introduction on Dec 14. Editing commenced Dec 15 and…I completed it around Dec 21.
  • Type up some of the ideas for book 3 in The Forest Throne series. I don’t intend to begin actually writing this for perhaps a year, but I want to lock in the ideas generated so far. I did this, after having contacted my granddaughter for some clarifications of ideas we considered during Thanksgiving week.
  • Work some on Nature: The Artwork of God. This may be the next book I write (still trying to decide), so I need to expand the notes I’ve already taken. As of today, I did nothing on this in December.
  • Finish the new Danny Tompkins short story and decide what to do with it. I finished it and sent it to two beta readers. Still waiting to hear back from them.
  • Read for research for the next book in the Documenting America series. Actually, until I do my research, I don’t know what the next one will be.  I did a little reading on this beginning Dec 26. I’m not very far along, however.
  • Oh, one more: Finish and submit my article on a genealogical brick wall to the NWA Genealogical Society. The contest deadline is Dec 31. The article has been done for almost two months. Time to dust it off and do a final edit. I did this and submitted it on Dec 8, though I had to submit an extra couple of reference documents later. Now, I wait.

What about goals for January? I’m going to hold off on them until I post goals for the year 2024, which I’ll do on January 1. I’ll probably post specific goals for January on January 5.

America, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Documenting America, Genealogy, goals, miscellaneous, Short Stories, The Forest Throne, Uncategorized

November Progress, December Goals

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Ah, the first of the month comes on a regular blogging day. Perfect time to address progress and set some goals. First, the November progress.

  • As always, blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. I missed one day, Friday of Thanksgiving week. Otherwise, I had a meaningful blog post on each scheduled day. 
  • Attend three writers group meetings. I managed to do this. Thought I was going to miss one, but was able to make all three.
  • Finish editing Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution, and schedule all chapters to publish to Kindle Vella. Yes! I got this done. All are published to Kindle Vella, no one is spending any money to read them. Alas.
  • Finish the first draft of A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. This will be a stretch, but I should get close. No, did not quite get this done. As of yesterday’s writing, I still have a little over two chapters to go. I lost more than a week over Thanksgiving. Before that, I had a hard time with some of the writing, often missing my daily goal, occasionally having to spend the day in study and write nothing. But that’s okay; it was still progress in small steps.
  • Get a little more done on the ideas for The Artwork of God. I’m still in the research stage on this project. Ideas continue to come, so I guess I met this goal. I didn’t put much on paper, however, just brainstorming it. Found a couple of good quotes to go in it. So the goal was met, but just barely.
  • Begin writing down some plot ideas for the next volume in The Forest Throne series. My granddaughter and I sat and talked about this one day while she was here. I told her my ideas and she gave me feedback as well as some of her ideas. Since the book will be about the girl in the Wagner family, I will really need her help.

Now, what about goals for December? It’s the time I’ll have to try to get much done to meet my goals for the year. I haven’t looked at those for a long time. But, without looking back, here’s what I hope to accomplish this month.

  • Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday.
  • Attend three writers meetings. I’m not sure the third one will be held, as it will be getting close to Christmas.
  • Finish the first draft and much of the editing of A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1: To Jerusalem. As I said above, I’m down to the last couple of chapters. If I can maintain my writing schedule, I should finish the writing by December 10. That gives me two weeks to edit, enough time to go through the whole thing.
  • Type up some of the ideas for book 3 in The Forest Throne series. I don’t intend to begin actually writing this for perhaps a year, but I want to lock in the ideas generated so far.
  • Work some on Nature: The Artwork of God. This may be the next book I write (still trying to decide), so I need to expand the notes I’ve already taken.
  • Finish the new Danny Tompkins short story and decide what to do with it.
  • Read for research for the next book in the Documenting America series. Actually, until I do my research, I don’t know if this will be the next one or not.
  • Oh, one more: Finish and submit my article on a genealogical brick wall to the NWA Genealogical Society. The contest deadline is Dec 31. The article has been done for almost two months. Time to dust it off and do a final edit.
goals

October Progress, November Goals

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It’s that time to report how I’m faring with my writing

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Got it done, with only one, I think it was, hasty post. 
  • Attend three writers group meetings. I attended only two. At the time of the third one I was exhausted and decided to skip it.
  • Attend the Ozark Writers League fall conference in Branson. Yes, I attended. See the report here.
  • Finish all editing on Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution, and schedule all episodes for publishing on Kindle Vella. I’m almost done with the editing, maybe two days left. Publishing them to Kindle Vella will likely take another three days.
  • Begin work on A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. I have this pretty well planned out. I began this and made major progress, being close to halfway through with the first draft.
  • Continue to document the writing idea, The Artwork Of God. I’m not sure how much time I’ll spend on this. I spent a little time on this, not a lot. On Monday-Tuesday this week I found some commentary that bears on this that I hadn’t expected. It makes me a little more sure that there’s a real project here.
  • Begin reading a book on colonial America, dealing with essays from a newspaper debate in Boston in 1774-1775. I read less on this than I expected, but did read some, thus fulfilling my goal but in a minor way.

So looking back, it was a busy and productive month. One thing I did that wasn’t part of my goals was to do some minor updates to my website. Now, time to set goals for November.

  • As always, blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
  • Attend three writers group meetings.
  • Finish editing Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution, and schedule all chapters to publish to Kindle Vella.
  • Finish the first draft of A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. This will be a stretch, but I should get close.
  • Get a little more done on the ideas for The Artwork of God. I’m still in the research stage on this project.
  • Begin writing down some plot ideas for the next volume in The Forest Throne series.

Enough. It’s Thanksgiving month, and we will have a houseful of guests for close to a week. These goals may be more than I can achieve.

 

critique group, Documenting America, goals, Writing

Writing Progress and Goals: Aug-Sept 2023

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Time to work on a cover for the newest volume in this series?

It’s that time of the month—time for accountability of writing goals. How did I do last month vs. what I planned? First, the progress.

  • Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday. As usual, I achieved this. Only one time did I find myself late and have to throw something together.
  • Attend three writers meetings. One writers group is folding, so I’ll only have three most months henceforth. Attended all three, as well as an online social gathering of writers.
  • Begin serious writing work on Documenting America: Run-Up to Revolution. I don’t know how fast this will go—or how slow—so I won’t set a word goal. I actually began this on Saturday, and was able to complete the commentary part of Chapter 1—first draft, of course. This bodes well for future writing progress on this book. Yes! I made some major progress on this. As of 8/31, I had 12 of 31 chapters complete. The rest have the source documents fully edited and are ready for my words to be added.
  • Read more in reference documents for my new Bible study idea. If everything gels, get started on the study overview and outline. I didn’t read any more source documents, but I did spend a little time improving the outline.
  • Continue to work on digitizing/discarding of genealogy papers. Yes, I did this, though made less progress in the last week than previously.

Now for some goals. I’m a little hesitant to set any, because my mind has been too active on some potential new projects. But, if I don’t set some goals I’m just drifting to the future instead of steering a purposeful course. So here they are.

  • Blog twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. I suspect my readers are tired of seeing that goal each month.
  • Attend three writers meetings, plus the online social gathering.
  • Complete the first draft of Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution. This is very doable, but I will have to be disciplined, especially in consideration of…
  • .. Decide on whether to post my new Documenting America book to Kindle Vella and, if I do, get the first chapter/episode published on Wednesday, September 6.
  • Tie down the new writing idea that came to me on August 28-30. Write all I can about the idea in manuscript. No, I’m not sharing what it is now. Heck, I don’t know when I would have time to write it if it seems viable.

Enough! I’ll also be working on the genealogy papers digitization project.  I have a very large notebook open on my desk that I’d like to get all the way through in September.

Bible study, Documenting America, goals

July Progress, August Goals

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Last day of the month, time to enter my progress for last month and goals for the next.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Did this. I think only one time did I do a somewhat minor post. The rest were all more meaningful.
  • Attend two writers meetings, one of which I’ll present at. A third meeting may happen and I’ll attend, if the library can schedule them. I was able to attend only one writers meeting, due to a change in travel schedule. It was the one I presented at.
  • Work on Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution. Last month, even though it wasn’t on the schedule, I managed to copy most of my source documents and load them into a Word document. The next step is reading and condensing them to the right length for the format of the series. I anticipate this will take all of July and possibly even longer. I was able to complete this. It was a fairly large task, cutting 130,000 words in the source documents down to 30,000 for my book. Happy to say I completed that on July 25th!
  • Write up my recent Bible study idea into a proper outline of what it would be. It turned out I wasn’t quite ready to write this up, except for some minor, handwritten notes. I continued to do more reading in some reference documents. Possibly I’ll get to it in August, or I may put it off until September.
  • Not an official goal, but I did a lot of scanning, saving, and discarding of genealogy papers. Having a good electronic filing system in place has really streamlined the process. That, and getting to the point of simply discarding stuff rather than scanning it.

So what about goals for August? Summer and family travel appear to be over, so maybe I can get some good writing time in.

  • Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday.
  • Attend three writers meetings. One writers group is folding, so I’ll only have three most months henceforth.
  • Begin serious writing work on Documenting America: Run-Up to Revolution. I don’t know how fast this will go—or how slow—so I won’t set a word goal. I actually began this on Saturday, and was able to complete the commentary part of Chapter 1—first draft, of course. This bodes well for future writing progress on this book.
  • Read more in reference documents for my new Bible study idea. If everything gels, get started on the study overview and outline.
  • Continue to work on digitizing/discarding of genealogy papers.

That doesn’t look like much in the way of goals, but it’s all I can think of at the moment.

 

Bible study, Documenting America, goals, reading, The Forest Throne, Writing

June Progress, July Goals

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The Key To Time Travel is published.

How can I possibly have progress in a month that I was taking off from writing? Well, taking time off for me is different than for others. It’s hard for me not to keep up with writing even during my month off. So I got a few things done. I’ll list them along with the goals, then I’ll see what kind of goals I can set for July.

  • Blog twice a week, Mondays and Fridays, as always. Even with grandparent busyness, I was able to get this done. Each day had a real blog post written and posted.
  • Attend writer groups meetings as I can based on travel schedule.  As expected, travel kept be away from all but one of the scheduled meetings.
  • Proofread as much as I can of the four completed volumes of A Walk Through Holy Week. I proofread parts 4, 5, and 6 (which I didn’t remember proofreading last year). Part 7 will be a July goal.
  • Work on the cover for the AWTHW series. I don’t sell enough books to pay for cover creation, so I just have to do it myself. I have a concept I want to use, if I can do the graphics. Which leads to my last goal… This is done, sort of. I worked with my 10-year-old granddaughter, who shows some artistic talent, to go from my preliminary concept to a working prototype. Whether it’s a fully workable prototype, I’m not sure.
  • Work with G.I.M.P. on how to do more artistry in covers. I’ll have to find some tutorials.

Other things I got done were:

  • Catching up on correspondence, both new writing and filing all unfiled correspondence for 2023.
  • Publish The Key To Time Travel. I didn’t mention this as a June goal because I wasn’t sure of the timing for getting the cover. After dealing with some health issues, the cover designer finished her work, and the book went on sale this month.
  • Work on the source material for the next Documenting America book. See the July goals.
  • Do more reading than normal.
  • Brainstorm an idea for a new Bible study, and read some source material for it.
  • Made a few updates to my website—not major ones, but things that needed doing.
  • And one thing that wasn’t writing related, but which I feel like mentioning, was digitizing my genealogy files. No, they are not done—far from it. But I added to what I did in prior months and fine-tuned my filing system as I went along. At the end of the month I felt good about how much of this I accomplished.

Now, for some July goals.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
  • Attend two writers meetings, one of which I’ll present at. A third meeting may happen and I’ll attend, if the library can schedule them.
  • Work on Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution. Last month, even thought it wasn’t on the schedule, I managed to copy most of my source documents and load them into a Word document. The next step is reading and condensing them to the right length for the format of the series. I anticipate this will take all of July and possibly even longer.
  • Write up my recent Bible study idea into a proper outline of what it would be.

That’s a good number of goals for a month after a break. Documenting America will be my main task for the month.

Bible study, Christianity, goals, The Forest Throne

April-May Progress, June Goals

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When I last posted about progress and goals, at the end of March, I said I wasn’t going to post goals for April due to uncertainty of my schedule and ability to work on writing. Slowly, my schedule clarified itself. I found more time to work in the midst of grandparent duties than I expected.

So here it is June. I didn’t have goals for April or May, but I need to give you some idea of the progress I made in those months. I can’t compare it to goals I didn’t make, so I’ll just give it, in the format I usually do, as if I had goals.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. I managed to do this. A couple of times I had almost dummy posts, but I got it done.
  • Attend writers groups as I can. I was traveling a lot, and missed a number of meetings. But I attended whenever I was in town.
  • Work on and finish Parts 4, 5, and 7 of A Walk Through Holy Week. I’m pleased to say that the time I spent on this was quite effective and efficient. I finished Part 7 a little ahead of the teaching schedule. I finished Part 4 just after that, and Part 5 on May 19. I’ll soon write a blog post about that progress.
  • On The Key To Time Travel, finish a final edit to make sure all editor’s marks are addressed, and all dates and ages are consistent. Then format and publish it by the end of May. Yes, I got this done! I learned yesterday I need to make a minor edit to the acknowledgements, which I hope to do today. The print cover has been delayed, as the cover designer has had a health issue. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I can get the print book published.
  • Update this website as needed. I did most of that. Possibly I’ll get it all done before this posts.

So, what about June? I’m not real sure. After five months of intensive work this year, I feel like I need to take some time off. Yet, time off doesn’t result in the writing that leads to publication. Therefore, I’m going to make a few goals.

  • Blog twice a week, Mondays and Fridays, as always.
  • Attend writer groups meetings as I can based on travel schedule. I was supposed to present at one of these in June, but have had to delay that based on my schedule.
  • Proofread as much as I can of the four completed volumes of A Walk Through Holy Week. I actually started that in May, doing a complete read-through of Part 4 and some of Part 5. We’ll see how far I can get.
  • Work on the cover for the AWTHW series. I don’t sell enough books to pay for cover creation, so I just have to do it myself. I have a concept I want to use, if I can do the graphics. Which leads to my last goal…
  • Work with G.I.M.P. on how to do more artistry in covers. I’ll have to find some tutorials.

Enough goals. Although, I’m writing this post on May 23 for publishing on June 2. I can always edit the goals before it goes live.