Category Archives: goals

Bible study, Documenting America, goals, poetry, reading, Short Stories, Writing

September 2019 Goals

Leave a comment
I used to do goals posts regularly. I’ll do it this month and see what comes of it.

One thing I’ve been doing in the evening is going through old posts on this blog and adding categories to them. My son helped me set up my website in June 2011. Part of that was creating this blog. I already had a blog over at BlogSpot, titled “An Arrow Through the Air”. He did the work of porting all those posts over to this blog.

I intended, at first, to run both blogs. This one would be my writing blog; that one would be for more personal stuff. I did that for a while, but soon saw the pressures of life wouldn’t allow me to do both. So, I abandoned AATTA and concentrated on this blog. Eventually I renamed this one to be An Arrow Through The Air. The old one still exists. Every now and then I make a minor post there just to keep the account open.

A few months back I went to the back pages of this blog, I forget why. I noticed that all those posts from the old blog came over but none of them had categories. The all show up as “Uncategorized”. That’s not a major problem, but…oh, wait, I remember now. I was trying to find a post I did back in 2008 on a certain subject, went to that category, and didn’t find the post. That’s when I learned none of the categories had stayed with the posts as they ported over.

So, slowly, as I have a night in front of the TV where I can’t really do anything else, I’ve been going back through the old posts and adding categories. It’s actually a tedious job but I feel that it needs to be done. As of last night I had completed all the posts for 2008. Looks like I have two and a half years still to go.

One thing I noticed was that in 2008 I made a monthly post about my goals for the month—writing goals mostly—and then an end-of-the-month post showing how well I’d done. That was almost a journal, of sorts. It made me think I ought to do that occasionally. So, here’s my first goals post in a long time. Perhaps on Sept. 30 I’ll come back and make a post of how I did.

  1. Blog on a regular Monday and Friday schedule. I’ve done fairly well at that this year, and I’d like to continue it.
  2. Complete publishing tasks for and publish all versions of  Documenting America: Making The Constitution. I’m close. The covers are the big holdup.
  3. Complete publishing tasks for and publish all versions of  Acts Of Faith: Examples from the Great Cloud of Witnesses. I’m almost through with edits, but I can see this happening.
  4. Write a short story in my Sharon Williams Fonseca series. I have a sheet or two of notes of what I’m going to do next, if I can only find them.
  5. Critique 2-3 poems at the Absolute Write Forums. I’d like to keep my foot in poetry somehow. Maybe this is the way.
  6. Attend writers groups on the 11th and the 18th.
  7. Complete reading three items and begin two or three more. As of this morning I’m halfway through two books (each around 260-280 pages) and a third through a 60 page article. I should easily finish all these with no problem. I don’t know what I want to read next, but I’ll start searching my stacks before lone.
  8. Prepare my first newsletter for release about Oct 15. And figure out how to make it happen.

That’s enough, I think. See you all on the 30th with a report.

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.

goals, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

The Forest and the Trees

Leave a comment

It’s St. Patrick’s Day. That’s not a day I normally celebrate, but since much of the world is, I figured I should mention it.

The real subject of this post, however, is one I touch on with some regularity: busyness. This is one of my frequent themes and complaints. Of course, I do it to myself. If I didn’t want to write and publish books and stories, I wouldn’t be near as busy as I am. If I didn’t insist on balancing my checkbook (as I believe most people aren’t doing these days), or keep up with a budget spreadsheet, or neatly file financial receipts and records, I’d have a lot less to do. So, yes, I realize that the way I want to live and conduct life contribute to that busyness, or maybe even create that busyness.

One metaphor frequently used to describe someone who is busy is to say “He can’t see the forest for the trees.” I suppose that doesn’t apply only to a busy person. It could apply to someone who focuses on individual tasks without being able to see the big picture.

My problem right now is just the opposite. I can’t see the trees for the forest. I have such a massive amount of items on my to-do list I can’t see my way clear which one to tackle first. I could do any one task, any two tasks, maybe even any five tasks, and see no less forest of tasks waiting for me.

When that happens, which has been frequently of late, I tend to back off and do nothing. Which isn’t good, since the tasks are still there and more are being added. That’s where I’ve been of late, backing off and doing nothing. That can’t happen for long, however, and I finally got back to my list and started looking for trees.

On the non-writing list, I tried to figure which were the time sensitive ones, and work on them. Income taxes, of course, are a big one. But before that came car registration. But before that came personal property assessment. All this can be done on-line these days. The last couple of years I waited too late to do it on-line and had to go to the DMV. This year, though, around March 1st I went on-line and did the assessment. Then around March 8th I went on-line and did the renewal. Yesterday the stickers for the license plates came in the mail. Today they got on the vehicles. One item down—or maybe I can count that as three items.

On the writing list, I have my novel, Preserve The Revelation, almost finished. It needs one final read and tweaking of chapter 1, then it’s publish. Then I have the next Danny Tompkins short story, then the civil war book, then another short story, then…the list gets really long. I took a stab at felling a couple of “maintenance” type trees: I re-did my biography on my Amazon author page and on my website. Neither ones were major tasks, but they were part of this huge, impenetrable forest in which I can’t see trees. Well, I saw those two, and they are gone, for now at least.

This Danny Tompkins short story is an odd thing on my list. I thought the series was over with the last story, but two circumstances in real life gave me the idea for one more. A couple of months ago I outlined it and wrote an opening paragraph, mainly to get it out of my mind. But the day I finished the first round of edits on PTR, I had an extra hour to find a tree to cut down, so I began typing on “Growing Up Too Fast”. By the end of that day I had the story complete save for a good ending. I finished that last weekend. Sent the story to three beta readers, getting comments back from two. Incorporated those comments into the story, fixed ALL the typos (I think), and, last night, I went through the steps to publish it on Amazon. It’s done, my 23rd publication there.

I’m going to wait a few days to announce the story, because it takes that long to get it added to your Amazon page and for it to sync up with your Amazon statistics. Most likely my Monday blog will be about that.

So some trees are gone from the forest. It’s still a forest, however. Still plenty of trees tightly packs, so much so it’s still hard to see them. But, I feel better. If I can get PTR published, at least in e-book, I can pull off writing all together to do my taxes. Once I get those done, I’ll feel like working in the forest again, finding one tree at a time and getting rid of it.

goals, miscellaneous, Short Stories, Writing

The Busyness is Overwhelming

Leave a comment

Right now, I simply can’t commit time to blog posts. I’ll still slip one in once in a while, but unfortunately I won’t maintain a regular schedule. Life has thrown many things at me right now, and just now I have to process through them. An example: the lock on our front door no longer works. We discovered this Friday evening. Rather than call a locksmith then and perhaps pay extra, I’m doing it today. I’ve looked them up, have three choices written, and will call shortly. Then I’ll have to call home and tell them whether a locksmith is coming. Such a pain.

At the same time I’m trying to maintain a little bit of a writing schedule. I published a short story last weekend, and last week I worked on my two Thomas Carlyle projects. I have that mostly worked out of my system at present, but not fully. Maybe by the end of today I will, then will put those projects back on the shelf for six months. But today I pick back up my book Seth Boynton Cheney and begin to make edits for it, and then to prepare a color edition for printing.

So, my couple of faithful readings, feel free to check in from time to time. Just don’t expect posts to be coming on a regular schedule.

family, goals, stock market, Writing

Hard to Return to Routine

Leave a comment

On June 11 our three grandchildren (ages 7, 4, and 2) came to stay with us while their parents went on a sabbatical trip: business mixed with pleasure. I immediately shifted my routines and established a new routine. I delayed coming in to work until around 10:00 a.m. I got the kids up, fed them breakfast, got them dressed, had the two older ones make their beds, saw that their teeth were brushed, then headed out for work. My wife took the day shift. In the evening we worked together on supper and jointly got them ready for bed. Afterwards I spent a little time in The Dungeon, working on writing and stock trading tasks.

Then, on June 23 their parents arrived, and the routines were shot. They all left two days later on the next leg of their trip, returned on July 6, and left for home on July 8.

So it’s July 9, and time to get back to our usual routines. Actually, I should have begun that on June 25. I tried, really I did, but there were things working against me. One was the Independence Day holiday, which gave my a 3-day weekend Friday-Sunday. The other was lack of a major writing project at home and delay of a certain project at work. So I was without a focus at each location. Consequently I floundered at both. I got stuff done at both, but my productivity was nowhere near what it should have been.

Also working against the routine is being the organizer/planner of my wife’s family’s reunion the last weekend in July/first in August. It’s going well, but it’s a one time thing, not a routine thing. What writing tasks I had were minor corrections to on-line listing of my books, again not routine. At work I had a series of one-off things to do. I also have non-routine things coming up the end of August, end of September, and end of October.  Planning for those has already begun—another thing to draw me out of my routine.

I don’t do well with the non-routine. I’ve long noticed that, but it was certainly confirmed this month. Last night I found myself at home, the kids and grandkids gone, and the evidence that they’d been there mostly cleared away. So I went to The Dungeon in the evening, was confronted with some non-routine tasks, and almost got nothing done. I finally concentrated on my stock trading routine, and was able to enter one trade with my broker, which filled today. Yea! Back to routine.

We’ll see what happens over the next four months. I hope I can be productive, but I’m afraid I will be only marginally so. I have most of the non-routine things on my to-do list (the non-work ones, that is). If I just work that list I’ll be okay.

goals, Writing

January 2013 Sales

Leave a comment

January has closed. It’s time to post my book sales. Here’s the table and graph.

As you can see, it’s not a particularly encouraging situation. Since October I’ve had 8 – 7 – 7 – 7 sales per month. True, I’ve not done a lot to promote my books (a FB post here and there; speaking to a few people about them), but it’s still pretty dismal.

With baseball season coming on I need to figure out how to promote In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I also need to have the cover re-done, but not sure I want to spend the money at this time.

goals, Writing

Review of 2012 Publishing Goals

2 Comments

Back in January 2012 I established some publishing goals for the year. Since I just did the same for 2013, I thought I should go back and see how did on those goals. I wrote them in three posts last January. I’ll summarize them here and tell how I did.

Fiction

Publish my second short story, titled “Too Old To Play”. I did this in January, exactly on schedule. It’s only sold three copies, but it’s there and available.

Publish my novel Doctor Luke’s Assistant. I did this in March, exactly on schedule. It’s been my best selling work so far.

Publish my novel In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I did this in August, a little later than I’d hoped, but I delayed it for consideration by a publisher, and by then I was too engaged with other projects to jump right back in this. It isn’t selling, but baseball season is just around the corner.

Publish another short story in the Danny Tompkins series. I did not do this. Instead I wrote a different short story and published it, and it’s sold 10 copies.

Begin work on my third novel. Okay, I suppose this was a writing goal, not a publishing goal. I did this, beginning China Tour in October.

Non-Fiction: Articles

The no-money one of these is Suite101.com. I did not write any articles for Suite101 this year. As I wrote in January, “The site is soon to go through a major re-vamp. I’m waiting to see what they do, and if anything I want to write on will still be suitable.” The revamp occurred. I’m making a little more residual income there than I thought I would, but I still don’t expect to write any articles for them any time soon, almost certainly not in 2013.

The one for decent money is Buildipedia.com. As planned I wrote for Buildipedia for several months. Then they axed my column. I haven’t had any ideas for feature articles for them, so that prospect is dormant for a while and probably will remain so.

The third gig is a site named Decoded Science. I wrote and published one article with them in 2012. I still like the concept of Decoded Science. I like the owner/editor. I just haven’t had any ideas for articles. I wanted to do a series of articles on low impact development. The owner/editor was favorable, but I haven’t found time or energy to do them. It’s a possibility in 2013, thought not all that likely.

Non-Fiction: Books

The Candy Store Generation. I wrote this and published it in July 2012, more or less on schedule. I liked how it came out. It’s sold about 15 copies, which is a big disappointment.

John Cheney of Newbury, Massachusetts. This was to be a family genealogy book. I found no time to add to the research I’ve already done, so did not write anything on this. Maybe some day.

Articles written about floodplain engineering that would form the basis of a decent book. Yes, they would, but I’ve done nothing on this other than brainstorm a little.

A second book in the Documenting America series: the Civil War years. I wrote the first chapter of this, or most of the first chapter, then abandoned it for the time being. The research was going to be much more than I thought. I read some as research, maybe 10 to 15 hours of reading. I wish I could have written it, and hope to do it in 2013.

So, I didn’t do too badly, did I? I hope I do as well, relative to my goals, in 2013.

goals, self-publishing

2013 Publishing Goals

1 Comment

My time off from writing during Christmas and New Year’s travels was extended by the flu. Finally the last three days I’ve felt like doing something. I read about 50 pages in China Tour, doing light edits. I should finish it tonight and get the edits typed not later than Saturday morning.

Then it’s send it off to a beta reader and get back to writing. My goal for the weekend is to add 6,000 words. If I manage to do that, I’ll be at 44,000+ words, on the way to…? I’m still not sure how long the book is, but if I get the 6,000 words added I think I’ll be at a point where I’ll have a handle on the length.

One things I haven’t spent much time on is my goals for 2013. Last year I decided to establish a publishing schedule rather than writing goals. It seems more definite, more intentional. I wasn’t writing to write. I was writing to publish. I intend to do the same thing in 2013.

Except, I haven’t spent enough time so far considering what I can actually accomplish. So for right now it’s publishing goals. I hope, before January ends, to do the necessary work to establish a publishing schedule.

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

  • Publish China Tour
  • Publish one other novel, either Headshots or Preserve The Revelation
  • Publish two short stories. One will be in my teen grief series, and probably be titled “Kicking Stones”. The other will  likely be in the Sharon Williams CIA agent series (if the inspiration comes), currently untitled.
  • Publish one non-fiction book, almost certainly Documenting America: Civil War Edition.
  • Publish two professional essays in the engineering field. These are actually written. I would only need to tweak them for a somewhat broader audience and figure out how to do covers, or bite the bullet and pay for them.

So there it is. Stay tuned for further updates.

Documenting America, flood studies, Genealogy, goals, The Candy Store Generation

2012 Writing Plan: Non-Fiction Books

Leave a comment

In addition to the non-fiction articles I mentioned in the previous post, I’ve also thought of and plan to work on some non-fiction book projects during 2012. One for sure, and three probable, are what I’m thinking of. I suppose, if I could become really, really productive, I might be able to write a fourth one as well. For all of these, I plan on self-publish.

  1. The Candy Store Generation is my first project, already started, but not very much done. This will be a political book. The Candy Store Generation is the Baby Boomers, and I’m convinced they (we) are ruining America. We are now in charge of business and industry, are the majority of teachers in the schools and universities, are in charge of the Congress, States, and local governments. And the USA is in decline. Could it be that the Boomers are at fault? I think so, and this book will show it. Status: I have written only about 4000 or so words on the way to 40,000 words. I have some research to do on the makeup of Congress, which I have started but am only 10 percent done with. Since this is an election year, I’d like to have this done and available by about May, but that is perhaps too ambitious.
  2. I have done much research into my wife’s paternal immigrant ancestor, John Cheney of Newbury, Massachusetts. He came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635. I have an eleven page document of facts and figures that I would like to flesh out into about a 40-50 page biography. I have in my hands three or four histories of Newbury, which I can use to fill in something about his times. I also can take the bare facts and turn them into narrative. In fact, I started this at one time, and should be able to find it on a computer some where. Why do this? John Cheney has many descendants, many of whom are studying their genealogy. I encounter them on message boards all the time. Much misinformation has been posted on-line about John Cheney, and it would be nice to correct it. Also genealogy books sell for a good premium compared to books as a whole. A 50 page e-book would sell for at least $4.00, in print for $10.00. The cover wouldn’t be important. I have no schedule for this, as I’d like to see how other projects, already scheduled, go first.
  3. I have a number of articles written about floodplain engineering that would form the basis of a decent book. But the key thing I would put in this book is Federal floodplain regulations, and format and annotate them in a way to make them more useful than as they are published by the Feds and commented on by FEMA. I think it would be a 60-80 page book. I don’t know what I’ll do with this. It seems like a good idea, and would sell for a good price relative to its length. I just don’t know if I would have the time for this, or if the good price will offset the relatively small audience for this subject.
  4. A fourth work that has come to mind is a second book in the Documenting America series. I’ve already done some of the research for this. I would probably make it more time-limited, probably to the Civil War years: before, during, and after. I’ve already gathered some material for this, and may have written part of a chapter. You might wonder why I would write a second Documenting America book when the first has sold a grand total of 27 copies in eight months. I would answer: because I can and want to. It is a way for me to study history and get paid for it. How sweet is that! If I do this, it would most likely be at the expense of some other project.

Well, those are my plans, or a combination of plans and hopes/dreams. We’ll see how many of these non-fiction book projects actually come to pass.

goals, Writing

New Year, Old Goals Revised

Leave a comment

We arrived home about 8 PM last night, after 10 days and 9 nights on the road. How nice to have time last night in my own reading chair, and at my familiar work station in The Dungeon. How nice to sit up till 1:30 AM reading. Today is the day our company decided to have for New Year holiday, so I’m home. My wife and mother-in-law are still in bed as I begin to write this, though both have stirred at times in the last four hours.

I was up at 8:30 AM, tired of the prone position, and ready to drink some coffee and read. So I’ve been doing that. My mind thought to the new year. I’m not one to make resolutions, though goal setting is always possible. I thought about my writing career, and what I would like to accomplish. So I wrote some goals, quickly, without giving a lot of thought to exactly how achievable these are. I used to post monthly goals on this blog, but gave that up early last year. I will, however, post the goals I wrote on the last page of my current journal notebook.

  • Finish In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. Currently at 15,000 on its way to 85,000 words, it’s well along but far from done. I will consider finished to mean having the book completely written and having gone through one round of edits.
  • Finish A Harmony of the Gospels. The harmony is done, and I’m working on passage notes and appendixes. This goal is definitely achievable.
  • Write 100 articles for Suite101.com. This might be a stretch. I have 116 written and three started. This is a good goal, one I should try very hard to meet.
  • Continue writing for Buildipedia.com, with a goal of earning at least $2000 from articles there.
  • Finish the Bible study I’m currently researching, To Exile and Back. This has turned out to be more involved than I originally expected. In a vacuum it would be easily achievable, but with other writing to do I’m not sure.
  • Plan, research, and write a small group study Essential John Wesley. This has been on my mind for some time. I’ve been mulling over what I would consider to be essential of his writings, and may even have a few notes somewhere.
  • Work on my small group study book Screwtape’s Good Advice. I began this three years ago because I had a publisher in mind for it, and prepared a detailed outline and four sample chapters before meeting with that publisher at a conference. When, after a considerable delay, the publisher said he wasn’t interested, I let it lapse. But it’s a good idea (if I say so myself), and so would like to follow-through with some more of the chapters.
  • Develop the Bible study Good King, Bad King. I began this a year or two ago, doing two lessons in it, but then didn’t find time to work on it further. I’d like to at least know the length of the lesson series, have an outline of the lessons, and know the research needed prior to writing. The actual writing, if the planning proves there’s really something worth doing here, is most likely a 2012 project.
  • Blog at least 120 times. Only 119 to go.

So there they are: 2011 writing goals, with some justification added and some thoughts on how achievable they are. I may check in from time to time on what I’m doing on them.