Category Archives: self-publishing

letters, miscellaneous, self-publishing, Writing

Unfinished Projects

June 24, 2022 David Todd Leave a comment

Dateline: Thursday, 23 June 2022

At the moment, I feel like I’m running between different projects. Projects started but not finished. Projects wanting to get started. Projects developing in my mind. Rather than list all of them, I’ll just mention what today’s work on projects is shaping up to be.

First thing this morning, I sent in the order for a proof copy of a new paperback book. I won’t say what it is right now. It’s not a book for sale, but rather one for private purposes. The proof will arrive June 29; I’ll show it to one intended recipient on July 8; and I’ll make a presentation about it to a club I’m a member of on August 13.

Next, I transcribed two letters from 2008. That was after going through a notebook of letters from that year and culling all those already in electronic format. This is part of a decluttering project. It’s totally unnecessary to spend time on this at this stage of my writing career, but it’s something I feel I must do if we are ever going to downsize.

Now, I will work on the memoir I started earlier this month. I want to present a few pages of it to my critique group, the Scribblers & Scribes, tonight. It’s now 15 typed pages long. I don’t know that I’ll actually write a full memoir at this time. It’s a fill-in project of sorts, to be able to have something to share with the group, as I don’t figure they’ll want to see my Bible studies. That’s not really the type of stuff critique groups were made for. Concerning the memoir, I don’t have a lot to do to be ready for this evening.

The amount I plan to do on these projects today won’t take much time, so I will likely shift to another project. This is another letters collection. Letters between me and a friend who died a couple of years ago. I have pulled them into a book and done the majority of the formatting. All that remains is to insert some photos, figure out the book size, and go through the publishing process. This is another unnecessary project; it’s something I want to do, something I can give to his wife and daughter that they might want to read.

Also today, I hope to find 30 minutes to an hour to make those last changes to my website. It would be nice to check that one thing off the list.

Oh yes, one last small project was to write this blog post and schedule it for posting tomorrow. That one is done!

So, that’s the life of a distracted, unfocused writer—at least this one. I’m anxious to get these loose ends finished so I can get on with my next book.

Bible study, Christianity, self-publishing

Juggling Writing Two Bible Studies

April 11, 2022 David Todd Leave a comment

This is my first Bible study. It’s done fairly well but is by no means cracking a bestseller list.

In my progress and goals posts, I have mentioned that I was working on writing two Bible studies. They are actually part of a longer study having six parts. Let me explain.

Some years ago, when my co-teacher and I were discussing the curriculum for our Life Group, he said it would be nice to go through the events of Holy Week as a study, ending up on Easter Sunday. I took a look at it, and discovered there were almost 70 separate events during Holy Week. It would take us over a year to go through it all without combining some of the smaller events. Actually, more like two years when you consider the occasional Sunday when we don’t have Life Groups and the interruptions for all-church studies.

I decided instead that we would break this up into six parts and do some every year leading up to Easter, and going beyond Easter when necessary. I planned it all out, and I guess it was in 2019 that we did Part 1, on the Triumphal Entry and the events over Sunday-Monday-Tuesday of Holy Week. That was a bit long; I should have broken it up into two parts. Then there was the Olivet Discourse during the pandemic interrupted 2020. Last year was the Last Supper, and this year is Gethsemane, Arrest, and Jewish Trial. Next year will be the Roman trial, execution and burial. And the year after next will be Easter Sunday.

All has gone well. We get through this seven to fifteen lessons per year. The class seems happy. The pace is good.

At some point between last year’s series and this year’s series, I decided that, if I were going to write and publish another Bible study, maybe this series was what I should write. In January, when I finished two other writing projects and decided I’d do a Bible study next, I went to work on the Last Supper study.

I immediately ran into a problem, however. I had my teaching notes from when I taught the classes, but they were months old. They were suitable for teaching when the material was fresh but not for writing when the material was stale. I found I had to re-study a lesson again in order to write a chapter in the book. As a result, I made very little progress in January and February.

The first Sunday in March, we began the new part of the study, Gethsemane, etc. The day after I taught the first lesson I set down to write it in book form. The chapter came out very easily. In three days I had it written. At that point I switched back to last year’s study, and struggled along.

The next week, I decided to make that the pattern. Here’s what I’m trying to do.

Study on Saturday for the current lesson.
Teach the lesson on Sunday; come home and begin to write the current lesson into a chapter.
Work on and complete the current lesson chapter Monday-Tuesday.
Work on last year’s study Wed-Thus-Fri, hoping to complete one full chapter, but being satisfied with whatever I can do.

Since I started that at week 2 in the current study, it has worked well. I have all chapters in the current study complete through Chapter 5 and am working on Chapter 6. On last year’s study, some weeks I’ve been able to do a full chapter; other weeks I’m a little short of a full chapter.

As of April 10, I have written approximately 31,000 words in last year’s study, and 29,000 words in this year’s study. That’s substantial progress.

Yesterday, I went to The Dungeon after church and began writing, and found myself completely out of gas. Problems sleeping Saturday night had left me tired. I wrote maybe 300 words on the current lesson, and decided to pack it in. I’m not sure how much I’ll get done today and tomorrow, due to the need to finish my income taxes. But there’s no law saying I can’t take the entire week to write that chapter, and save work on last year’s study till next week or the week after.

I’m enjoying this writing. I don’t know how this will proceed. I know I’ll finish these two, publish them, then see if I’ll write more of them over the next couple of years.

Bible study, Christianity, goals, self-publishing

February Progress, March Goals

February 28, 2022 David Todd Leave a comment

Last day of the month, a short month. Time to see how I did on reaching my monthly goals, and to set some goals for next month.

It has taken over a year of work to get to this point, but finally we are within a couple of weeks of going to print. I said this last month, but it seems closer now.

First, the progress on goals I set back on January 31.

Make any edits to the church Centennial book and deliver it to the printer. I guess that means we will have to make a decision on the printer, but that decision is actually almost made. This goal depends a bit on the cover designer, but it’s a fairly simple cover so I don’t see this as a problem. I sort of achieved this goal. I made all the final edits, and am now just waiting on the cover creator. I received one new photo from the descendant of a former pastor. While waiting on the cover, I’ll see if I can work that in.
Related to that, though not necessarily writing, finish pulling my research notes together into a format and organization that will make the job of a future researcher easier. I assume someone, in 25 or 50 years, will do something similar to me at a future milestone anniversary. Nope, didn’t work on this at all. Once I picked up some of my notes and tried to put them in some kind of order, but gave it up. It takes a different mindset to do this kind of task, and I’m afraid I never had that mindset this month. I’ll add it to next month.
Make any edits necessary to There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. I want to get a few more chapters through my critique group, and of course I’m waiting on the beta readers and then the cover artist. Assuming that all comes together, I’m looking at publishing either in March or April. This project continues to move forward. I’m waiting on two key beta readers to get back with me, which I hope will be this week. I was supposed to have met with the cover artist last week, but two days of snowstorms got in the way of that. While waiting, I’m going through the book one more time, looked at suggestions the critique group made, and seeing if I can make other, similar changes. I would say that March is unlikely for publishing at this stage. April is still possible.
Complete significant work on The Last Supper Bible study. I’ve had some trouble coming up with the right format; or rather, I’ve had trouble seeing how the format I came up with a year ago will work. I have to get some words on paper and see how well it comes together. As such, this goal is a bit unfocused. Just as this goal was unfocused, so was my work. I did accomplish a few things. First, I got all my files together. I moved words already written around so that they were in the right place. I temporarily gave up on Chapter 1, which was giving me much trouble, and moved to Chapter 2, which I all but finished. While I wish I was further along, I feel good about where I am. I’ll have to get a little way into Chapter 3 before I can say, for certain, that this is a viable project.
As always, attend writing group meetings, both in person and on-line. That will likely be five meetings, three of which will be in person. Well, between pandemic and travel and snow, some meetings were cancelled. I had one in-person meeting, of the Scribblers & Scribes, and two on-line meetings. March promises to be better.
As always, blog twice a week on Monday and Friday. Did this, though one day I remembered late in the day that I hadn’t posted anything and rushed something and posted it. Hopefully that won’t happen next month.

Okay, so what do I plan to do in March? Should I set high goals, or just what I can accomplish without a lot of effort? Since two projects are dependent on others…well, we’ll see.

Repeat from last month: Finish pulling my research notes for the church Centennial book together into a format and organization that will make the job of a future researcher easier. I assume someone, in 25 or 50 years, will do something similar to this at a future milestone anniversary. I want to leave my notes in a condition that will facilitate their work. This is likely to take several days or even a week of concentrated work. This task includes writing a short document (short as in 10-15 pages) “Notes for a Future Researcher”. That document, however, is most likely a task for a future month, say April, or May.
Continue to shepherd the church Centennial book to publication. I have minor things I can do while waiting on the cover, slight improvements to be made. Almost certainly this will go to the printer in March.
Continue to plug along on There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. I’ll finish going through it this last time, getting critique on two more chapters, while waiting on beta readers. I’m not sure of the timing of the cover, but should know this week.
Make good progress on the Last Supper Bible study. I’d like to finish three more chapters in March.
Begin work on a Gethsemane Bible study. Since I’ll be teaching it beginning next Sunday, I hope to make my notes this time in publishable format, being essentially done with it by the time the study ends. I think tonight I’m going to do the final “programming” of this study, figuring out the chapters, estimating length, etc.
Attend writers groups. I expect this will be three online and three in-person meetings. I don’t think we’ll be doing any traveling this month (though I’m not sure of that), winter weather is less likely (though not impossible), so I expect these meetings to happen this month.
Blog twice a week on Monday and Friday. This should be a bit easier this month. I have three blog posts that I know I’m going to write, and four book reviews to write, so I think I’m good.
I’ll throw in one more for good measure. For a while, I’ve wanted to revamp the “Available Works” page on my website. I made a small beginning on this in February, and would like to make significant progress on it in March.

So, there’s the goals. They are somewhat lofty, especially what I want to accomplish with the two Bible studies. I’ll check back in, probably on April 1, and let you all know how I did.

Documenting America, self-publishing

The “Documenting America” Series

January 17, 2022 David Todd Leave a comment

In my post about 2022 writing goals, I said that I was planning to complete my two works-in-progress, then shift to writing/completing a Bible study, then move on to the next volume in my Documenting America series.

I’ve written about this series before, but not recently. If you want to see some previous posts, look for Documenting America in the Categories box on this blog. I’ll give the short version here.

I began this as a series of op-ed pieces for our local newspaper after I bought a 20-book set The Annals of America, which published a lot of American documents. I saw how these could be worked into the op-eds, the local editor liked it, and I had four published before the guest op-ed program was cancelled. I kept writing the columns to see what frequency I could produce them at. I was up to 18 to 20, and was considering self-syndicating it, when I laid it all aside for other pursuits.

This was one of my favorite books to write.

When easy self-publishing came along, and I was looking to put together a book to self-publish because my novel wasn’t ready, I decided I could cobble those columns into chapters in a book. That all came together quickly, and the first volume, Documenting America: Lessons From The United States’ Historical Documents, was published in May 2011 as an ebook and in Nov 2011 as a print book.

As the 150th anniversary of the Civil War was coming, I decided to put together another volume of documents from that time. I didn’t get it done in time for those anniversary years, but I eventually did publish it. Then, for a next volume, I decided to make about the development of the Constitution. I finished that in 2019.

Sales are better than for most of my other books.

The way the books work is I take a quote from some American document—not always a famous one, but one I think expressed things important in our national development. I take a large excerpt from that, in a couple of paragraphs explain its importance in its time, and link it to an issue we face today. My goal in doing this was not to show my intelligence but to introduce people to these documents, hoping they would then go ahead and find the document and read them in their entirety.

Did I meet this goal? This review on one of the books tells me that for some readers I did.

This is a great compilation of primary sources. The editor/author adds a few paragraphs of analysis but the bulk of the book is primary source material. Some sources are well known. The best part, though, is lesser known documents that are now more easily available in this book for readers.

What’s next for the DA series? I have completed the research and laid out the documents for the next volume, Documenting America: Run-up To Revolution. It looks like it will be a little harder to produce than the last three, which is one of the reasons why I’ve gone on to publish the next volume.

After that? I have identified six volumes based on historical eras I would like to produce. After that? We have so many documents, with many of them becoming easily available, I can see how this could easily be a long series, more than 20 volumes. Even 40 volumes long. Of course, as I’m now 70 years old, I would be doing good to make this a ten-book series.

I hope to write and publish the next one before 2022 ends, but we will see. Meanwhile, I’m happy with the series even as it is now. I have more sales of this series than of any other.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, self-publishing, Writing

2021 Book Sales

January 7, 2022 David Todd Leave a comment

It’s been a long time since I posted my book sales. 2021 was my best year for sales. I guess you would call it a record year, though, with the numbers still as low as they are, record somehow seems inappropriate.

I sold 223 books, almost all sales coming from on-line sources. That beat my previous best year which was 156 way back in 2012. Also, in 2021, I passed the 1,000 lifetime sales mark, ending up with 1034.

Why the increase? Amazon ads. I began running some ads on Amazon in July 2020, added to them in 2021, and sales finally happened. Unfortunately, to this point I’ve spent more in ads than I’ve received in royalties from all sources. It’s not a big number, and the deficit is shrinking. At the end of the year, I was down only $4.52, though at worst I was behind $73.80. If the trend continues into 2022, I’ll be money ahead in a month or two. Just on ad spend, not overall. The cost to maintain this website puts me way in the red each year.

Had 19 sales of this, pulled along by the ads for the first book in the series.

I had sales of 22 different books, out of 35 books listed for sale at year end. Highest of those was the first Documenting America book, which I advertised. Second was Doctor Luke’s Assistant, which I also advertised. The other two books in the Documenting America series also had double-digit sales, as did Acts Of Faith, which I advertised.

Several of these “sales” were actually through Kindle Unlimited, the first that I had from that Amazon sales channel. I think royalties work out to less, but I’ve had a hard time rigorously tracking them.

So, here comes 2022. My ads are still running. They don’t seem to be working quite as well as early in the year. I will probably add another book to those I advertise, though I’m not in any hurry to do that.

Here’s hoping 2022 will be another best year for book sales.

Bible study, Church History Novels, goals, self-publishing, Sharon Williams short stories, Writing

September Progress, October Goals

October 1, 2021 David Todd Leave a comment

October 1, falling on a Friday—a regular blogging day for me—is the perfect day for recording what I accomplished in September, and for establishing some goals for October. Here’s the progress.

Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Done, though one Saturday I realized I had totally forgotten to post anything on Friday, so I got a post up a day late. And one Monday post, that I wrote the previous Friday, accidentally got posted on that Friday, #usererror. But every regular blogging day was covered. To help me be a little more regular with my posting, I actually have four blog posts started as drafts.
Wrap up my research project on our church’s charter members. Done! Wednesday I made a final tweak in the list of probable charter members. I started putting my notes into usable form, which I should finish doing in October.
Finish “Foxtrot Alpha Tango”, the short story I’ve been working on for two or three months. Done! I finished this around Sept 20 and sent it by e-mail to my critique group.
Link the books in my Church History Novels series on Amazon. This is an easy process. I’ve been holding off until the new covers were done, but it’s time to just do it. No, I didn’t do this. Shame on me. It’s an easy task. I guess I was hoping to have the covers re-done first, so I kept putting it off. Back on the to-do list for this month.
I still have a few more tweaks to do on the church centennial book. I’m going to work on it after I finish this post and may finish them today (Friday afternoon). Done! Though see what I put in my October goals.
Attend my writers’ groups. At the moment all three are scheduled. Done! One was cancelled, the other two met in person and I attended. I also attended two meetings of a weekly on-line writing group. I don’t know whether I’ll be a regular there, but it was good.
Document one Bible study idea I had and put it in the queue. Done! I recorded it in my journal. At some point I’ll have to transfer it to an ideas folder, either on paper or on the computer, but at least it’s documented and I’ve been able to let my mind sort of forget it.

Alright, September was a productive month. I event added a couple of thousand words to my next work-in-progress, something I hadn’t planned on. Now, what about October? Be bold, or be cautious, in my goals. I’m just going to type and see how it comes out.

Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. I have a couple of conflicts coming up, so maybe those pre-written and to-be-scheduled posts will come in handy.
Work on my work-in-progress, The Forest Throne. I can’t remember what I’ve written about that here. I may have to include a post on it. I won’t give a specific word count goal for now. Possibly I’ll edit this in a week or so.
Link the four novels in my Church History novels series. Why do I keep putting this off?
Begin formatting the church Centennial book. I received one of three outside contributions and pasted it in. I have a promise of receiving the other two very soon. Meanwhile, I’m proofreading the book, which has caused me to realize I have three blanks to be filled in. They are just names and dates, but, still, they will require a little work. I hope to have that done today or tomorrow. Then the formatting and photograph additions will begin. Possibly I will have the formatting done by the end of October and will be ready to go to print.
Attend writers groups this month. I’m not sure how many it will be. I may have conflicts with the meeting dates of two of my regular groups. Maybe I’ll be able to get in on the new group a couple of times.
Publish “Foxtrot Alpha Tango”, once I get critiques back from the Scribblers & Scribes. I have one back already. Publishing will mean cover creation, but I’m already pulling ideas together.
Take a look at, but don’t necessarily write more on, the Bible study I was working on during the spring and early summer. I’ve been so busy with other things I don’t remember where I left off. Since I might start it soon, as in two months or so, it would be good to have it swimming around in my mind even now, occupying a few gray cells.

That’s enough. As with last month, there’s always the chance that something else could pop up.

miscellaneous, self-publishing, stock market, Writing

What to Write on a Rainy Monday?

May 17, 2021 David Todd Leave a comment

Actually, I wrote that title while it was raining. Right now the sun is shining. No, wait, it’s behind a cloud again. The rain stopped close to an hour ago. The forecast is for more rain during the day, but right now the radar doesn’t show anything close. I’m not sure what to expect.

The forecast for this blog post is also a little uncertain. I still have those three short books to review, but don’t feel like doing any of them today. I have a few book sales I could report on, but nothing earth-shattering, so I’ll pass on that. Stock trading is going ok. We aren’t killing it, but nothing really to report. Engineering has totally disappeared, as CEI no longer calls on me for anything. I guess that’s not bad, as I don’t miss it. The two years of hourly work was a good transition into retirement, but is now over.

Health is okay, maybe even good. Can’t seem to lose any weight but am not gaining any. My heart seems strong, my blood sugar is under control, I had covid19 and I have also been vaccinated for it, so I don’t fear going around without a mask. I still wear it in situations where it is posted that masks are required or requested. I may wear it a few other times as well. It was hard for me to get in the habit of mask wearing and it will be hard (maybe not as hard) to get out of the habit.

Work on the church anniversary book has slowed, but as soon as I finish this post, and maybe reach a new threshold in the book. I think I’m still on target to finish it around the end of June. I’m reading for research in the next Documenting America volume. Otherwise, I don’t have any other writing in my head that is just demanding that I get the words on paper or pixels.

So, this is a good time to work on this website. Not on the layout or the bells and whistles of a WordPress site, but the content. A writer friend recently looked at my site and suggest some improvements. Or, rather, just said it needed improvement. Then, today, a writing blog that I read had a post about improving your website. I’m always hesitant to do any changes to the website content for fear of screwing something up.

I’ve known for some time that I have things to do with this. Maybe this is the time to knuckle down and do them, while other tasks are not urgent. It’s been suggested that I move my bio from the landing page to a separate tab and have different content on the landing page, perhaps news about my books, or links to them. I’ll have to think about that.

One other thing I really should do this week is some Kindle Direct Publishing work on my book series, to turn them into true series, properly linked on KDP. I’ve been told that easy. I don’t think I’ll work on that today, but perhaps over the next couple of days I’ll look into that.

I believe the next three days will be a mix of the anniversary book and the website. After that, who knows? Just as the sun-clouds situation here today (cloudy right now but no rain) has been uncertain and changeable minute by minute, so my writing plans are.

Documenting America, self-publishing, The Teachings, Writing

March Writing Progress; April Goals

April 1, 2021 David Todd Leave a comment

I accomplished less writing tasks in March than I hoped for. That’s because of making two trips to West Texas, one to pick up the grandkids, bringing them here for a week, and one to bring them back.

Make one more editing pass through The Teachings, and decide if it is ready for publishing. Get my ideas for the cover to the designer and get things rolling on that. This is done! I make another full pass through the book, reading it aloud to my wife. The edits are done. I also got my ideas to the designer, Sophie, and she has made the cover, made into a theme for the series as a whole. That is no longer a hold-up.
Make major progress in the church 100th anniversary book. I’d like to be close to 15,000 words by the end of the month. That depends, however, on getting into the library for research, or having a librarian help me. I definitely made progress, though I fell short of my word goal. I’m sitting a little under 9,000 words. I did hear back from the librarian, though she didn’t have much to tell me due to the poor quality of the microfilms she had to work with.
Read for research in the next Documenting America book, including taking notes. Begin to sketch an outline of the Table Of Contents. I read for this research only one day. Too many other things to work on.
Continue with my current Bible study project and see if it’s something I should turn into a writing project with the intent on publishing. Again, I think I only worked on this one day. My goals were much larger than my capacity.
Get my personal bibliography up to date for current works. This should be doable. In fact, I may go work on it as soon as I finish this blog post. I didn’t work on this much before the mid-month time crunch came, but I think I got this done. I will have to pull up the bibliography and see. If needed, I’ll come back and edit this.
Blog twice a week. That may be interrupted if we bring the grandkids back here for spring break. I missed three regular blogging days, as I said in a post this month, due to grandparent responsibility.

So, March was a mixed bag. Time to now set some goals for April.

Publish The Teachings. All that are left are various publishing tasks, including: e-book TOC; adding two maps, one of which needs modification; writing the back cover copy; writing the Amazon page text; formatting the print book (well, the e-book too, which is far easier); and uploading to Amazon. I think this is very doable.
Republish the three earlier church history novels with new covers and list of my works. One of the covers is ready. Hopefully the other two will be soon.
Expand the church anniversary book to at least 15,000 words and hopefully 20,000 words.
Blog twice a week. It’s doable. No travel planned this month.
Do some research on the next Documenting America volume. I won’t commit to how much, but I have to get going on it.
Look again at the Bible study I was working on in February and early March, and decide if that is going to be my next book or if something else is.

That’s all I can see to add right now. I’ll check back in on April 30 or May 3 and let you know how I did.

goals, self-publishing, Writing

Writing Progress and Goals

March 1, 2021 David Todd Leave a comment

Monday, regular posting day.

First of the month, a day to discuss progress last months and goals for this month.

Perfect.

So how did I do last month relative to the goals I set? I’ll paste the goals in and say what progress I made, and we’ll see.

Continue to work on The Teachings. At the rate I’m writing now, I should write “the end” somewhere around Feb 15. I got this done. I finished it somewhere around Feb 10. I already have full comments from one beta reader and partial comments from another. I’ve been through it all the way once and made edits and my wife has been most of the way through it and given her edits. I also made contact with a cover designer who says she will take on the project
Continue to work on the 100th Anniversary book for my church. I’ve made a start with the book somewhat planned out and the writing started, now sitting at 1,675 word heading towards 20,000 words, maybe a little longer. Another goal I was able to meet. I did a lot of research this month into our charter members, and was able to learn much and write much. I’m now at about 6,000 words and feeling good about how the book is going. I think, however, the hard parts are ahead.
Get back to research into my next Documenting America book. I call this Run-up To Revolution. It’s about the period before the outbreak of fighting in 1775, so say from 1761-1775. I didn’t do very much on this. I pulled out the one main reference book I have at the house and looked over, but didn’t read, the documents in it. I satisfied myself that, between them and the ones they will lead me to, I should have no problem getting enough source material to make this a viable book. Time to knuckle down and research in earnest.
Continue to blog twice a week. Very doable. Yes, did this, including a couple of posts that I’d held off on due to the difficulty.
Continue to work on my bibliography. I started this some time ago, maybe three or four years, after I found joy working on a chronological bibliography for Thomas Carlyle’s writings. Every now and then I open it and add a few more things to it. I did some work on this, but not a lot. I’ve fallen a bit behind keeping up with what I’m currently writing. I think today, before getting on to other writing tasks, I’ll work on this.
This is more publishing than writing related: Begin to improve my books to try to 1) get more reviews and 2) improve the click through and purchasing rates on my ads. ….For February, I will plan on doing the ones advertised. Nope, didn’t do any of this.
Advertise one more book. I’m thinking it will be Acts Of Faith, but we shall see. Again, I didn’t do this. I’m afraid advertising and promotion took a back seat this month to writing.
Not listed as a goal last month, but some writing work I did, was to start on a new Bible study. Well, not a Bible study exactly. I’ll explain more in a future post, after I get further into it. I’m not sure yet if it’s a viable project.

Thus, February was a mixed bag as far as progress was concerned. Now, what’s on for March?

Make one more editing pass through The Teachings, and decide if it is ready for publishing. Get my ideas for the cover to the designer and get things rolling on that.
Make major progress in the church 100th anniversary book. I’d like to be close to 15,000 words by the end of the month. That depends, however, on getting into the library for research, or having a librarian help me.
Read for research in the next Documenting America book, including taking notes. Begin to sketch an outline of the Table Of Contents.
Continue with my current Bible study project and see if it’s something I should turn into a writing project with the intent on publishing.
Get my personal bibliography up to date for current works. This should be doable. In fact, I may go work on it as soon as I finish this blog post.
Blog twice a week. That may be interrupted if we bring the grandkids back here for spring break.

I think I’ll leave it at that. I still have work to do on my already published works to make them a little more enticing for buyers, but that may have to wait.

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

February 2021 Writing Plans

February 5, 2021 David Todd Leave a comment

Dateline: 4 February 2021

As I said in my last post, which re-capped the writing I did in January, my next post would be about writing goals for February. On Monday I thought I might write that post the next day and have an extra post this week. Alas, that didn’t happen. But I’m here now.

What are my writing goals for February? I haven’t written them anywhere (something I sometimes do), so today I’m making this up as I go along.

Continue to work on The Teachings. At the rate I’m writing now, I should write “the end” somewhere around Feb 15. That depends a lot on life circumstances. We will be babysitting grandchildren during part of this time, and traveling two days, so that time may slip. A lot depends on how much I manage to get done today.
Continue to work on the 100th Anniversary book for my church. I’ve made a start with the book somewhat planned out and the writing started, now sitting at 1,675 word heading towards 20,000 words, maybe a little longer. Last night I did some research into one item—actually a person—that I felt needed expanding in the book. I found what I needed. I don’t have any real deadline for this book, but I would like to have it fairly well finished by July. Still much research to do, especially of photos for illustrations.
Get back to research into my next Documenting America book. I call this Run-up To Revolution. It’s about the period before the outbreak of fighting in 1775, so say from 1761-1775. I read for research before, but not a whole lot. I don’t know if this will be the next book I work on or not. A lot will depend on this research.
Continue to blog twice a week. Very doable.
Continue to work on my bibliography. I started this some time ago, maybe three or four years, after I found joy working on a chronological bibliography for Thomas Carlyle’s writings. Every now and then I open it and add a few more things to it. I did that last week and early this week. I plan on keeping up-to-date with blog posts and other writing endeavors. This is a “don’t have to do it” task, but it is becoming a labor of love. Perhaps no one will ever really care about the vast number of items I’ve written, but I plan to leave a comprehensive bibliography behind just in case someone does.
This is more publishing than writing related: Begin to improve my books to try to 1) get more reviews and 2) improve the click through and purchasing rates on my ads. I’m aware of several small-ish things I can do to make that happen. Or at least do to try to make that happen. I’ll start with the two books currently advertised, then do the others in their series, then branch out to others. For February, I will plan on doing the ones advertised.
Advertise one more book. I’m thinking it will be Acts Of Faith, but we shall see.

I think that’s it. I have no plans to work on letter transcriptions, or write any essays, or political essays. It’s getting into tax season and, right after this babysitting gig, I’ll have to take some time for that. Corresponds well with completion of the first draft of The Teachings.

David A Todd