Category Archives: Short Stories

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

November Progress, December Goals

Leave a comment

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.
American Colonial History, Church History Novels, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Documenting America, Short Stories, The Teachings, Writing

So Many Choices, So Little Time

3 Comments

I’m a little late with my post this Monday morning. The weekend was busy and I didn’t get it written ahead of time. Then, this morning Lynda had to go for a Covid19 test ahead of a procedure on Wednesday. Her appointment was at 7:50 and we were to be there fifteen minutes early. It was a drive-by testing site, and the long line of cars moved quickly through.  A stop for gas and pastries on the way home, and here I am, finally writing this.

Over the weekend and late last week my thoughts began to gel about my next writing tasks. It was Friday (I think; maybe Saturday) that I documented a couple of book ideas and wrote them in a Word document and saved them to my “Ideas” folder. They’ve been bugging me and, while I’m now purposely suppressing writing ideas as come, these two pre-date my decision to suppress, so I wanted to be done with them to free up brain space for other things.

What to do next? I have a novel-in-progress that’s stalled. I have a book I’m updating. I have a short story that’s bugging me. I have the next book in the Documenting America series to begin. And that’s not everything. I needed to prioritize.

So I took a little time to brainstorm that and decide what to do next, and why. Here’s what I decided.

  1. Published in 2011, I really need to do something with this, update it for later publications and correct some formatting errors. So, I began the editing work in early September 2020, and hope to re-publish by the end of September.

    Republish Documenting America: Lessons From The United States’ Historical Documents. I had already done most of the editing. An hour and it would be ready for publishing tasks. My reason for putting this first is I want to run some Amazon ads on it, beginning in about two weeks when I participate in the next Amazon ads challenge. I want an updated book to advertise.

  2. Edited to add: I forgot, when I posted this earlier, that I have to make a few corrections to my second genealogy book, Stephen Cross and Elizabeth Cheney of Ipswich. A few of the figures were of poor quality. I need to load them into G.I.M.P and improve the quality, put them in the book file, then upload the revised file. As much as I hate doing graphic arts with G.I.M.P. I’ve been putting this off. I think, however, that I’ll slip this in after I finish re-publishing Documenting America.
  3. Return to work on The Teachings, the volume 3 in my church history novel series, which will plug the gap between volume 2 and 4. I’m about 1/3 done with it, and need to get back.
  4. Write, or at least start, the next story in the Danny Tompkins series of short stories. I had once thought the series finished, but an idea for one more story just won’t leave me, so I need to write it to get it out of my head. My problem is I know the main idea I want to convey, but not the full story. So when I start on it I’ll perhaps stall almost right away. I won’t know till I start the writing.
  5. The transcription is now complete (28 Sep 2020). Time to add some commentary.

    Add commentary to the Kuwait letters book. I’ve written about this before. After finishing the transcription, and before I put the letters back to storage and relegated the file to its folder and out of my mind, I added a little commentary. I’m ready to open the file and add some more commentary. I don’t know that I want to take the time to finish it, but I want to add something to it. This may be something for the odd hours between other things.

  6. Begin reading for the next book in the Documenting America series. This is tentatively Run-up to Revolution, covering the period from 1761 to 1775 or 1776. It will be the realization that the Colonies were no longer aligned with Great Britain and a separation was inevitable. I’m not sure how I will research this. Everything I need, just about, is on-line, but how to access it and when to read it is unknown at this time.

I had a couple of other things I wanted to put on this list, but will wait. As I sit and write this nothing else is coming to mind. If it does before the end of the day, I’ll edit this.

Now, if I can accomplish half of this by, say, the end of 2020, I’ll feel like I’ve made progress.

Bible study, Documenting America, goals, Short Stories

September Achievements, October Goals

Leave a comment

Last month I resumed monthly post of setting goals. Time for me to check in and see how I did, and to set goals for October (it’s not too late for that).

  • Blog on a regular Monday and Friday schedule. I’ve done fairly well at that this year, and I’d like to continue it. Yes, I did this. I don’t think I missed a day.
  • Complete publishing tasks for and publish all versions of  Documenting America: Making The Constitution. I’m close. The covers are the big holdup. Got this one done! I was almost ready with it when I posted goals, so I was pretty sure I’d finish it.
  • 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. Yes, I got this done too! I went through much consternation about the cover, but in the process of doing so learned much. So, book #30 is published. Well, some of them are short stories.
  • 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. Nope, not done. In fact, I started it on Sept 30. As of today I’m 2016 words into it, thinking it will be 4000 to 6000 words. I’ll roll this goal over.
  • Critique 2-3 poems at the Absolute Write Forums. I’d like to keep my foot in poetry somehow. Maybe this is the way. I regularly went to the poetry forum at Absolute Write and read new poems posted, but didn’t find any I thought I could do any good on. I’ll keep trying.
  • Attend writers groups on the 11th and the 18th. Done. Enjoyed both of them.
  • Complete reading three items and begin two or three more. Finished the three, and started two others, as per my goal.
  • Prepare my first newsletter for release about Oct 15. And figure out how to make it happen. I started this, but didn’t finish. I made up a list of what will be in it and have some of it written. I may make my Oct 15 goal.

Speaking of October goals, here they are.

  1. Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
  2. Finish the short story “Tango Delta Foxtrot” and come close to finishing the editing process. Shared the first scene with my writing group, for critique later.
  3. Attend writing groups on the 9th and 16th.
  4. Finish the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith. As of this morning I’m a little more than halfway done with it. This is doable, though might be a stretch. If I get it written, publishing will be in another month.
  5. Issue my first newsletter. It may be shorter than I want, and may not have as many items as I planned, and for sure won’t have a lot of subscribers, but, hopefully, it will go out.
  6. Continue an aggressive reading program, at least an hour a day. I’m in the midst of two books, one in print and one e-book. I should finish both and start one or two more.

That’s it for this month. I’ll check back in the first of November.

Dateline: 3 October 2019

 

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, Bible study, Church History Novels, Documenting America, Short Stories, The Gutter Chronicles, Writing

What to Write Next?

Leave a comment
My most recent publication. Sales are trickling in. Literally.

For my Friday June 28 post I had planned to do my book review of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life In Letters. But based on the weekend just past, I’m pushing that post into the future. Instead, I want to document the process I’m going through.

What should I write next? I just finished the first draft of Documenting America: Making The Constitution Edition. I’m letting it sit for a week or two before I hit the editing process. The first two chapters have gone to my critique group, with good reviews. What to do next? Here are the most obvious choices, based on my recent thoughts, research, and publications.

  • The next volume in my church history novels series. This is to be sandwiched in between #2 and #3. Tentatively titled The Sayings, it will cover the writing of the Didiche, which many scholars believe was written before many of the New Testament books. A loose plot line was in my head even as I wrote Preserve The Revelation, #4 in the series. With Adam Of Jerusalem, #1 in the series, now published, completing the foursome makes sense.
  • The next volume in The Gutter Chronicles: The Continuing Saga of Norman D. Gutter, Engineer. I ought to write this before I get too far into retirement and forget the stories of working as an engineer. I’ve begun the outline, and know where the first couple of chapters are going.
  • The next volume in Documenting America. This has turned out to be a good series, with three published already and the fourth a month or two away from publication. Once I know the topic these come together quickly. Another volume or two might result in critical mass and an increase in their popularity.
  • The next short story in the Sharon Williams Fonseca, CIA Agent series. I have four written and know what the fifth one will be about and it’s probable title: “Tango Delta Foxtrot”. This has been on my radar for some time, always with “as soon as I finish the book I’m on” schedule. But then another book bubbles up and this one gets shunted aside. Maybe it’s time. I have a basic outline of the plot.
  • A Bible study titled “Acts Of Faith”. I programmed this about four months ago (I think, maybe a little longer), one evening when I was brainstorming curriculum for future Life Group studies. I spent some time recently outlining this, and even creating the first computer files. This for sure would be next except, while I’ve taught Bible studies and prepared them from scratch, I’ve never written one for publication. That may be what happens here. Or, perhaps this will be the first to be developed, published, and taught.
  • A genealogy book, tentatively titled Samuel Cross and Elizabeth Cheney of Ipswich Massachusetts. This book is 80 percent written, maybe more. It’s meant to form a part of a larger work about Elizabeth Cheney’s father, John Cheney of Newbury. But the research is done and it is long enough to stand alone as a small genealogy book. It lacks only a little text, then the formatting for publication. I could have this ready for publication in less than a month if I re-started my work on it.
I’ll soon be creating a cover for “Documenting America: Making the Constitution Edition”. It will be a simple re-creation of this one.

There you have it. Six potential writing projects, all good, all desired (by me), all fulfilling the writing urge and maybe meeting a need. What will be next? I’m writing this on Monday, June 24, but scheduled to post on Friday June 28. My intent is to add something to it before it posts, to let everyone know either what I’ve decided, or at least what progress I’ve made in deciding. I’ll see if there’s a new ending to this post.

Update Tuesday June 25: Yesterday and today I wrote the first chapter in Acts Of Faith. The first draft came in at about 2,150 words, shorter than I thought it would, but perhaps about right for a Bible study book. I picked up a reviewer, a pastor/counselor, and have sent the first chapter to him. I’ll be anxious to see what he thinks.

The writing of this felt good. Since this is the most urgent need, should I indeed publish it and teach it beginning around mid-September. If so, I need to get on the stick.

Update Wednesday June 26: This morning I did another half-chapter of Acts Of Faith. It flowed easily. Yesterday afternoon I wrote the outline—more of a synopsis actually—for the next novel in my Church History Novels series.  My evening reading unintentionally dovetailed with this, and the plot flowed easily. Makes me wonder if this book needs to be next. I’ll think on it.

Update Friday June 28: I have now completed two chapters (out of 17) in Acts Of Faith. The words have flowed fairly easy. The pastor/counselor I sent the first chapter  to said he believes it to be a viable study and offered to help write discussion questions.

So, this is my next project. I’m hoping to finish the first draft by August 1, though that may be too ambitious. For sure I’m going to spend a lot of time with the writing.

 

Adam Of Jerusalem, Church History Novels, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Mark Twain, miscellaneous, reading, Short Stories, Writing

Writing, Blogging, and Cleaning, Oh My!

Leave a comment

Lots of activity going on in my household right now, considering I’m the only one there right now. My mother-in-law is now in an assisted living facility near us, and my wife is away for a couple of weeks, helping our daughter and her family move. I was there the last couple of weekends with her. Their truck loading days are today and tomorrow. I would go and help, but with my shoulder not yet fully healed, I decided not to.

So, batching it, what have I been up to?

Writing, for one thing. I’m back on Adam Of Jerusalem, first book in my church history novel series, and the prequel to Doctor Luke’s Assistant. I wrote three evenings this week, adding about 4,000 words to what I had before, and last night getting to the first plot point. While I’ve known for quite a while the story I want to tell with this book, I wasn’t sure what scenes I would have, or how I would get that story told. Despite that, my writing speed is good. Well, last night was a little slower. I added only 1,000 words, possibly because I wasn’t feeling well. Went to bed early.

Another thing occupying my time—so far in just a small way—is blog maintenance. By that I mean I want to go back to old posts and clean up the categories those posts are tagged with. Some I didn’t tag at all, while others were tagged in a way that doesn’t make sense given how my blog has progressed. This is busywork, but I think needed. I have way too many categories and would like to trim it some. Hopefully after this work, the number will be.

Third, I’m doing cleaning in the house. This has been the slowest of the three things in the post title. I’m getting a little done every day. I ironed some shirts that came out of the wash a month or more ago with wrinkled areas, but I haven’t yet put the iron and ironing board away. I disposed of a pile of mail, but haven’t yet filed the things that need filing. I’ve cleaned one or two things off the kitchen table each day, but it’s still a mess. I’ve made a good start on decluttering all my paper, and have tossed many, many sheets, yet still have piles of paper where there shouldn’t be.

Through all of this, I’m still trying to lose weight, and have spent a lot of time walking, most days at noon and some in the evenings at home. I’m at my lowest weight for three or four years, though still have 35 pounds to go to get to the upper end of my target weight range. Ate properly Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week, then kind of lost it last night. Back on track today, I think.

So what do I have in store for this Memorial Day weekend? Writing for sure. By the end of the day Monday I’d like to be a minimum of 7,500 words further along. I believe that’s achievable.

I have more cleaning to do. I’ll progress through that slowly, but by the end of the day Monday: the kitchen table will be clean; the kitchen floor will be mopped; the unfinished piles of decluttering remainders will be gone through and trashed or stowed. Also, all the oak pollen strings will be swept, raked, blown, or by hand put into a pile, and moved to the compost pile. A few weeds will be pulled as well.

I also hope to go through a minimum of 100 of my oldest blog posts not yet touched and clean-up the categories. I did 25 the other day. I believe 100 should be no problem.

For what it’s worth, I plan on some reading for relaxation. I’m on the last 70 pages of Mark Twain’s short stories. I hope to finish that this weekend as well. I believe that’s possible.

I’ll report back with a blog post, probably on Tuesday instead of Monday, and let you know how I did.

books, Engineering, Short Stories, Writing

Only 9 Months and 2 Days Till Retirement

Leave a comment

Yes, the day draws ever closer. It’s now down to 9 months and 2 days (at the start of today) until I retire. I’ve already given notice to my supervisor, and have, for the last 6 months, been off-loading my work and training others to take over things.

One thing I’m also doing is looking at my personal stuff, and seeing what I can take home now. It would be a good idea not to walk out of the office on New Year’s Eve with four or five boxes of stuff. So, since the beginning of the year, I’ve been removing things and taking them home.

At one point this was full of personal, non-engineering books that I thought I’d read on my noon hours. Many are already at the house.

The photo is of my personal books shelf in my office. Not my engineering books, but those having to do with things other than engineering. These are things I picked up at bookstores or thrift stores and brought straight to the office. My thought process was that I would read them on noon hours and breaks. Alas, I’ve read none of them, some having been here five or ten years. So, I’ve made it a practice to take one book home a week, being realistic about which one I’m most unlikely to use in the time left. They all could be considered research books, supporting one of my many writing projects. Which projects will I work on at the office, and which won’t I?

I’m now down to 18 books plus my Bible. I’d be very happy to carry that out on the last day. So, in 18 weeks I could be done moving books. But which one to take this week?

I think it will be Stories by O. Henry. Bought for the exorbitant amount of 50 cents at a thrift store, I got it to use as an example of how to write short stories. But, I have only one short story in my writing queue at the moment, and it’s questionable that I’ll really get to it this year. So, off it goes to the house when I leave the office tonight.

That will leave 17 yet to go home. I won’t take one every week. Some weeks I’ll take a coffee mug home. I have six of those to move. I’m not sure yet what to do with my engineering books, which are shown in the next photo. They are two deep in this cupboard. Some of them I’ll either give away or silent-auction off in my office.  Some I may just toss.

Some of these engineering books I haven’t looked at for years. Some are from school, and badly out of date. Why am I keeping them?

Then, there’s my books-for-sale inventory, my creative writing. I keep them at work rather than at home. Every now and then someone comes into my office and buys one.  At some point, I’ll have to take them home.

How many of these will I actually sell at work? Not too many, if the future stays as it’s been in the past

Yes, deconstructing a work station after 44 years at the job (different companies, different cubicles or offices, but the same engineering) takes time. I don’t want to just move the clutter in my office to join the clutter at home. Hopefully, by making an early starts, the job won’t be so bad.

Adam Of Jerusalem, Church History Novels, Documenting America, Short Stories, The Gutter Chronicles, Writing

2018 Writing Plans

Leave a comment

2017 is gone; 2018 is here. It’s time to develop writing plans for this new year, and publish them for the world to see. Okay, not the whole world—just the blogosphere. And, I know, not very much of the blogosphere. Alright, just a handful of readers or fellow writers. I’ve thought about this for months. What should I write next?

Will 2018 see a third novel added to this series?
Will 2018 see a third novel added to this series?

First, let me inventory my works-in-progress.

  • Adam Of Jerusalem: I began this a few months ago. It’s the prequel to Doctor Luke’s Assistant, showing things that went on in Augustus’ family before his involvement with writing the Gospel of Luke. I found the book somewhat more laborious than expected, and haven’t just rushed to my computer to work on it. I don’t know if that means it’s ill-conceived or not.
  • The Gutter Chronicles, Volume 2: The second volume in my workplace humor series, poking fun at my own business, I began this more than a year ago (maybe two years ago), got 25% into it, and put it aside. I picked it back up again in November, and found the writing easy and fast. Holiday activities caused me to lay it aside for a while, but I’m ready to get back to work on it. It will be novella length, maybe 35,000 to 45,000 words, and I’m perhaps 40 percent there already.
  • Stephen Cross of Ipswich: This is a genealogy/family history book. Stephen Cross and my wife’s great-great-whatever-aunt, Elizabeth Cheney, married in 1672 and resided in Ipswich Massachusetts. I did this research as part of broader research on Elizabeth’s father, John Cheney, the immigrant ancestor of the family. Of all of their children, I found the least on Elizabeth. So last year I hit the research hard, and pulled a lot of information and sources together. The full book on John Cheney will have to wait a few years. Meanwhile I thought, since I have all this information on Stephen and Elizabeth, why not publish it as a smaller book? It may not sell much, but, who knows, maybe a few of their descendants will be interested.
  • Thomas Carlyle Chronological Composition Bibliography: I’ve written about this before on the blog. It’s a labor of love for me, partially to serve as my own research aid for Thomas Carlyle. I’ve worked on it off and on for close to three years. I’d say I have another year, maybe more, to go. I imagine I’ll work on it some this year, between other projects, or when the intense research bug flares up, but I don’t anticipate it will be a priority.
  • Carlyle’s Chartism Through The Ages: This book, a study of Carlyle’s short book/pamphlet Chartism, is close to 80 percent done. What’s left is some editing, seeking some copyright permissions, and writing a couple of my own essays to go with it. I could finish this in 2018 if I put my mind to it. Perhaps I’ll at least work on it, but I don’t think it will make the to-do list.
And, perhaps, a fourth to this one?
And, perhaps, a fourth to this one?

Second, I’ll list the works in “gray-cell gestation,” taking up creative space but which haven’t yet found their way to pixels or pen.

  • Documenting America: Constitution Edition: I’d like to write and publish a book in this series each year. This is the one I plan on doing next. So far I’ve done nothing on it, other than to brainstorm.
  • The next Sharon Williams Fonseca short story, tentatively titled “Tango Delta Foxtrot”. This will be only 4,000 or so words. The plot line has come to me—most of it. I should just knuckle down and do it, and perhaps I will.
  • A newly conceived book on life freedoms. This has come to mind from watching my grand-children grow and develop, but has solidified in being a care-giver for my mother-in-law. I’ve noticed that children get these freedoms in stages, and senior citizens lose them in stages. Parents and care-givers should perhaps understand these things. I have no qualifications to write this book, other than being a careful observer of the human condition. Having to qualifications, I should put this out of my mind and find other things to do. But, alas, it keeps tying up gray cells that I should apply to other works. I may find I’ll have to write it just to get it out of my system.
  • Publish one of my Bible studies, though not sure which one. I’ve prepared eight (I think that’s the right number) Bible studies to teach to our adult Life Group at church. I’d like to someday get them published. I don’t that they will sell, but I did a lot of work on them; why not put them in publishable form? Unfortunately, to do so will take a lot of work. I have notes, but not publishable notes. Yes, a lot of work.

These nine items are all candidates for my 2018 writing to-do list. I’d love to put them all on it, but, realistically, I can only accomplish a fraction of this. So, here’s the list in the order I hope to do them.

  • Finish The Gutter Chronicles, Vol. 2. Finish by the end of February; publish by the end of April.
  • Finish Adam Of Jerusalem by the end of the year; publish in 2019.
  • Begin work on Documenting America: Constitution Edition. I hope to be working on this by October.
  • Write “Tango Delta Foxtrot”. At present I’m not going to put a publishing target date on the list.
  • And, one other item, which is really planning for 2019: Decide on which of my Bible studies to publish in 2019.

I’ll revisit this list every quarter, as has become my standard practice, and report any changes on my blog.

Church History Novels, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, self-publishing, Short Stories, The Candy Store Generation, Writing

Will This One Be The One?

Leave a comment

Yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, was a good day. It was just the three of us this year, as our large, family gathering will be a Christmas, a change from our normal routine. I fixed a turkey dinner, but without all the side dishes. We ate our full and have plenty of leftovers. Yes it was a good day.

"Mom's Letter" was the first in the series. This is the cover my son did for it.
“Mom’s Letter” was the first in the series. This is the cover my son did for it.

But, we couldn’t find much on television that was of interest to us. So Lynda wanted to see the latest episode of The Curse of Oak Island. She couldn’t get it in Oklahoma City on Tuesday night. So I fired up the Roku, had to re-set a password (since it had been a while since we’d used it), and found the show. I had seen it, but it was good to watch it again.

We decided “why not watch some back episodes?” I intended to go to last season, which was season 4, and watch some of the later ones. Somehow, though, I went back to Season 1, so I decided to just start with the very first episode. It was almost as if I hadn’t seen it before, it was so long ago.

One thing that struck me was the similarity of the rhetoric. The searchers for treasure were saying the same thing in Season 1 as they are in Season 5. The narrator’s shtick hasn’t changed at all. It’s always one more search will get us there; we’re inches from the treasure; today may be the day; this new find gives us the motivation to keep on going. That much hasn’t changed, so far into the fifth season.

Published in May, 2011, I've sold a whopping 54 copies of this.
Published in May, 2011, I’ve sold a whopping 54 copies of this.

It suddenly occurred to me that that’s exactly how I am with my books: hoping this next one will be the breakthrough book, the book that gets widespread attention and lots of sales. My first publication was the short story “Mom’s Letter”. I had no expectations for it to sell. It was a story I wrote for a contest (that I didn’t win), and I self-published it because I didn’t have anything else quite ready, so I published it to see what the mechanics of self-publishing were like.

 

This was my first book to write, fourth publication. It remains my highest selling book.
This was my first book to write, fourth publication. It remains my highest selling book.

I was intending to publishing my first novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, but I didn’t feel like it was ready. So I pulled together my newspaper columns, expanded them, added fifteen new ones, and had Documenting America: Lessons From The United States’ Historical Documents. I didn’t have high hopes for this one either. It sold 30 or so copies in it’s first year.

It wasn’t until the next year, 2012, that I finally published Doctor Luke’s Assistant. It became, and still is, my highest selling book at 128 copies, adding seven to the total so far this year. Now, you’re going to note that 128 is NOT a lot of copies, and if that’s my highest selling book, how low are the others? Good observation. I had high hopes for my next book, The Candy Store Generation, being a political book in a political season. But it sold poorly: 15 copies its first year and a few each year since.

I was very surprised when this one didn't sell.
I was very surprised when this one didn’t sell.

Then came my baseball book, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I thought it was good enough to sell, and would be popular. Alas, not. I sold a few more in 2016, when the Cubs won the pennant, but it still hasn’t sell.

My point is, with each publication (now 26), I’ve thought “this will be the one, the one to breakout.” But each one disappoints. I don’t do a lot of marketing, just Facebook posts. I did one Facebook ad that resulted in no sales. I’ve interviewed authors on this blog, who have sometimes reciprocated. Each of those has resulted in no sales. I did an hour long radio interview, which resulted in no sales. I haven’t done any paid ads yet. Maybe that’s what I need to do. But I’ve thought my publishing should pay for itself, and so far haven’t seen my way clear to buy an ad. Perhaps I’ll change that in 2018.

Even dropping the e-book price to $0.99 has resulted in no sales.
Even dropping the e-book price to $0.99 has resulted in no sales.

So I’m much like the people searching for treasure on Oak Island. Just keep going, sinking costs—in my case the cost of time—into the endeavor a little at a time, hoping for change, for lightning to strike. My recent publication, When Death Changes Life: The Danny Tompkins Stories, is a boxed set of six related short stories, reaching all the way back to “Mom’s Letter”. I set the price of the e-book at $2.99, and the print book at $6.00. I sold zero. I do have three pre-orders of the print book, which will happen next week once my copies arrive.

I have two works-in-progress. One is a prequel to Doctor Luke’s Assistant, which is more laborious than expected. The other is the sequel to The Gutter Chronicles. I actually have people at work asking for this, so maybe I should turn my attention to it. I could sell 30 copies without difficulty, and might sell 10 to 20 of the first one to people who are new at work.

But will either of these be a breakthrough book? I can hope, I suppose, because without hope there’s no reason to go on. Hope is starting to grow thin, however.

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, self-publishing, Short Stories

The Dream Is Still Holding On

Leave a comment
I changed the final e-book cover some from this. I keep forgetting to upload it from my computer at work.
I changed the final e-book cover some from this. I keep forgetting to upload it from my computer at work.

Not too long ago I posted that I had published my latest book, When Death Changes Life, as an e-book. As always, I have a lag between publishing the e-book, which is relatively simple, and publishing the print book, which is much more involved primarily due to the cover. I uploaded the print book more than a week ago, but kept finding little errors in it: a poem that had a widow on one page; failing to start something on the right hand side; things like that. I ordered a proof copy, but while waiting on it I worked on fixing those errors.

Finally, the proof came yesterday. I had already fixed the errors, uploaded them, and had them approved by CreateSpace. So I pressed the button, and the print book published yesterday. It still hasn’t synced up with the e-book into one listing on Amazon. That typically takes two or three days to happen. Sometimes I have to turn in a manual request for Amazon to make it happen.

What are my hopes for this book? It doesn’t have anything new in it. It’s the six Danny Tompkins stories pulled together as a box set. How well did they sell as individual stories? Here’s my sales numbers, lifetime.

  • Mom’s Letter – 39
  • Too Old To Play – 9
  • Kicking Stones – 10
  • Saturday Haircuts, Tuesday Funeral – 4
  • What Kept Her Alive? – 4
  • Growing Up Too Fast – 0
Zero copies sold of this one. Perhaps the market is speaking to me.
Zero copies sold of this one. Perhaps the market is speaking to me.

Clearly, the series hasn’t caught on. Even the original 39 purchasers didn’t come back to see if there were more stories.

So, will they sell better as a volume? That is the hope. I feel badly for a couple of people who bought four or five of them early in the year. Someone coming in now could buy all six for $2.99, whereas the others paid $0.99. I suppose that’s life. They have sales. Sometimes you get in on it, sometimes you don’t. Still, what happens if I drop the e-book to 99 cents as a promotional and see if anyone bites? (Still no sales of the boxed set.) Same too bad.

But, in talking about it to people, at church and in the office, it seems like the title is catching, the subject is of interest, and a few people have said they would buy a copy from me. Some may even follow through on that. I can think of three or four sure sales.

With each book I publish, I think “This will be the one to catch on, to sell in the hundreds if not the thousands.” Alas, each time I’m lucky to sell in double digits. A few will go to 10 to 25 copies, a couple have sold in the 30s. Only two have hit 50 or more, and only one 100 or more. What makes me think this one will be different? I don’t know that it will be, but I hope.

The dream hasn’t quite died. It’s holding on for dear life, battered by busyness at the office and at home, by a tired brain and a tired body, trounced by hits from every quarter. I’m tired of late, really tired.

Still, I have to hang on to the dream. Otherwise, there would be no point of going on.