Category Archives: Writing

miscellaneous, Writing

A Great Weight

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This year, filling out my taxes was worse than normal.

At the moment, I still don’t feel at home at our new house. At least in part, this is because I don’t feel like we’ve gotten into a rhythm yet. Daily tasks are a mixture of the old routines brought here, trying to finish unpacking and finding a place for things, and doing tasks that are one of a kind.

One of the latter has been dealing with Lynda’s eye infection. That has required four appointments with a new eye doc, with one more to go. Another one-of-a-kind task has been setting up autopay on our new utilities and cancelling the old. That’s about done now, with a few glitches along the way. Learning to use an unfamiliar range top, unfamiliar streaming service, stores with things in unfamiliar places, all of these are making life difficult.

But the big task that has been a weight around my neck has been the income taxes. I was able to complete my home business taxes calculated in March and the partnership forms filed by the March 15 deadline. Then other things got in the way. I finally got back on our personal income taxes last week, mainly last weekend.

And to my horror, I owed over $1800 in additional taxes! How could this be? Every year since I’ve retired, the amount withheld had been enough that I never owed much, sometimes even got a little back. What happened this year? Had the law changed a lot? Or had I missed something? Or did my spreadsheet have an error?

Then I realized: I had made more money this year than normal in our stock trading business. Despite trading only about six months of the year, a new way of trading of my own design had been successful, and the profits proved it. To test the theory, I took a little time to re-figure my taxes with no business profits included. Sure enough, the IRA withholdings were about right with the taxes owed. That makes sense. Make more money, don’t pay in taxes as you go along, expect to have to pay more at the end.

On Tuesday, I was able to get the tax forms filled out, printed, signed, copied, and the painful check written. I wrote it on the business account, since after all that was the cause.

Of course, then I had to do my Arkansas taxes. Those are normally easier. My spreadsheet fills in all the blanks. I just need to verify that I’ve entered the data correctly and make sure the forms didn’t change since last year. I completed those forms on Wednesday and mailed them Thursday. Since they owe me, I don’t think Arkansas will object to my being a day late.

Having this done for another year feels like a great weight having fallen off my shoulders. I think now I will feel comfortable moving on to other things. On Thursday I tackled the family budget. That was after Wednesday was filled with church activities and dealing with the potential sale of our house in Arkansas.  Friday will be setting up my files for next year and entering data for the start of the year. Saturday will be a mix of work around the house, looking at the status of my writing projects and maybe getting a little done on one. Also Saturday I have an author even, the Stacks N’ Snacks adult book fair at Brazoswood High School for two hours in the afternoon. I’m looking forward to that.

 

Bible study, self-publishing, Writing

Book Published: “He’s Alive”

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The series is finished. Time to make a few tweaks and move on to something else.

Well, it’s done. My Bible study series A Walk Through Holy Week. On Saturday I typed a few edits from my last read-through, formatted the book for Kindle and print, created the e-book cover, and uploaded the e-book to Amazon. By the end of the day, it was approved and live for sale. This volume actually goes beyond Holy Week and covers the Easter season up to the Ascension.

I suppose I should say it’s “almost done”. I still have to create the print book cover and upload it. That’s hopefully a one-hour task today. Then there will be creating and uploading improved covers for the entire series, because the covers right now could be much better. But new covers can wait for a long time if need be.

I declare the eight-volume series done. The final word count for all eight books is somewhere between 320,000 and 330,000. Of course, total sales thus far for Volumes 1-7 is zero, so I don’t have great hopes for calling the series a success.

Now, it’s time to figure out what to do next. A plan is beginning to gel and will be the subject of a future post or two.

movies, moving, Writing

Routines

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The worst part of moving, apart from downsizing to a house about 1/3rd of what we had, apart from going from a mostly rural area to a fully developed city subdivision, is trying to establish routines.

I am a creature of routine. Give me the same thing to do every day and I’ll be happy. Up at 6:30, work on writing, stock trading from 8:15 to 8:45, breakfast at 9:00, more work in the office (writing or household budget), reading at noon, lunch at 1:00, etc. I like routine.

Alas, my routines were stolen by our move from Arkansas to Texas.  For the first two weeks I did nothing but move and unpack boxes. At the two-week mark I was able to resume stock trading with a partially set-up office. Then a crisis of missing medications that took a few days to work out. Then I was able to resume my writing work, more editing at present as I’m trying to get previously written works ready for publication.

I’m slowly getting routines established. My reading place is now the screened patio instead of the sunroom. The Dungeon has been replaced by an office, now mostly fully set-up in the 3rd bedroom. My evening reading place is sprawled out on the living room floor while we are without easy chairs. Tuesday this week I was able to get the minivan registered. That’s one big, non-routine item I had facing me. Now I can concentrate on re-establishing routines.

Not so fast. On Wednesday I went through a pile of mail and worked on changing addresses, filing documents, and learning to use my bank’s remote depositing feature. Oh, yes, and using PayPal to pay a bill for the first time.

Routine is returning, though more slowly than I would like. I’ve figured out when I need to have outgoing mail for the mail carrier to pick it up. I’ve started to learn when local utility bills are debited. How long it takes to get to church to know when to leave home to be on time. I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to reestablish a routine for posting here, but I’m working on it.

moving, Writing

Progress?

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It’s not The Dungeon, but it will have to do.

I haven’t written much about our time in Texas since our move. The first couple of weeks were overwhelming. Since then, we have become a little more settled, though we are far from being through with the move and set-up. Here are some bullet points.

  • We aren’t tripping over boxes. We still have many to unpack, but they are shoved against walls and out of the way, mostly in the dining room and the guest bedroom.
  • I’ve set up my office in the 3rd bedroom. No more Dungeon, I’m afraid. It’s nice to have everything on one level.
  • I’ve resumed writing work on a regular basis. This morning I finished the second editing pass through the last volume of my eight-volume Bible study series. One more quick read-through in a Kindle format then I publish. Then I need to decide on which of about five writing projects to do next. This week I replaced my ancient wireless keyboard, so typing should be easier.
  • Change of addresses are slowly being accomplished.
  • The refrigerator is slowly getting filled, as each shopping trip we buy an item or two that was left behind in the move. I haven’t felt much like cooking, but have prepared a few things.
  • Lynda and I have found time to walk a short way several days this past week. Maybe over time we can do more before summer heat and humidity move in.
  • We are slowly getting plugged in at church.
  • We’ve met three of the four neighbors that border our house. The fourth one always has vehicles in the driveway but never seems to be outside when we are.
  • I’ve been able to get in some good reading time, as well as resume correspondence.

That’s enough for now. I’ll give another update in a couple of weeks.

books, History, Writing

Author Lauri Cruver Cherian

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Lauri and her fourth book

A few days ago, we were in Lake Jackson, Texas, visiting our daughter and her family. On previous trips, I took some of the grandkids to the planetarium as a small outing. The lady working the planetarium on the first of those outings was Lauri Cruver Cherian. We conversed a while, learned we were both authors as second careers, both members of local writers groups, and that neither of us lived in our native state. We connected on Facebook, and have kept abreast of each other since then.

So when I found out Lauri had scheduled a book launch event for her newest book, to be held in Lake Jackson at the same time we were planning to be there, I built my local schedule to have time to attend. While I’ve attended author events before, this was my first time to attend an official book launch. My reasons for attending were to support Lauri, also to get some ideas on how to do a book launch should I ever decide to do one for one of my books.

Reading from the book at the book launch

It was held at the Lake Jackson Historical Museum in the downtown area. I arrived about 25 minutes early, and was the first one there other than Lauri and a couple of workers. That gave me time to make a quick circuit of the first floor of the museum. It included well-presented displays, and I marked it as a place to come back to on a future trip for a full tour.

The book Lauri presented was Come On In, Don’t Be Lonesome [available at Book Baby and to be released 10/31/2025 at Amazon]. It’s a story based on events in her family history. Her grandfather ran a rooming house in the Seattle area (so she’s a transplant to Texas). Lauri read from the first chapter, and it’s obvious the book is seasoned both with salt and humor. It looks like it will be a good read.

I counted about 35 people in attendance, though it might have been a few more. I think she sold a good number of books, and was kept busy signing copies, her husband helping with the selling. Alas for her, I didn’t buy a copy. Our decumulation effort has resulted in my paperback book buying budget being $0. We have to see things leave the house, not come in. Possibly I’ll get an e-book copy.

Check out Lauri’s website. It has more information about her and all four of her books.

As for the book launch, it was extremely well done. Advertising by her and the museum no doubt generated the good attendance. Looking at the infrastructure she set up (four tables, one for selling, one for signing, two for food); banners; podium; sound system; computer with slide show going) made it all look rather daunting just thinking about all the work involved. I think I’ll still go with publishing my books without formally launching them.

Bible study, self-publishing, Writing

Published: A Walk Through Holy Week – Vol. 5

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The e-book cover. I need to tweak it a little.

I had hoped to have Volume 5 of A Walk Through Holy Week published in late July, but I wasn’t able to get my act together and do the required publishing tasks. I finally put my mind to it over the last two days, and the book is now published. Final Teaching covers chapters 14-15-16-17 of the gospel of John, where Jesus gave his disciples instruction, encouragement, and cautions after they had finished eating their Passover meal. It’s a section of the Bible that is rich in words that can help us on our discipleship walk.

So Volumes 1-5 are published. They are:

Vol 1: To Jerusalem

Vol 2: Temple Teaching

Vol 3: Coming Troubles

Vol 4: A Difficult Meal

Vol 5: Final Teaching

The print book cover

Volumes 6, 7, and 8 are written, requiring only editing followed by the usual publishing tasks. Hopefully I can do all that by the end of the year, then be able to move on to other writing.

Concerning Volume 5, as of this moment the e-book is approved and for sale. Here’s the link to the Amazon listing. Just waiting for the print book to be approved and for the two listings to sync up. Hopefully that will happen today.

self-publishing, Writing

Thinking It Through

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I used to have what I considered a cute expression that described my writing. This was before my wife got on Facebook. The expression was:

When I want to hide something from my wife, I post it on Facebook.

When I want to hide something from my family, I blog about it.

When I want to hide something from the world, I write it in a book and publish it.

Cute? Perhaps so, perhaps not.  But accurate? Most assuredly.

Too much to do, no significant results.

The fact is my writing has never caught on. I could post here the number of books and stories I’ve published and the number of sales I have. But it’s depressing. If it weren’t for running a few Amazon ads, I’d have no sales at all. But at least I’ve had enough sales over the years to more than cover the cost of the ads and put me a few hundred dollars ahead.

But this blog was for the purpose of getting my name out there and hopefully drive people to want to buy my books.

Obviously, I’m doing something wrong. Writing the wrong kind of books, or not writing well, or not publicizing/advertising them correctly. It costs me close to $500 a year to maintain this website. Most of that ($440) is for a security service I put in place after the site was hacked, I think that was in 2018. I’ve had no problems since then, other than many, many spam comments to posts. It’s about 30 spam comments to each real comment.

So, do I keep the website and blog? I don’t really know at this point. It’s not serving any useful purpose, so why keep it? The world doesn’t need to know about my daily schedule or the occasional genealogical triumph. They don’t care about where I stand with my current book, what books are planned, what I’m reading and if I liked it or not.

So I’m seriously considering stopping the blog more or less immediately, and stopping the website after my security subscription runs out in January.

Stay tuned.

Bible study, Christianity, Writing

Editing Almost Done

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Volume 5 is close to done.

My summer schedule continues, though knee and balance troubles have prevented me from walking as much as I would like.

My special projects continue. I’m transcribing one WW2 letter a day, handling 50 scan files a day, getting rid of most of them, and doing a few other odd things. Though I’m falling behind a little on my correspondence, and on family finances. Maybe I’ll get to them before the week is out.

A morning rainstorm is preventing me from going out to pick blackberries. The vines will be loaded tomorrow—or this evening if I can get out then.

One thing I got a little ahead on is editing my latest book, A Walk Through Holy Week Vol. 5. I knuckled down yesterday and finished it, which was one of the reasons I didn’t get a blog post written. I also wrote the Introduction, though it still needs a bit of work.

Leaving The Dungeon in a minute for a mug full, and reading in the sunroom.

In my first editorial pass through the book, which was mainly for proofreading, I was concerned that I had been repetitive in places. In the second editorial pass, just finished, I was able to make corrections to eliminate the most blatant redundancies. However, I’m not sure I caught them all. Thus, I will make a third editorial pass through it, reading it quickly as would someone who bought it and couldn’t put it down. I hope in this manner any more obvious repetition will stand out. I’m going to do this pass via an e-reader, marking any edits needed, I hope the reading takes only two or three days, and that I’ll find nothing more is needed, except for minor things.

My expectations now are that I’ll do the publishing tasks next week, July 14 to 18, and have it up for sale right after that.

I’ll then wait until September to tackle the remaining books in the series.

It’s now 11 AM and still raining. Time to get a little reading done—with a fresh mug of coffee.

Bible study, Christianity, Decumulation, family, letters, travel, Writing

July Goals

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  1. Have a meet-up to deliver batch 1 of family photos to the one who has been clamoring to have them. Good riddance.
  2. Somehow, carve out enough time to finish editing my book-in-progress. Down to 3 chapters, but was unable to do any editing today, nor will tomorrow.
  3. Continue transcribing one letter a day of my father-in-law’s war letters.
  4. Continue to dispose of unneeded scan files on my computer and One Drive. Down to less than 1,450 now.
  5. Keep up with yardwork.
  6. Handle various financial matters and travel bookings.
home improvements, Writing

Life Gets In The Way

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Now that my own blackberry patch has come in nicely, I no longer tend he ones along the street. But we will pick some there.

I had a complicated book review planned for today. But yesterday, after I got a minimum amount of editing done, along with my two special projects, I decided I was behind on my yardwork and better get to it. Under full sun, but much of the time working in the shade, I started pulling weeds out of our gravel yard. I made my goal in about a half hour.

I then tackled my blackberry patch. I had clearing to do in the paths between rows, trimming back high sprouts, cutting out competing vines, and then weed-eating around the whole patch. I didn’t get that last part done, nor did I clean up the mess I made with cuttings. But I did leave my crop in good shape. Saw a few berries starting to turn black, so the harvest may start as early as today.

The harvest isn’t far away.

All together, I was 1 3/4 hours in the yard, stopping in part because the weed-eater battery died, but also because I felt my strength giving way. I went inside, rested and read, and, after lunch, came back to The Dungeon to finish editing. I then rested for a couple of hours.

By 4:30 p.m., I was recovered enough to go back outside. Afternoon shade covered an area in the front yard I needed to work on. I started the small project, and to my surprise got more done than expected. The project is done. I came back inside, feeling good about having the strength to get both my inside and outside work done.

I spent the evening sorting through old photos, making progress on both physical photos and computer files. For some reason completion of the project eludes me. I can’t find some batches of like photos to add strays to. Hopefully today I’ll find them.

But only after I clean up the mess around the blackberries, and see if any are ready to harvest.