Category Archives: Writing

Sharon Williams short stories, Short Stories, Writing

Working on a Short Story—Sort Of

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WZT cover - first draftThe Time Crunch continues. For at least another four months I expect to do very little writing. However, yesterday some ideas for a short story began to gel.

This will be the next in the Sharon Williams Fonseca, unconventional CIA agent, series. I’ve known for a long time which story would be next if I decided to continue the series. I had the main plot in my mind. It will take place in Europe, mainly on trains between Italy and Switzerland. Sharon will be suspected of committing a crime, though it’s a crime that her superiors at the CIA really aren’t upset about.

CDD cover 2013-07-25The title of the story is “Sierra Kilo Bravo. It will introduce a character who will become the CIA’s man to dog Sharon and figure out if she’s a legitimate agent or gone rogue. It was yesterday during the workday that I came up with a name for him: Carter Burns. I actually introduced him in the first one, “Whiskey, Zebra, Tango”, as “Mr. Clark,” a tip of the hat to Tom Clancy and his character by that name. In this book he will be a new member in the internal investigative branch of the CIA. While he’s green at the job, he’s fully trained.

His investigations will take him to Italy and Switzerland. He’s going to follow the route our family took in 1982 (which is the year the story is set in) from Florence to Lucerne, including an unintended twist in our trip that really happened. For us it was unintended; for Sharon it will appear to be intended, and provide her the means to commit this crime.

I have no time frame for writing this. Last night, after completing stock trading work and all other activities, I wrote a list of scenes in the story, though it isn’t yet complete. Ideas have become to pop up. Maybe today, during my noon hour, I’ll actually write something on it. If I do it will be my first writing in over two months.

 

Engineering, Writing

A Chance to Write—or at Least Edit

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As I’ve said in other posts, writing time isn’t just hard to come by: It’s non-existent right now.

Except, that is, for at work. I’m working on two or three essays based on past of future presentations I’ve made. More on those later. This week I’ve had the pleasure of working on a construction specification. The project is a tire shop in Oklahoma. The client is a major tire dealer that we developed the standard specs for. Actually, I’m the one who developed the standard specs for them, a year or so ago, maybe a little longer. They had seen our specs, saw what we did (I do) with internal notes to guide the spec writer, and wanted us to do it for them.

The project manager had already downloaded the specs needed from the client’s website and put them in a project folder on the network. I opened them one by one and saw the notes to specifier in bold red staring at me. On a real project situation I was able to read those notes and do what they suggested. Overall I found them to be pretty good. My attention was directed to where in the spec section it was most needed.

On the project I found four construction items for which we did not prepare a standard spec for this client, so I’m having to create them—not quite from scratch, though. Two of them are similar to sections we already have, so I’m able to pull them up, modify them as needed, and save them as new sections. I’ll do that for the project. Then, hopefully before the end of the year, I’ll expand them, first into a guide spec for our company; second as a standard spec for that client.

I have one new product added to an existing section, one of the new sections done, and a second new spec section started. Next will be the section from scratch. Actually, even that won’t be from scratch as they’re using a proprietary product on the project so I can take the manufacturer’s spec and modify them.

It’s not exactly creative writing, but it is writing. And I need to get back to is.

Daddy Daughter Day, Writing

Nothing to Write About

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Once again I missed my normal day to write a post for this blog, so, a day late, I’ll add something minor. I have nothing to write about as it concerns my writing career. I’m not writing anything at the moment, still, as the Time Crunch consumes me.

I haven’t heard back from the cover illustrator for Father Daughter Day, but I really don’t expect to for another week or so. We don’t have a deadline.

Otherwise, no little poems have come to mind, no ideas for new works. Every now and then I have an urge to write, but I purposely busy myself with other things, things I have to do, so that I don’t succumb to the writing temptation.

The good news is I actually see a little light in the future. Our stock trading training is going well. We are having modest success at implementing the things our mentor is teaching us. It’s all paper trading right now, but done in a way to simulate real market and trading day conditions. We are keeping up with the webinars, and have only a few more to attend (taking us not quite through December) before we can go to the website and do a few of the other things we’re supposed to do there. After that, we “graduate”, and the time crunch is over. Right now, as I look ahead, I think perhaps February will be when I’ll find some time to think again about writing.

Carlyle, Writing

Another Project Abandoned

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As I work my way through the Time Crunch, which has turned out to be every bit as extensive as I expected, if not more so, I have slowly been taking time to evaluate various writing projects I’ve started and decide whether to just abandon them as opposed to put them on hold. For example, my book Documenting America: Civil War Edition, is on hold. I hope some day to get back to it. It may be more than a year from now, but some day.

One of my projects dealing with Thomas Carlyle is a bibliography of his writings. I believe I’ve written about that before on this blog. It’s not a true bibliography of the things he published, but rather a chronological listing of his writings. I’ve seen four full or partial bibliographies of his published works, from 1881, 1921, 1965, and 1988. None of them have a complete listing of what he wrote from earliest to latest.

Ah ha! I thought. That’s a hole in the published works about Carlyle that perhaps I could fill. So I began working on this in off hours, I’d guess close to a year ago. I played around with what form it would take, how comprehensive it would be, etc. I worked with the first 50 items, got them in the correct order (as I saw it; another researcher might differ with me on a few), and typed it all up. Here’s an example of what it looks like, one item snipped from it.

Chronological Bibliography [table form] a snippetThis looks at those other four bibliographies and compares them to each other and to mine.

During this Time Crunch I was still working on this project. Since looking at Carlyle’s letters was essential to this work, I was going through his letters one by one at the Carlyle Letters Online, finding references to different projects, and adding them to the manuscript of my chronological composition bibliography. A letter or two an evening and having my manuscript notebook handing to pencil in a few things seemed a good way to fill odd moments between major evening activities and bed time.

But, early this week, it all became too much for me. I decided the heck with it. The notebook, the two bound bibliographies, and whatever loose sheets are lying around for this project are all going on a shelf or in a drawer somewhere, perhaps never to be seen again this side of my eternity. The project is too big for completing in 20 minute time chunks.

When I say the project is abandoned, does that mean I will never come back to it? That’s my intention, but never say never, as they say. Who knows what attitudes and time retirement will bring when at last it gets here? Maybe I’ll write again, and maybe I’ll pick up this project again. But here I state my claim that I have no intention of ever picking it up again.

There, that’s said and done. One less thing to worry about not getting done. Tonight, when those items go to their resting place out of sight and out of mind, I believe I’ll have a moment’s peace.

Carlyle, Daddy Daughter Day, self-publishing, Writing

Stewardship of My Writing Time

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I was supposed to post to this blog yesterday. But it was Election Day, and so I was tied up watching returns in the evening; and I had plenty to do and work to do during the day, and I didn’t get anything written and posted. Today I’ll rectify that with a day-late post.

It seems good for me to talk about how I’ve used my limited writing time of late. I’m still in the Time Crunch, and will be for several months. Rather than having big blocks of time, I have small chunks of time, perhaps a half hour in the evenings after finishing other obligations. Or maybe that much time before work or during the noon hour. They are small enough that I couldn’t take on a large project, but they are still snippets of time in which I can somehow further my writing career.

Over the last two weeks I’ve had two main projects for these snippets. One is to continue to skim/read the letters of Thomas Carlyle, looking for references to his written works. I’ve done that on a hit or miss basis before, looking for specific references to a specific work. This time, I’m going through the letters from beginning to end. My purpose for doing this is to support the composition chronology of his writings. I don’t know if I’ll ever publish that or not. Heck, I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it or not. For sure it would be a huge project, and the form of it would be tough to pull off in a standard size book (meaning height and width, not length). But for now I’m doing it, from beginning to end. I’m concentrating on his first 50 compositions (excepting letters). In fact, I’m almost done with that . I’ve gone through his letters that go up to the days of his 50th composition, and have entered the letter dates and recipients in the chronology. I think I have only three or four more compositions to do the typing on.

The other project is my poetry book, Father Daughter Day. As I’ve reported before, that book has been done for a long time. I’ve been stalled for years because I wanted to publish it as an illustrated book. I finally gave up on ever finding an illustrator willing to take it on spec, and so plan on publishing it soon. But, I need to have a cover made. I’ve been looking around for a photo to serve as a cover, but will still need an artist to add things to the cover.

This week I may have found the artist. I asked a man in my Life Group at church, who has done some sketches and posted them to Facebook of the type I’m interested in. He said he couldn’t do it, as the inspiration to draw has left him for a time. He said he would get one of his artist friends in touch with me. He was true to his word, and yesterday I had a conversation with that artist and shared my vision for the book and the cover. Today she reported to me that she had read the book, has ideas not only for the cover but also for some interior illustrations. And, she’s willing to do it on spec, rather than as up-front compensation. I need to e-mail her again today to further the process, and will do that as soon as I post this.

So, even though I’m in the Time Crunch, and writing of books and articles isn’t possible, I’m still at work with my flickering writing career. Perhaps I’ll have my poetry book out in January 2015. That would be a nice outcome.

Carlyle, poetry, Writing

Little Snippets

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Clearly my world has changed in the last couple of days, and it’s fall. As I got ready for work this morning, I heard hard pinging on the skylight in the bathroom. At first I thought that strange, because we had no rain in the forecast. Then I realized it was acorns falling from the nearby oak tree. Not many branches extend as far as the skylight, but a couple do. However, this seemed to be too many pings relative to the probable supply of ready-to-fall acorns, and I realized it had to be wind pushing them from other branches onto the skylight.

Sure enough, when I went outside for my commute, a blustery wind greeted me; not strong enough to have been heard in the house, but strong enough to easily move leaves and push acorns. It’s definitely fall.

I got in my pickup and started it, and almost immediately lines for a haiku came to mind. This is my commuting writing endeavor. Either on the way to work or on the way home, though more often the former, a haiku will come to me while I’m driving. Typically the first line and perhaps the third line come right away. As I drive the 15.6 miles to my destination, I work on it in my mind. The second line will eventually come. By the time I get there, I have a completed haiku—subject to further revision, as always.

That’s if I don’t forget it between the time I park and get to a place where I can write it. So often the lines leave me, and another writing idea is lost. Today, however, the lines didn’t leave me. I had worked on them enough, especially massaging the second line, that by the time I got to my desk, then went and weighed and got coffee, came back to my desk, had my devotions, prayed, and woke up my computer, I pulled out one of the prior days from my desk calendar, and on the back of it wrote the haiku. I don’t know that it’s final, but it meets all the criteria I usually put into a haiku.

A haiku isn’t much, but it’s writing. It’s creativity focused. I’ll take it, and be glad for it during the Time Crunch. Just as I’ll take the little bit of research I can do a few days a week, in the letters of Thomas Carlyle, which will work towards a couple of future (maybe) projects.

The Time Crunch will pass and I’ll dedicate more time to writing. Meanwhile, I’ll have to find joy in these small snippets.

Writing

Sorry

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I know this is my day to post to this, my writing blog. But due to the busyness of life, and the Time Crunch that I’m in, my thoughts and actions are so far away from writing that I have nothing pertaining to writing to write about and post.

Sorry. Maybe the future will be better.

Engineering, Writing

Writing in October

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As I’ve said elsewhere, the Time Crunch has prevented me from working on my different writing projects. Alas, that’s how life is sometimes. That’s how it is now, and for the foreseeable future. I have no expectations of doing much writing for the rest of 2014.

But, yesterday, during my noon hour, I had a few moments to think about things, and decided to see exactly what I had written this month. Pulling things together, checking a few websites, I came up with a long list. It is summarized as follows.

  • 6 posts at this blog
  • 5 posts at my other blog
  • My first devotional, turned in on the 20th
  • 3 comments at the Books & Such blog
  • 2 brief comments at the Passive Voice blog
  • 1 comment at the Absolute Write forums
  • 17 personal e-mails, some of them one-liners
  • 39 work e-mails, some of them one-liners

All of these aren’t publishable writing pieces, but they are writing. It doesn’t include many posts on Facebook, both writing related and personal. Nor does it include a couple of things at work that are started only in outline form. These are “curriculum” type items, cobbling together various classes I’ve taught over the last eight years into eight to ten class courses. So far I haven’t done any original writing on them, but most likely will before the end of the month.

That also doesn’t include three new classes that I’m preparing to teach: one in November, one in December, and one probably next March. Each of these will require quite a bit of prep for a one hour class. At least one of them (the one in March) will have a significant essay as part of it.

So, I have been writing this month; just not publishable things, with one exception. I guess I need to take what writing I can find time to do.

Christianity, Writing

My First Devotional

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Writing time is still at a premium while I’m in the Time Crunch, but I actually produced something this week. I should have written about this yesterday, during my normal time slot for this blog, but had no energy for it, and so just made a quick post to my Facebook author page.

Back on October 1, our pastor sent out an e-mail to a number of people, asking them to write devotionals for our Advent season. He has a specific program laid out, with scripture on different days of Advent, some posts by him, some scripture studies, and then three posts a week by others in the church, each to a specific topic. At the end of the e-mail he wrote, “By the way, if your name is not David Todd, this may be your chance to be a published author for the first time.”

Ha! I thought about it, and decided I probably wouldn’t do it, though I’d have liked to try, and so didn’t reply to his e-mail. Devotionals are a different critter than anything I’ve written. I’ve thought about them, and “wrote” a couple in my mind. When I read the Bible subjects for a devotional on the passage just read frequently pass through my mind.

But devotionals, as normally written, are much different than what I’m used to writing: fiction and informational non-fiction. They need to be short, refer to scripture, and bring in a personal observation or illustration. It’s that latter requirement that turned me off from writing them.

On Oct 8 the pastor e-mailed again, repeating his request, saying he had a few more slots to fill. This time I wrote him back and said I would love to but I wasn’t sure I could write a devotional and that the Time Crunch worked against me. He wrote back to say no problem, why don’t you just take this one, mentioning a specific one that hadn’t been taken. It’s the Christmas Eve one. Nothing like pressure.

I said okay, and learned that the deadline was Oct 20, Monday this week. Saturday I finally sat down, reviewed the scripture, thought about how to tie reconciliation to Christmas, and started writing in manuscript. Pastor asked that they be 400 to 700 words. By the end of an hour or so, I estimated I had 400 words, including quoted scripture. And I had more to write. Whether what I had just produced was any good or not I didn’t know, but I was on my way.

Monday, Deadline Day, in my pre-work hour and on the noon hour, I worked on it some more, and had it pretty much finished except for editing. I snuck in a couple of read-throughs during the afternoon, tweaked it, back-checked it against the scripture, and decided it was the best I could do, coming in at 706 words. I e-mailed it to the pastor. That evening he wrote back saying, “Perfect, David! This will be a great addition to our devotional guide.” I hope he’s not into hyperbole.

So, I have now written a devotional. It’s the only writing I’ve produced in over a month, except for blog posts. I have only blogs posts planned for another month at least. Will more devotionals be in my future? Stay tuned.

stock market, Writing

No Writing Tasks Yesterday

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I’m in the midst of the Time Crunch (which I may re-label the Great Time Crunch), as I reported before.  My time is being consumed with normal gotta-do-it-to-live activities, as well as this new stock trading education program we’re in. That especially is taking up a lot of time, more even than I expected when we started.

Saturday I did nothing at all on writing, except maybe look at a writing blog or two. Well, thinking back and trying to remember, I may have found time to look at a few a Thomas Carlyle’s letters, researching for a future book. So maybe I can’t say I didn’t get to do anything that day.

Sunday I know for sure that my only writing tasks was research into those letters. I did that while watching Sunday night football, and think I may have gone through almost two dozen of them. But as far as putting words on paper, words of my own, nothing.

Yesterday was a null day as far as writing was concerned. I checked in on a couple of writing blogs, and was able to hurry a post on to my other blog, but as far as preparing new works, nothing. No research. No writing. Nothing. That may be the first weekday in a long, long time where I haven’t done something to further my writing career. Since blogging doesn’t seem to be doing anything for that, I don’t think I can count it.

Today doesn’t look any better. Lynda will be coming home with Elise, our granddaughter, who we’ll watch for a few days. The stock trading educational activities continue, including a webinar tonight, as well as homework assignments.

I don’t know when writing will resume. Right now it’s not in the foreseeable future.