Category Archives: Writing

Engineering, letters, Writing

Back, and Back to Normal

Leave a comment

Yes, following my sickness of last week (food poisoning), I’m back to normal. All body functions functioning as they should, the pounds rapidly lost are back on again–and then some, and my energy level is as it should be. This weekend I should be able to tackle some projects.

And I’m back home after a three day conference in Kansas City. This was Urban Water Management 09. I presented a technical paper on stormwater pumping, and chaired a technical session. The conference was somewhat poorly attended, especially on the first day (when I presented my paper). This is my third stormwater conference to attend, and I found few of the exhibitors had anything new to show me. I’ll need to sit out a year or two of going to these things.

And I’m back home to an empty house. Lynda is still in Oklahoma City, watching the grandson while our daughter has gone to Kansas City herself for a conference. I hope the old lady is up to the work for these four days. Ephraim’s dad is there, and his sister, so it’s not as if Lynda is alone and without help. It will be good to have her back, probably on Monday. I suppose that means I’ll have to do my own laundry this weekend, as the draws and closet are getting a bit empty.

I got back yesterday afternoon in time to do a little work at the office. After work I made my pilgrimage to Barnes and Noble where I drank a large house blend, researched in World War 2 magazines, and purchased, off the remainders table, a C.S. Lewis book I hadn’t seen before. I add this to two volumes I picked up in Kansas City at a discount bookstore. One was selected letters of J.R.R. Tolkein; many of them concern his literary life. The other was selected letters of C.S. Lewis; these are his letters to various correspondents wherein he gave spiritual advice. These three books will not go on the top of the reading pile, though I reads some in each of them over the last two days, reducing what had been good progress in Letters From Hawaii.

Last night I e-mailed a query to the target magazine for the story of my dad’s time with The Stars and Stripes. It’s a perfect story for that mag, so I’m hopeful. This is my first submittal of 2009.

Engineering, Writing

Nearing Normal

Leave a comment

I am at work today, feeling close to normal, the food poisoning having almost run its course.

That’s a good thing, because in a few hours I’m supposed drive to the Kansas City area to attend the Urban Water Management Conference. Tomorrow I present a technical paper, “The Problems With Pumped Detention”. Wednesday I moderate a session where other technical papers will be presented. The conference continues through noon on Thursday.

I’ll be trying to meet people on the trip, mainly potential clients, but also vendors and some fellow consultants. So I need to be close to full speed. I’m about there.

So writing will be shoved aside for a few days–unless schedule and contacts (or lack thereof) allow me to spend an evening in a bookstore up there, researching World War 2 magazines. One can hope. Maybe that will be what I do when I pull into Overland Park tonight, and again when I pull back into town on Thursday. One can hope.

Documenting America, Magazines, Writing

Platform, Part 2

2 Comments

My last post was about the somewhat new-fangled notion that the unpublished writer needs to bring a platform to a publisher before the publisher will consider the wannabe writer–platform being defined as credentials and/or a ready-made audience.

In that post I talked about my newspaper column idea as a platform-building effort. As I say that, I don’t mean to suggest that would be a dreary task. I love studying those old documents, and the eighteen columns I’ve written have been a true joy, as was the studying for the next few to be written. My fear has always been that, once the column is functioning, whether in one newspaper or a hundred, it will sap all the time I have in my schedule for creative writing, leaving me no time for fiction or non-fiction books. I suppose if it did, I’d still have my writing, and it would be writing I’d enjoy. I should end the discussion and consideration there and just do it.

Another pathway to platform exists for me, as suggested by many writers and editors. Not for me only, but for any writer climbing the publishing mountain. That pathway is writing for magazines before trying to publish books. This could be non-fiction articles or short stories. Magazines abound, and are looking for material one a regular schedule. They tend to be more open to new writers than are book publishers, and the lead time to get something into print is much shorter. As far as reaching people, most magazines have a larger circulation than the number of books that a first time book writer will sell.

Moreover, writing for magazines gives you references, experience with editors, experience with deadlines, honing of writing skills, evidence that your writing has value, and perhaps a few fans who will be looking for your book.

I’ve written some articles for engineering magazines. This pays well, but doesn’t actually build credentials or fan base for creative writing. I’ve written two short stories, one that is highly polished, and for the last month, off and on, I’ve conducted market research to try and decide where to send this. I’m probably one or two hours of final research away from having five or six magazines to send this to.

Thinking about other things I could write for magazines, I stumbled on an idea. A couple of weeks ago I was at Barnes and Noble in the evening, taking advantage of my wife being out of town to drink a large house blend and just enjoy an evening with writing magazines (I bought two). As I put the mags I didn’t purchase back on the rack, I looked a little to the left and saw two military magazines, both of them about World War 2.

The idea hit me: I have a trunk in the basement full of copies of the Stars and Stripes, the army newspaper that Dad worked on in Europe during World War 2, which he mailed daily to his parents for keepsakes. Couldn’t I use material in them to write an article, or two? Yes, and the perfect first article came to mind immediately. When the newspaper staff was working on the VE Day edition, it was Dad who chose the headline: “It’s Over Over Here”. Surely there is an article in that. Surely that trunk, full of 65 year-old newsprint, holds other things I could write.

So I’m brainstorming how to craft my article. Then I’ll research the magazines and see which ones would work best. I’ll pitch the idea to the mag(s) before writing the article, and see how that goes.

A small first step on the freelance road. Might it be successful as a platform-building measure? Stay tuned.

Health, writer's platform, Writing

Clarity

Leave a comment

Yesterday morning, as soon as I rose and completed my new litany of exercises (six straight days now), I began a morning walk. My destination: the post office, to mail some bill payments. The post office is about 7/10 ths of a mile away, over fairly level road. However, I wanted a longer walk that that.

So I walked down every side street off Sherlock Road. By way of explanation, Bella Vista is all hills, ridges, and steep valleys–hollows, the locals call them. Collector streets are built on ridge lines, and local streets are cul–de-sacs off the main roads, following finger ridges till they plunge into the hollows.

On the way to the post office, walking on the left side, of course, that meant I had to walk down four side streets. Of course, that meant I had to walk up to get back to the main road. Coming back from the post office, I had three side streets to descend and ascend. The whole walk took sixty-five minutes, and I was plenty tired.

As I made all these side trips, I was struck by the clarity of the woods. By this time in winter, the pin oaks are finally dropping their leaves. A few stubbornly cling, mostly to lower branches, but most are gone. The early budding trees–the Bradford pears, forsythia, red buds, and dogwoods–have not yet popped. Some might by next week, but not now. So this weekend is probably the one with the greatest clarity through the winter woods. Houses across the hollows, unseen most of the year, are obvious. We can see our distant neighbors’ backyard business.

I continue to look for this clarity in my writing career. Book? Articles? Fiction? Non-fiction? Op-ed? Bible studies? All of these I have tried, and I can see myself writing them all. The writing sages say build a platform first. If you have a platform, editors can’t hardly turn you down when submitting book-length queries. I’ve got platform building ideas, but keep hesitating to trigger them for fear they will sap all the creative time and energy I have.

Yet trigger them I must, if I expect to have any hope of publishing books with traditional, royalty paying publishers. In two future posts (perhaps not consecutive to this one), I’ll explain a couple of platform-building ideas I have, one old, one new, and use the blog as a sounding board for them.

ETA: I wrote the draft of this post Saturday night, intending to publish it Sunday afternoon. When I awoke this morning, deprived of an hour of sleep, I saw our huge Bradford pear in the backyard is now white. Overnight the buds popped. Our native woods don’t have many volunteer Bradford pears, but it does look as if I’m correct: this weekend should allow maximum clarity.

career, Writing

Our Light and Momentary Troubles

Leave a comment

Some years ago I was involved in Teen Bible Quizzing. This was an inter-denominational program (though each denomination had its own sub-program) that tried to make Bible study fun while making it competitive. Teens studied the scripture specific to that year, many memorizing it entirely. We practiced twice weekly, and went to tournaments monthly. Teens sat on “jump seats”, some kind of pad or contact device that, once the contact was lost (as in when a teen stood to answer a question), an indicator indicated at the quizmaster’s table. As the quizmaster read the question, a quizzer jumped–well, the best ones only needed to twitch–as soon as they could figure out the answer. Only the teen who “jumped” first, as indicated by the indicators, was allowed to answer the question. These tournaments were a great time for teens to socialize as well as demonstrate their Bible study skills.

But I prate. I bring that up to say that during those years as a Teen Bible Quizzing coach I found a special Bible verse each year. In the year we studied 1st and 2nd Corinthians, this verse stood out:

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 2nd Corinthians 4:17 (NIV)

I found this incredibly insightful, and took it for my life motto. Whatever troubles we have in this world, no matter how bad they are, no matter how long they last, are light and momentary when considered against where the believer will spend eternity. This, I believe, is the best way to look at that portion of our lives we spend on earth.

This blog does not record my spiritual journey. I touch on events and issues of my Christian walk from time to time. But my life is not one of preaching on street corners or shaking sinners by the shoulders and screaming at them to repent. About ten hours a day are my engineering career. Almost an hour is commuting. Seven hours (or a little less) are for sleeping. The evening hours consist of family and house matters and trying to branch out into a career in writing and in that manner nudge a lost world closer to Christ. A tiny amount of time is spent on my hobby of genealogy, which I usually do in chunks of time widely separated.

What I’m saying is, the majority of a man’s time–of this man’s time–does not consist of overt or bold or in-your-face Christian living. Rather, it consists of every day moral, ethical, legal behavior; of tending to the needs of his business and family in a manner that draws people to Christ and does not turn them away.

Given this, my blog is about my life journey, most heavily the journey as a wannabe writer (since I see that as my best way to influence the greatest number of people), and less about other specific areas. I have also decided not to sanitize that journey. If the good times come, I say so. If the bad times come, I say so. Last post was about some bad times; the one before that was about good.

But always, even when I fail to mention it specifically, the bad times are always light and momentary troubles in my life compared to eternity.

Carlyle, Writing

Perseverance?

2 Comments

I continue today with Thomas Carlyle’s letter to Henry Inglis, a young man 11 years his junior. Carlyle continues with the advice he had given earlier in the letter.

My earnest often-repeated advice to you, therefore, is: Persevere! Persevere! In all practical, in all intellectual excellence think no acquirement enough. Throw aside all frivolity; walk not with the world, where it is walking wrong; war ad necem [to the death] with Pride and Vanity and all forms of Self-conceit within you; be diligent in season and out of season! It depends on you, whether we are one day to have another man, or only another money-gaining and money-spending Machine.

So Carlyle tells the young Mr. Inglis not to give up. We find no end of such advice in the world. Persevere. Don’t give up. Keep going. Run the race faster, stronger, longer. Even the Apostle Paul got in on this type of advice.

Yes, in whatever endeavor we undertake, we need to do so having counted the cost, knowing what will be required of us, and persevering to the end. But what happens if the cost is too much? We are also cautioned in scripture, by the Savior himself, against beginning something we don’t have the wherewithal to finish—towers and war and such metaphors applying.

In the matter of writing, that’s where I am. Am I simply not persevering, or have I finally counted the cost and determined that I don’t have the wherewithal to finish? God, please help me to know.

family, Harmony of the gospels, Screwtape's Good Advice, Writing

Getting Things Done, Part ?

Leave a comment

I have been in the whirlwind since last Thursday, and am just now taking time to post, in the few minutes before beginning my work week.

This past Friday and Saturday we held a moving sale for my mother-in-law. She moved to her apartment in August, but we have just now gotten our act together for the sale. Thursday night until 10 PM was intense activity of setting up tables, arranging items for sale, and pricing them. Then home to make signs. Up at 6:00 AM to get ready and in to town to place signs and hold the sale. Traffic was steady both days. We sold much, though it still looks like we have a lot left; some of it ours, for we brought some items to sell as well. By Saturday night we were exhausted, physically.

Then, on Thursday as we were setting up for the sale, we received a call from an out-of-state family member who is in the midst of a financial crisis. Dealing with that took much mental energy.

Then, on Saturday during the sale, at least two people showed interest in the house, and one person brought by an offer. While this is good–no great, it also turned out to be part of the mental overload in progress, and we couldn’t deal with it right then. So we arrived home Saturday night mentally exhausted as well. I then got another hit as I received a critique on a book proposal that indicated the work was too denominationally slanted to be published. A further mental blow. I tried all Saturday evening to prepare my Life Group lesson for Sunday, with no concentration available and hence little success.

Sunday was a true day of rest. We were to church a little late, then had a good Life Group time afterwards. The lesson turned out okay, as I came back time and again to the basic principle behind the lesson. Sunday afternoon, after nap, I went to work typing the harmony of the gospels, and I finished it about 5:00 PM! I’d say this is the end of several years of off and on work, but the end is not in sight. I now need to print it and proof it and annotate it and decide on a number of up in the air places. And I have to write a dozen or more appendixes with notes about why I made my various decisions.

But still, that main effort, the document itself, is done in first draft. That is always a good feeling.

This morning on the way to work, somewhat recovered both physically and mentally, I made two stops. One at my mother-in-law’s house to pick up something left there on Saturday that I need today; one to put some gas in the truck. It’s strange, but just getting these two things done has given me much satisfaction to start the day. Well, being down in my weight helped a bunch too. I’ll get back to my series on the harmony of the gospels soon.

goals, Harmony of the gospels, Life Group lessons, Macaulay, poetry, Writing

January Goals

Leave a comment

Again this month, my writing goals will be few, and not terribly difficult to achieve. I have much to do in other areas of life, and time for writing is unlikely to materialize this month. Here they are.

1. Blog 10 to 12 times.

2. Complete my review essay of T.B. Macaulay’s essay on the History of the Popes.

3. Return to typing the Harmony of the Gospels I wrote in manuscript over a several year period. If I finish the typing this month–and that is easily possible, I can start the editing process next month, including adding a bunch of notes.

4. Come close to finishing my current reading project, The Powers That Be, by David Halberstam. Only 453 pages to go as of last night.

5. Work on Life On A Yo Yo, which I begin teaching this coming Sunday, as a publishable Bible study.

6. Monitor five websites regularly. These are:
– Absolute Write, the Water Cooler
– Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent
– The Writing Life, by Terry Whalin, Literary Agent
– Advanced Fiction Writing, by Randy Ingermanson
– So You Want to Be Published, by Mary DeMuth

7. Critique 5-10 poems at various places, both public and private. This is probably an affectation, as poetry is a dead end for publishing and my limited writing time would be better used elsewhere, but it brings enjoyment to me and maybe help to others, so I’ll return to it in a small way.

goals, Life Group lessons, Macaulay, Writing

The December Report

Leave a comment

December was an extremely busy month, even with ducking one Christmas party and a New Year’s Eve party being cancelled. We had company from Dec 23 to Dec 30, in two waves. Lynda was out of town for a while, helping with baby Ephraim in Oklahoma City. So I accomplished little on my writing career, other than keeping up with a few web sites and the few things I’ll write below.

1. Blog 10 to 12 times. I did this, blogging 13 times.

2. Finish some more filing/organization of writing material. I thought I had finished this, except for buying file folders and filling them. Last night I bought those and filled them. However, I remembered I had a stack of writing stuff at work that I need to bring home and file. So I guess I’m not done yet. Writing seems to be a kind of paper chase. I did this. I can finally, honestly say that I have no loose papers lying around waiting to be put in their place. This is a very good feeling and, while I don’t anticipate generating many more writing papers, I hope I will at least have the habit of filing them immediately, and not let the clutter return.

3. More work on Life on a Yo Yo Life Group lesson series, which I begin teaching January 4. I did NOT do this. The lesson series is well planned, and for each lesson I have notes. I will begin intensive work on the first lesson tonight, only two days before teaching it.

4. See if I can flesh out the brainstorming work on the short Life Group lesson series from the Apocrypha. I looked at it a little last night, and unless I get something down on paper, I’m not sure I’ll have a legitimate series. I did some work on this, but am not finished. I did write some things. I’m not sure at this stage if the concept is valid; I need some more development work.

5. Buy one writing magazine, as a Christmas present to myself, and read it. Rather than buy a magazine, I went to Barnes & Noble one evening and read several.

6. Continue to work down my reading list. Since the book I’m currently reading is 736 pages, and I’m only on page 165, this may take all month. I found other things to read than my main book (although last night I reached page 283). I read some in Dickens’s Christmas stories.

7. Complete the review I’ve started of Macaulay’s essay on Ranke’s History of the Popes. I did nothing on this. It still sits on the computer at home, waiting for me to find an odd hour to complete my last thoughts.

So there you have it; a rather unproductive month overall, but probably as much as I could expect for a holiday season.

Daddy Daughter Day, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Harmony of the gospels, Life Group lessons, Life On A YoYo, poetry, Writing

What to write?

Leave a comment

This question is not about this blog, but about writing in general. At present, I have only two writing projects in progress:

1. Type the harmony of the gospels I did off and on over a three year period ending in 2005, then go through it to look for gaps, redundancies, potential changes in order, etc. After the typing and editing is done, type explanatory notes for the harmony, only some of which are written in manuscript form. This is likely to take all year.

2. Work on my “Life On A Yo Yo” Bible study, of the life of Peter the apostle. This is planned, and I begin teaching it on Sunday Jan 4, 2009. This is more of a teaching project than a writing project, but I figure that every such project might become a writing project given the right amount of time and energy.

But what to do about a writing career? As I’ve reported before, it seems that life will never give me, short of my retirement planned for 8 years and 2 days from now, enough time to do all that writing demands: write, edit, improve my craft, research the market, research agents, pour time into submittals/proposals/query letters/etc., follow-up on those, and prepare for the marketing work I would have to do should I become published. All this makes a writing career a pipe dream for now.

So I have an unfinished second novel, In Front Of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, that must remain unfinished. I have a completed first novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, which, having earned about ten rejections, must remain in the reject pile for the moment. I have my completed poetry book, Father Daughter Day, which, defying all rules of genre and degree of religiosity, sits in exile upon a closet shelf. My non-fiction book Screwtape’s Good Advice, has only one rejection, but finding time to tailor the proposal to new editors or agents seems, in light of the current state of publishing, an effort in futility. My newspaper column, Documenting America, being a good but unique work The long list of other novels, other non-fiction books, magazine articles, etc. will just have to remain in the ideas notebook for now.

What will the next twelve months hold as far as writing goes? Stay tuned.