Category Archives: Writing

Harmony of the gospels, Writing

The No Service Conspiracy

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I planned on posting a book review yesterday—not a major review, but just writing a little bit about a book I checked out from the library. I went down to the Dungeon after church, life groups, taking recyclables, and a quick visit to Wal-Mart to be parted with some of my money. Book in hand, I called forth the Internet to bring up this blog, but the Internet didn’t answer. No service. I rebooted the computer. No service. I tried the other computer, the nice new and powerful one that neither of us uses. No service, so it seemed it wasn’t my computer. I piddled around a little, reading some things at hand, checking back and still finding no Internet. We frequently have Internet service lapses of a second or two, sometimes stretching out to a minute.

When this came to 30 minutes, I decided to do something I hadn’t done on a Sunday for a while: take a nap. I should have gone out to the nearby blackberry patch and see what was ripe. The temperature was okay, and this should be the peak season, but my heart and legs weren’t in it. I had an hour of restful sleep. Or was it restless? I can’t remember now, but I then got up and came back to the computer. Still no Internet service on either computer.

Now for some reason it never dawned on me to write my book review in Word and save it until service was restored. I looked at various writing project sitting on the computer desk and work table, and decided to pull out the Harmony of the Gospels I laid aside a couple of months ago. I found it easy to get back into, first writing the passage notes for the post-resurrection day events.

I then began writing the appendix on how I harmonized the resurrection, and found that easy to do, even though I hadn’t thought about this for at least three months. I found the right place in my workbook, re-read a portion of my notes, then started typing the appendix. I never did go back to my notes. The words flowed, as I explained how I reconciled the way the four different gospels described Easter morning. An hour and a half later I had a good start on this appendix, maybe as much as half done.

At 5 PM we still had no service. I went upstairs, found Lynda up, and her not able to get on the Internet on the wireless laptop. So I called Cox and learned we had a service outage in our area (duh) and that technicians had been dispatched to restore service. After supper I went back to the Dungeon, and service was restored. However, by that time I had lost interest in posting to this blog, lost interest in writing an article for Suite 101, and so just spent the time working through a backlog of e-mails and catching up on the two message boards I read.

For the rest of the evening I set aside library books and went to my regular reading pile, now almost a year old, and pulled out the next one. It’s a harmony of the gospels, originally written in 1891 and updated for several decades as new research and manuscript finds came up. I read it through the time Jesus was in the temple as a twelve year old, and was gratified to find their conclusions were the same as mine, or since they were first I should say my conclusions were the same as theirs. It’s good to know that you worked independently and came to the same conclusions as an expert.

I got to work today intending to write this blog post, and found our Internet down. It must be a conspiracy. So I did what I didn’t do last night: I typed this in Word for later posting. Actually our service came back about twenty minutes ago, but I decided to complete this in Word, as practice for the next outage at home. This evening I’ll come back with the book review. I know you all can’t wait.

Independence Day, Writing

Irked by the "Fourth of July"

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No, I’m not anti-patriotic.

What irks me is that we almost never hear the words “Independence Day”. We are not celebrating the fact that a specific day on the calendar happened to come up again. We are celebrating that on that day, 233 years ago, a certain event took place. The thirteen colonies, after a month of wrangling and delaying tactics, finally agreed to a resolution in favor of independence from Great Britain, and then to a statement of the reasons for taking that step.

Yet, in newspapers across the country, on radio and television, you see, read, or hear such things as “4th of July Events”; “Come early for the 4th of July parade”; “Sale on the 4th”; “Celebrations of the 4th”; ad nauseum. It seems we have barely remembered what we celebrate on this day and why.

Oh, I know that “4th of July” takes a whole lot less characters than “Independence Day” in a headline, and one less syllable when spoken. That allows print and broadcast media to have a smidgen more space or air time to print or write something else.

But doggone it, I don’t celebrate the 4th of July. I celebrate Independence Day. I look forward to a time when our country does so again.

Oh, I wrote an article at Suite101.com about the debates leading up to the original Independence Day. Check it out here.

Engineering, freelance writing, Writing

A Scary First on a Successful Day

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It’s rather late on a Friday evening, not a time when I normally make a blog post. But I just did a first for me. When I went to the blog of a fellow Suite101.com writer, I noticed they had a box on their site that showed their most recent Suite 101 posts, with links. I thought that would be rather nice to have on mine, so I went to the forums at Suite 101 and found two threads about this. Neither one told me how to do it. Then I noticed the link, over on the left among the writers tools: Add Suite101.com articles to my web site.

Now, this brought an immediate wave of panic over my still-overstuffed frame and in my somewhat tired mind. Should I do this? What if I mess it up and my blog goes “poof” into the vastness of the Internet forest, never again to find open land? I figured I should at least try, so I clicked the link.

The instructions were easy, so it seemed. A screen popped up with my name and a few default items selected (category of the articles are in and “widget” size). A button said “Generate Widget”, and I clicked it. A text window came up beneath that with the html code in it. Pretty cool, I thought. So I came to this blog to see what I had generated, and soon found out: nothing.

Back to Suite 101, I actually read the directions: You had to copy the html text and paste it in the right place on the web page you were editing. Now the panic had reached a point the New England colonists were in when the earthquake of 1638 hit. I had never in my life done anything with html code, other than to stare at it in amazement and have a deja vu moment of mainframes and FORTRAN code that remained in gray cells not accessed since 1972. Oh well, I pulled up the Blogger editing screen and learned they had an easy way to add widgets. Who knew? So I added it, and went back to the blog, and nothing showed. I had a sneaky suspicion I had to refresh.

I did that, and there was the widget, in the upper right hand corner, above my pic and profile. It was too wide, cutting off some of the text, but the links worked! I went back to the forums at Suite 101 and learned another writer had the problem of the text being too wide, but never received any help on how to fix it. So I went back to the widget generation thingy, and saw where one of my choices was size of the widget. I picked a smaller setting, copied the code (much easier the second time around), pasted it into this blog’s editing screen, checked the blog, and the widget had…disappeared.

The panic I now felt as if I was in the middle of a flood plain, the base flood coming at me in a wave. Then I remembered: refresh. There it was, but unchanged. I went back and forth, playing with two other settings, and finally got it to the size it should be. I even figured out how to move it to the position I wanted it, all my moving a mouse.

But, the widget was now a little too narrow, and had a pesky ad for Suite 101 within it, something about hiring freelance writers and a link. I didn’t want that, and I wanted it a little wider. But the width options in the widget generation thingy didn’t have the right width. However, feeling somewhat confident now, such as someone who has stolen away into an endless forest and has no intention of turning back, I actually went into the html code, found which line had the text for that ad and deleted it, and found which line had the width and increased it from 160 to 175. I clicked save and refresh. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It’s better now, as you can see to the right. I will probably increase the width a little more, but I’ll give it a day. Too much excitement for one evening. I have edited my first html code. Can twittering and Facebook-ing be far behind?

Oh, and the successes of the day:

  1. My sixth post is up at Suite 101 (still no revenue yet)
  2. My flood plain is mapped! Finally! The full project isn’t quite done, but I feel a huge weight having been lifted from getting this far.
  3. I have gone the entire evening without playing a computer game.
  4. Spent a pleasant hour at Barnes and Noble this evening, drinking the largest house blend, reviewing magazines, and taking notes (yes, I’m batching it again).
  5. My writing productivity has been good this week, especially today.
  6. I got in my noon parking lot laps on a 95 degree day (1 mile instead of 1.33 miles).
  7. I killed two miniature bugs here in the dungeon, the flying kind which you are not sure if they are fleas or chiggers or what they are. Come and get me, PETA!
  8. And, for the first time in over a year, bits and snatches of two poems are rattling around and starting to come out.

Sleep may be a little late coming to me tonight.

Engineering, flood studies, freelance writing, poetry, reading, Writing

Progress as Promised: a shameless commercial plug

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I had intended tonight to post the first part of a two-part review of Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Yes, I finished it last night, well ahead of the schedule I thought I could achieve. The book is long, and deserves a thorough review. On my noon hour, after walking 1.33 miles, I did an outline of my review. Of course, I left the outline on my desk when I left the office.

So tonight I’ll post something else. I’m making progress on a number of fronts.

  • Health: After a few weeks of barely watching what I ate (while continuing a good level of exercise), this is shaping up to be a good week. For the last two days I’ve barely snacked, and have upped my exercise level slightly. Despite 90+ temperatures at noon, I walked 12 laps each day (a mile and a third).
  • Flood study: At the end of the workday, I had pretty much completed the last analysis of the flood study that has been a sword dangling over my head for two years. I still have to get the tech going on the mapping (promised for tomorrow), and must write a technical report (already started) and fill out the FEMA forms (one day’s work). The end is in sight.
  • Reading: As stated, I got more reading done than anticipated over the last month. Perhaps I’m reading more efficiently, because I had great comprehension as I read; I didn’t skim any of it.
  • Freelancing: Last night I spent time preparing a query for another article in Internet Genealogy. No word on it yet.
  • Suite 101.com: Here’s the shameless plug: I have three articles up on Suite 101: two on flood plain issues, and one an overview of Robert Frost’s “Into My Own”, one of his early poems. These three articles don’t have many page views yet and no revenue earned, but that will come in time. What business, you ask, does a civil engineer have reviewing a Frost poem? You’ll have to go to my profile page at Suite 101 and click on the article.

Tomorrow hopefully I’ll begin the book review. Right now, I’m exiting the Dungeon for the upper levels, from the coolness of the basement to the heat of the street level, and will spend a little time reading. The next two books on my reading pile are A Harmony of the Gospels (I forget the author) and East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I’ve never read that, but it’s rather long and I’m not sure I want to read a long book right now. So, for the few minutes of reading tonight, I’ll get back into my son’s philosophy paper “The New Problem of Akratic Action”. This forms a chapter in his dissertation, and is not really a difficult read. At least I think I understood the first five pages.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, freelance writing, poetry, Writing

The Kicking and Screaming Part

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Yesterday I completed my first article for Suite101.com and posted it for editor’s review. Your first article after signing on must be approved by an editor before it is viewable on the site. After that you post directly and an editor reviews it after it “goes live”. This morning an e-mail was waiting for me, from the editor for this area of the site, saying some changes were recommended.

I checked in at the site and looked at the editor’s suggestions. Turns out it’s just to add some more white space by breaking things into smaller paragraphs, and maybe making a bulleted list of a couple of items. No change asked for in the text itself. After completing this post I’ll make those formatting changes, resubmit, and the article should go live today. I’ll come back either today or tomorrow and post a link.

Then I will have to go to PayPal and see if my long-dormant account is still there. That’s the only way Suite 101 pays. Not that I expect a windfall any time soon. I have about thirty days to give them payment provisions.

But as I said in my previous post, I’m doing this freelance thing kicking and screaming, holding on to my novels, Bible studies, poetry, and even non-fiction books dream. I’m afraid every writing hour for a while will be devoted to freelancing, both Suite101 and other markets. So I’ll have to carve out time for other writing. Doing it while driving doesn’t work. I’ve tried it and I can’t seem to concentrate, and I don’t really want the distraction. Better to spend driving multi-tasking time with the radio and either music or talk.

My walking time on the noon hour provides opportunites for poetry. I’m usually working on a haiku, or a cinquain, or something else short, something I can remember and write down when I get back in the office. Most of these are not good and I do nothing else with them. although I’ve got two from the last month that are on Post-it notes on my desk, waiting for me to decide whether they are good enough work on some more.

TV time obviously isn’t a good time. Although, I find I can write with the TV on whereas I can’t read. But this time is better for editing something rather than writing new stuff.

But the time that has seemed effective at pursuing my “dream” is when I go to bed and turn out the light. I generally fall asleep almost right away. But lately I’ve been fighting sleep to think through scenes in my novels. I have at most ten minutes before whatever substance my body makes in excess sends me into la la land. Lately I’ve visualized the last few scenes in Doctor Luke’s Assistant. I’ve played and re-played the scene of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People where Ronny Thompson learns his girlfriend is a fraud and he hurls his cell phone off the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River. And I’ve ridden again on the Star Ferry across Hong Kong harbor, where the vanilla American family moves unbeknownst into an espionage adventure in China Tour.

Eventually I’ll move on to other scenes. And I won’t let this overcome me to the point where I can’t fall asleep easily. Perhaps these last thoughts will lead to dreams that will enhance these books, and perhaps I’ll begin remembering my dreams.

freelance writing, Writing

What do they call that big change thing?

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Back in the mid-90s it seems everyone was talking about paradigm shifts. I can’t tell you how many business meetings I sat in and hear someone say, “We have to make a paradigm shift here,” or “We’re undergoing a paradigm shift.” I wasn’t quite sure what that meant other than a change in outlook, or maybe a change in philosophy. I made a mental to-do entry to look up “paradigm”, but never got to that part of the “list.”

Then, in the mid-00s, it seems everyone was talking about a “sea change”. I’m not actually sure how to spell sea, since I’ve never seen this term written. I heard this more from television, from pundits on the 24 hour news outlets. “We are about to experience a sea change in this county,” or some such drivel as that. I have never bothered to look up that phrase in one of the instantly available Internet resources, but I’m sure I could enter it in a toolbar blank and get all sorts of definitions. I suppose it is another euphemism for a big change.

Whatever a paradigm shift is exactly, and whatever sea change really is (or how it is spelled), I’m pretty sure I’m going through one right now in my writing life. The shift from writing novels and Bible studies has resulted in a big change in what I do in those few hours I have in a day to devote to writing. Yesterday noon and last night were devoted mainly to freelance activities. Oh, I managed to type some on the next two Bible studies I’m going to teach, all of 20 minutes or so. But otherwise I was freelancing both evenings.

Wednesday evening after church I worked on query letters for new magazine articles. I completed two, but decided to let them sit overnight before looking at them again then sending them off. Last night, however, I forgot about them and worked on getting my Suite101.com account set up. That was actually quite simple, so I went to the new member’s tutorials and managed to get through two of them (interrupted by a phone call) before I left the Dungeon and went upstairs.

This would normally be my reading time, from 10 to 11 PM, but I had noticed, or rather remembered, when typing in one of those Bible studies that I had already done a bunch of work on it that wasn’t with the papers I was typing. So instead of reading I began going through piles of papers–in my closet, beside my nightstand, next to my reading chair, in my portfolio–to find that earlier work. I found it, fifteen minutes later, carefully filed and indexed in a notebook I had failed to mark on the outside. That left me some time to read, and Team of Rivals is a little bit closer to being completed.

I want you all to know that I am not embracing this freelance thing. I’m pursuing it, dragging my feet, clinging to novels and Bible studies till my knuckles are white, all the time saying, “I’m doing this to build a platform so I can publish novels; I’m doing this to accumulate clips so I can publish novels.” I don’t yet know how this sea change, or paradigm shift, or whatever they now call a big change, will set with me. Two roads diverged in a wood. And I’m on the one I never intended to be on. I’m just afraid that knowing how way leads on to way, I shall never get back. Off to do another tutorial before starting my day job.

Bible study, History, reading, Writing

Trying to Concentrate

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This weekend has not been good as far as writing is concerned. Yesterday morning I did my usual Saturday work outside the house routine. I cut down a 30 foot dead tree on the adjacent lot, where we are trying to create a small, park-like area (we don’t own this lot; it’s vacant and forested; I suppose we can use it until the owners retire and build a house on it). I only had a few other things do to outside, so came back into the house.

Before I could write, I decided I’d better read a chapter in Team of Rivals. I’m making good progress in that and am ahead of even my most optimistic schedule. Still, as of this afternoon, have 160 pages to go, but the reading is easy and I should finish by next weekend, if not before.

Then I came downstairs to the Dungeon, intent on writing something, either work on a chapter in my novel in progress, or a Bible study in progress, or begin to flesh out some freelance ideas I had, but as I sat at the computer I found my mind had no powers of concentration. I couldn’t even read e-mails. I played some mindless computer games, tried to read e-mails again and got through them, played some more games, then left the computer to file various household papers. That worked fairly well, because I got through some papers that did not have a place prepared. That meant I had to concentrate enough to determine what the place should be and prepare it and file the paper. That included a number of items related to my completed, in-the-drawer novel.

That done, I came back to the computer, but still couldn’t write. A writing related task I had on my mental to-do list was to set up a spreadsheet for freelance writing accounting. This isn’t on a critical path, since I have no income as yet (at least none paid; I have some accrued), but still just having the system set up will make it much easier to keep track of things. Still, that wasn’t writing.

I never could get much done. I did some hand-writing on an idea for a magazine article, and I read some writing blogs, but nothing that could be described as progress. Lynda returned home from OKC about 8:30 PM. I had supper prepared (though she ate on the road). I just turned to reading for the evening. Having read a chapter in ToR, I decided to pull out Tolkien’s letters and read them. I’m at the point where he was finishing the proofs and then seeing published The Lord of the Ring. That was interesting and satisfying, until one long letter to a bookstore owner/operator who had questioned some theological items on the book. Tolkien painstakingly explained how he had no theological agenda, that the book wasn’t allegorical, and how this and that item had been misunderstood, etc. I got through that letter, but was left with no mind for anything else. So I went to bed, earlier than normal for a Saturday night.

So here I am in the Dungeon, at the computer, about to begin writing. It seemed a blog post would be a good place to start. Even with that, I have interrupted my writing several times to play a game. Cursed games! I have four or five writing projects I could work on, and will turn to them now. Perhaps I can get in two or three good hours from this point on, and face the new week really feeling like a writer.

career, freelance writing, Writing

Normalcy

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Everyone’s gone. The kids left with Ephraim about 3:00 PM on Monday. My mother-in-law left about 6:00 PM Monday. It’s back to me and Lynda again. Last night was quiet. After a supper of Sonic burgers on half-price night, I tried to balance the checkbook (off by $0.36, which I’ll find tonight) then went walking, about a mile and a quarter. Lynda didn’t join me, as she is still recovering from the effects of the stomach virus that hit her over the weekend. Then I entered about a month of finances in my budget spreadsheet. I was a good boy, and didn’t allow myself to check e-mail, work on writing stuff, or play any computer games until I had finances up to date. The checkbook is only part of it. Then read in Team of Rivals from about 10:30 to midnight, getting my ten pages read to the backdrop of a Clint Eastwood movie. Not the best way to read history, or get your needed sleep.

But I’m kind of wondering what normalcy is any more. As I’ve said before, I’m now working for about 68 percent of what I was making a little over a year ago, with no hope of any raises anytime soon unless I change jobs, something I don’t want to do; now is not the time. But I see some deflationary signs. Our weekly half gallon of milk costs 82 percent of what it did a year ago. The grocery bill has dropped some, maybe 10 percent. Our prescriptions continue to trend down just a little bit. Gas is going back up, but is still well below where it was when the salary cuts began. And we got rid of one car (that Charles had but wasn’t using), so insurance will go down.

Inflation is not gone, however, and I’ve had two recent negative hits to the budget, one small, one big. The small one is the cable TV/Internet access bill, which just went up 3.22 percent. How can they justify this increase when times are so hard? The other is our mortgage, which went up a whopping $120 dollars due to an escrow deficiency. This is due to the imposition of city taxes. We voted to incorporate as a city (sorry all you Rhode Islanders who have no idea what I’m talking about, but we have territory out here that is in the county but not in a city; so were we until) November 2006, and the resulting City property taxes are now kicking in. So we have to pay. And I’m good with that; I voted in favor of incorporation. It’s still a big budget hit, however.

So I’m kind of looking at my new move into freelance writing from a different perspective: not just to build a writer’s platform and demonstrate literary competence, but also generate a little income. Emphasis on little, because in two hours a night and more time on the weekend, I’m not going to earn much. Still, if I could get an average of $100 a month, which is probably within reach, I would make up for that budget-busting mortgage.

Is this the new normal? Rather than pursue writing withing the abundance of my day job, to now pursue it via the freelance route as a near economic necessity? Perhaps that’s a good thing. I can quit playing and become more serious. Time will tell.

Genealogy, reading, Writing

Trying to Re-focus

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The problem with a vacation is it throws you off your rhythm. When you get back, you have to re-establish your habits, patterns, and practices in all areas of life. At work this week, I’ve been so un-focused on what I need to get done that, instead of CEI paying me, they should charge me for taking up space. Before vacation, I was having a difficult time concentrating at work. I think my desire to complete my work is higher, so from the aspect of rest and relaxation the vacation was a success. Now I just need to work on focusing on what I need to do.

As far as writing and things I need to do around the house, same thing. I have worked very little on my article, very little on such mundane things as paying the bills, working on my budget planning and recording, or household chores. Hopefully I’ll be back to normal on those soon.

The last two nights I managed to get my reading re-focused. The next book in my reading pile was Burnt Sienna, a novel by David Morrell. I had trouble starting it, however, allowing myself to be distracted by the two books of letters I recently purchased (Tolkien and C.S. Lewis). But Tuesday and Wednesday evenings I spend time in Burnt Sienna. I’m not 52 pages into this 379 page book. It’s an easy read, and is holding my interest well.

However, I have found it easy to focus on genealogy–sort of. I’m working on my Events in the Life of John Cheney, who is my wife’s immigrant ancestor to Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1600s. I have that document quite well along, up to nine pages. My library research in Milford and Fort Wayne turned up some new information about him, however, so I’m adding those events. At the same time, I’m gong through each of over 100 citations and footnotes to correct errors in the way I first entered them. It is quite tedious, with much re-typing needed. My focus hasn’t been perfect, however, and I still get much distracted from the task at hand.

All of which leads me to question the effectiveness of vacations for all people. For me, while the rest and relaxation are good, the loss of routine is bad. All in all, I’d rather be in my routines than off resting.

Good King-Bad King, King Asa, Life Group lessons, Writing

Productive Days

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I have one more post to make on King Asa. At least I think I do. Right now I can’t find the notes on what the last post was to be about. But I need a break from that, so today I’ll just make a general progress-of-life type post.

Late last week and the weekend were productive days, for writing and for other things. I worked hard on my Good King, Bad King study for our Life Group. Right now it’s only two classes, on the life of King Asa, who is both the good and bad king. I’m going to teach it a couple of Sundays in May while we wait for our new quarterly study to arrive. This will be a good Bible study, and I plan someday to expand it into eight to ten lessons, maybe even more. However, the amount of research I did for this tells me this may have to wait until retirement.

Friday night Lynda got it in her head to try to find a couple of books we’ve never been able to find since we moved to Bella Vista from Bentonville in 2002. Our basement has lots of boxes, but very few we haven’t gone through. Friday evening we went through those, didn’t find the missing books, but found other things we had forgotten about. Some of it could easily be discarded, as it related to employment at places where we are not now employed. Other was simply mis-boxed, and could be easily taken to other, similar things. We found several boxes with not a whole lot in them. We consolidated some of this, the entire process concluding Saturday evening. The end result is our “stuff” stuffed in the basement is less than before, though we have much more similar work to do.

My genealogy work continues, and I’m trying to find a way to do a little bit at a time. Normally when I get the genealogy bug, it consumes me and I become a basket case. Not so at the moment. I am slowly going through the life of Peter Cheney, son of John Cheney of Newbury Massachusetts. He lived 1638-1696, and is Lynda’s gr-gr-gr-gr-gr-gr-gr-grandfather. My document of events in his life is up to five pages (with source footnotes), and I feel good about it.

Writing wise, I have posted six times about the life of King Asa of Judah, and three times at The Senescent Man blog about the Baby Boomers, and why I call them the Candy Store Generation. I have one more post to make in that series. Also this weekend I completed a sonnet, one that has been buzzing around in my head for a couple of years, which finally gelled Friday night and was finished by Saturday afternoon. This morning I posted it for critique at Absolute Write.

Reading wise, I kept up with my Bible reading, and with pleasure reading in the two books of letters, one Tolkien’s and one C.S. Lewis’. They are different style letters. The selected ones in the Tolkien book are mainly about his writing and publishing. The Lord of the Ring is heavily discussed. I’m at the point where he had just finished the book and is weighing two options for publishing. The CSL selected letters are on Christianity, letters to various Christian friends, or people considering Christianity. They are denser than Tolkien’s, and I find I have to have absolute silence to read and comprehend them. Tolkien’s I can read while the television is on.

The other big item is: I have my first freelancing writing assignment! Last Thursday I went to Barnes & Noble after work in search of a certain book I wanted to buy and give to someone. It was not available, though another, similar book was and I got that. Then I went to the magazine racks to look for a couple of mags to research and see if I can write articles for them. One of them, Internet Genealogy, I discovered at Borders in Overland Park last month. I read then it while drinking a large house blend, mainly for my love of the subject.

Then, last week it hit me that maybe I could write something for that mag. So I got a copy, read it in the coffee shop while drinking a large house blend, and took notes and began to think of what I could write about. The on-line database I’ve been using to research Peter Cheney is at a site that genealogical researchers might not expect, so that seemed a good place to start. Thursday night (actually Friday morning about 4 AM) I couldn’t sleep. Got up at 5 AM and drafted a query letter to Internet Genealogy proposing that article. I sent it via e-mail on my noon hour on Friday, went for my noon walk, came back to my desk and had a reply from the editor: yes, write the article.

This will be for pay–not huge pay, but certainly enough to make the work worthwhile. This will be for platform building–not a great platform, but something to show editors and agents. This will be to demonstrate that my writing is good enough to be published. We’ll see.