Suite 101

Year-end Summary for Suite101.com

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I began writing for Suite101.com on June 21, 2009. I see this as part of my platform-building plan, a slow plan that I hope will increase potential readership of books I someday hope to publish. I’m not sure that I’ve explained this plan in detail on this blog, nor that I will, for fear it is going to have zero impact on my publishing worth. But it’s a plan, and I’m following it. So how did I do at Suite, in about half a year? Here’s some stats:

Articles published: 72
Words therein: approx. 58,000
Revenue earned: $40.57
Views of articles: 31,014
Revenue per article: $0.56
Revenue per word: $0.0007
Revenue per 1000 page views: $1.31

Paltry. Pathetic. As far as revenue goes. Although, I was one of the winners of that November contest at Suite, which paid me $101. I suppose I should add that in. Then it would be:

Revenue earned: $141.57
Revenue per article: $1.97
Revenue per word: $0.0024
Revenue per 1000 page views: $4.56

Better, but still weak.

And those 31,014 views of my articles, while not bad, are certainly not a platform, as those people almost all found my articles from a search engine, not because they were looking for me or my work.

So, has it been worth it? I set aside my novel-in-progress to work on Suite articles, as I said all in a platform-building exercise. Has it been worth it? My assessment: Too early to tell. I need to stick with it, try to add 150 or so articles this year, and re-assess next January. Also, I need to find a way to make a little more money writing, and to continue to work on my novel as I do all that.

Retirement is only 7 years, 11 months, and 12 days away.

book reviews, letters

Book Review: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Part 2

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I want to be careful with my statement about Tolkien’s “Oxford snobbery”. I’m sure some people would take offense at that. I don’t want to denigrate a great institution that has produced many scholars and statesmen. My concern is that Tolkien seemed to put himself above the masses as far as literature goes. Maybe C.S. Lewis did as well, for when they were meeting one time and decrying the lack of good literature in English, Lewis said to Tolkien, “We shall just have to write the types of stories we like.” [loose quote]

Tolkien was constantly correcting readers and reviewers about their misinterpretation of his works. This shows up in the letters. A reviewer would write something about The Lord of the Rings being excellent Christian allegory. Tolkien would write the reviewer and say it isn’t an allegory, Christian or otherwise, and that he hates allegory. Then he would write his publisher about it, and then one of his children, then maybe even a friend. A reader would ask a question about the mythology that came before his published works. Tolkien would sometimes write pages about Luthien and Beren and the Valor and Numenor (apologies to the Elvin language for not adding the accents where JRRT did), or at times he would advise the reader to just enjoy what was written and not worry about what wasn’t. His tone often seemed snobbish to me.

But, perhaps it is more a case of author pride than it is snobbishness. Tolkien worked years on his books, developing first the languages then adding appropriate myths that the languages must tell. He fought to have it published, even trying to strong arm his publishers into accepting a package deal of The Lord of the Rings and the unfinished The Silmarillion. He fought proofreaders who kept trying to change the spelling of words he wanted spelled a certain way. He fought his own personal schedule that never seemed to give him quite enough time to do all he wanted. Finally a book was produced. How dare a reader misinterpret something and then have the audacity to write him about it!

I don’t quite know why I am so fascinated by letters. It began with the letters of Charles Lamb, and has spread in every direction therefrom. I think I like them because they tend to be unfiltered history. Read someones letter, something not expected to be published, and you might just find out about the real person, not something a biographer wants you to know. Since these Tolkien letters are selected rather than complete, and since many of the letters are excerpted, some filtration has taken place. Yet, the history comes through.

I always try to include in my book reviews a recommendation of whether my readers should read what I read. What about this one? It cost me $7.98 plus Overland Park and Kansas sales tax, a steep price compared to what I usually pay. Should you go off and do the same? Probably not, not unless you are an incredible Tolkien fan, or unless you love letters as I do. Don’t worry about his references to Bilbo and Frodo and Gandalf. Don’t worry about the twenty pages of explanation of Numenor mythology. These might be difficult–they were for me. I’m glad I read them, and the book is a keeper for me, so that my letters collection is that much more complete.

book reviews, letters

Book Review: The Letters of J.R.R.Tolkien

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JRR Tolkien wrote three great works:

The Hobbit, 1937
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 1954-55
The Silmarillion, posthumously 1977,

and a few lesser tales related to his invented mythology, a hots of professional essays, papers, and speeches, and his collected letters. Let me say right off that I enjoyed The Hobbit, but disliked The Lord of the Ring, bogging down in the second half of The Fellowship of the Ring, and not picking it up again. Someday I will finish it, when many things more to my liking I have read.

I was predisposed to dislike Tolkien from my college experience. IN Butterfield Hall, all the guys I disliked because of their politics, alcohol consumption, or drug use raves about him. I concluded that Tolkien wasn’t for me, and gave him no more thought until reading a biography of C.S. Lewis. Still, I read nothing of Tolkien’s until the movies came out and decided I should read the books.

Fast forward to March 2009, when I was in Kansas City to present a paper at an engineering conference and, as is my out-of-town-habit, sought out a bookstore. In a seconds bookstore on Metcalf Ave., I found volumes of both Tolkien’s and Lewis’ letters. I left the bookstore poorer in cash but rich in literary acquisitions.

I found Tolien’s letters [The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Selected and Edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien, 1981, Houghton Mifflin Company] fascinating. many dealt with publishing and writing. Beginning with Letter 9 (in the book, which excludes many of Tolien’s extant letters) written on Jan 4, 1937, we learn about The Hobbit, already in production with mainly the maps and illustrations to finish. He was greatly concerned about the American edition, especially the illustrations: “…let the Americans do what seems good to them–as long as it was possible…to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).”

This is an example of what I tend to call “Oxford snobbery” in Tolkien. It was just against Americans, but against anyone who tried to analyze his works. Tolkien commented to friends and publishers about negative reviews. He corrected those who misunderstood his invented languages. He corrected misconceptions about the mythology of Middle Earth, main after The Lord of the Rings appearance, and sometimes advised his correspondents not to worry about it.

Certain themes continually show in the letters.

  • The importance of literature: We all need literature that is above our measure–though we may not have sufficient energy for it all the time. April 1959, to Walter Allen
  • His health issues: I was assailed by very considerable pain, and depression, which no ordinary remedy would relieve. …We (or at least I) know far too little about the complicated machine we inhabit…. 31 July 1969, to Christopher Tolkien
  • Friendship with and criticism of C.S. Lewis: But for the encouragement of C.S.L. I do not think that I should ever have completed or offered for publication The Lord of the Rings. 18 Dec 1965 to Clyde S. Kilby; It is sad that ‘Narnia’ and all that part of C.S.L.’s work should remain outside the range of my sympathy, as much of my work was outside his. 11 Nov 1964 to David Kolb

I have much more to write about this, but my post is too long as it is, and I need time to collect some more thoughts. Look for a second post.

book reviews

Book Review: "The Chimes" – a novella by Charles Dickens

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It was 1843, and Charles Dickens’ latest novel, Martin Chuzzlewait, was not selling well–at least not by Dickens’ standards. So for another project to make some money, Britain’s most popular author wrote A Christmas Carol and got it to the market fast. It didn’t sell wildly, but made its author a little. More importantly, it established an important tradition: the Dickensian Christmas, and over twenty years of Christmas books and stories.

The next year Dickens wrote The Chimes, as he had A Christmas Carol, seemingly in off moments between his regular novels being written chapter by chapter just in time to be serialized, and rushed it to print. It is the story of Toby “Trotty” Veck, a day laborer/porter, aged into his sixties. He spends every day on the streets, in the shadow of a church, waiting on someone to have him deliver a letter or small package for six pence, or maybe a shilling.

From the church the chimes peal, keeping Toby company and speaking to him according to his mood. Toby Veck is poor, and almost alone. His young adult daughter, Meg, is the only one close to him. She brings him a hot lunch of tripe and potatoes, and they sit on the doorstep of Alderman Cute for Toby to eat. The gentleman passes out his door with two equally corpulent friends. They upbraid Toby for eating tripe–“the least economical, the most wastefull…consumption”–and finish what’s left on Toby’s plate. The, as Richard comes, the man Meg has just said she it to marry on new Years Day, the alderman advises Richard he can do better and not to marry Toby’s daughter. He does, however, engage Toby to deliver a letter to the local Member of Parliament.

The book then follows Toby’s actions that day and a dream he has that night. Toby delivers the letter to the MP, learns it contains orders to incarcerate a certain Will Fern who is down on his luck, meets and encourages that man and befriends him. He makes a midnight visit to his beloved chimes, and while among them falls into a trance, or perhaps a dream. He see things in Meg’s future, in Richards’ future, and his new friend’s future, and even his own future. The book ends with “all’s well”, as Meg and Richard marry on New Years Day, Toby’s new friends–Will Fern and his adopted daughter–come to live with him.

Although counted as a Christmas book, Christmas is never mentioned. All events look forward to New Years Day, which is close at hand. After reading A Christmas Carol many times, and seeing umpteen dramatic presentations of it, plus the many modern adaptions, almost anything else Dickens wrote about Christmas will be a let-down. And this one was. I found it difficult to follow Toby’s dream/trance, and all that was happening. Perhaps I didn’t read it as closely as I needed to. The language is slightly archaic, and the physical and social circumstances unfamiliar to a 21st Century American. None of these badly so, but perhaps they added up to hinder understanding.

The characters are not as well developed as in other Dickens books. The alderman and the MP are bad guys. Everything they do works against the poor, yet they call themselves the friends of the poor and justifying various anti-poor actions as being in favor of the poor. Each one makes a single appearance in the novella, so perhaps Dickens did not have enough space to fully develop them. This book is much more social commentary than A Christmas Carol, something Dickens put in many of his books. The rich and powerful are bad, the poor and downtrodden are good. No in between, no mixtures, no offsetting qualities. I haven’t read much Dickens (that is reserved for retirement), so I don’t know if his novels have better developed heroes and villains than this one.

Should you read this? Probably, if you can find it without plunking down a bunch of money. It should be in any collection of Dickens’ Christmas writings, and is probably available on-line. It’s good to branch out from his best known Christmas story. Next Christmas: The Cricket on the Hearth.

goals

January Goals

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I think I’m feeling a little better today. I’ve had two days of antibiotics, on the third day of breathing treatments and the strong cough syrup. I’m still coughing, perhaps not as much and not as deeply, and my voice is a little closer to normal. I just washed accumulated dishes, so after sleeping most of the morning away, I’m ready for a couple of hours at the computer.

The 7th is kind of late for January goals, but this is the first time I’ve felt like typing them. Wrote them in my journal on the 4th.

1. Blog 12 times.

2. Write and publish 8 articles at Suite101.com.

3. Make at least one freelance submission.

4. Write 1000 words in In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People.

5. Begin work with Demand Studios articles.

I should probably have more goals than that, but in my reduced capacity I’ll feel good about getting that much done. Last night, while watching the football game on mute, I put together notes for a Bible study I want to write. I looked in the usual places, and didn’t find it. I’d like to get some of it typed today.

Health, Writing

What the Doctor Said

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Pneumonia.

Yep. Went to see him yesterday. When he listened to my lungs he said he thought I had it, and ordered the x-ray. The x-ray showed less than he was expecting to see, but he said he still though it was pneumonia. Coughing without sinus drainage. No flu-type body aches. No fever. Just the persistent cough. They gave me a breathing treatment and a shot of antibiotic, plus prescriptions for an antibiotic, a home breathing treatment, and a strong cough syrup.

So, it looks like I’m home for a while, at least for this week. I won’t go back to work or church until the cough ends. I have gobs of sick time accumulated, so no worries there. Guess I’ll just lay around and rest, sleep, eat, watch bowl games, read, and play mindless computer games. Lynda is in OKC with Sara, Richard, and Ephraim. I’ve been reading a ton, mainly in the letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Also in the Bible.

Funny thing, I haven’t felt much like writing. Made a few entries into my journal, but haven’t felt like writing to this blog or any articles for Suite101.com or anywhere else. But as I was reading in Numbers this morning, my memory was jogged about a Bible study I had planned to write about Israel becoming a nation, taking material from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. Perhaps tonight I’ll feel like at least outlining that. Maybe in a day or two, if the medicine kicks in like it should, I’ll feel like writing again.

goals

The December Report

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I’ve still been sick these past few days. Taking Thursday off didn’t work, for we had a second Christmas dinner, and I did too much with the preparations. Rested that afternoon, as my voice totally left me. Friday I managed to get a little rest, but don’t think I felt any better by the end of the day. I knew then that I’d be resting Saturday and Sunday and going to the doctor on Monday.

But Saturday included packing the van for Lynda’s, Sara’s, and Ephraim’s trip to Oklahoma City. Still, I did less of that work than I usually did, Lynda and Sara doing more. At 2:00 PM they drove off, and I hit the couch, probably at the low point. I saw a little of a bowl game, but not much, as I dozed or slept for a few hours. I got on the computer a while last night, but didn’t feel like writing. I finally felt like reading a little.

Today I woke up to find 2 inches of snow on the ground. We were only supposed to get a dusting. Since I parked the pick-up in the drive on Saturday, that meant I had to shovel or else would not be able to get up the slope tomorrow and head to the doc. So I shoveled the part of the drive behind the pick-up. And I felt marvelous doing it. I coughed little, and the fresh air entering my lungs, even though it was around 26 degrees, seemed good to me. I coughed little while I was out, and not much the rest of the day (until the last half hour). I spent a lot of it on the couch, or in my chair.

So I’m behind in my beginning of the month posts. I’ll check in with my December goals now, but will leave January goals till tomorrow. Where I fell short in December, I’ll blame it on two weeks of being sick.

1. Blog 12 times >>> Did this.

2. Post at least 8 articles to Suite101.com >>> Fell two short, posting only six articles.

3. Make my submittals log perfect: all entries made in appropriate places; all acceptances/rejections gathered. >>> “Perfect” is a hard standard to live up to, but I think I accomplished this. I spent an evening early in the month getting things up to date, and don’t think I left anything hanging at the end of the month.

4. Make my ideas notebook perfect: appropriate dividers; hard copies of all ideas in the file. >>> I did quite a bit of work on this, but “perfect”? Probably not. Still, I believe I have a system in place that is significantly more workable than what I had at the beginning of the month.

5. All poems properly filed; includes transferring all poems from my computer at work to the one at home, and making the one at home the official repository of electronic copies; hard copies of all poems in a file. >>> Did almost nothing on this, except dealing with some of the hard copies I had floating around the office and the house.

6. Write 2,000 words in In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. Last month’s goal was too ambitious, given all that’s going on. >>> Nope, did nothing on this.

7. Finish that appendix in the Harmony of the Gospels. I believe I left it, some months ago, with not much more than a page to finish. I shouldn’t leave it hanging. >>> Yes! After having this for a goal for several months, I finished it. This required that I read through the entire appendix and the related text. After all this time I wasn’t sure what the last page of the appendix was supposed to say. I decided it wasn’t too bad as it was, but did see a few things that needed to be added. Anyway, it’s done, and I actually began working on the next appendix.

8. Continue studies of Demand Studios (tutorials, editorial guides), and begin writing for them. >>> I continued my study of what Demand Studios requires, but I did not begin writing for them. I discovered that they do have some articles available for writing that I can probably write, maybe about $100 to $200 worth. I’m fairly certain this will be a goal in January.

poetry

R.I.P. Hunter, 1997-2009

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I have a picture of him somewhere, though I don’t think I can upload it to any of the computer I normally work at. If I can find the card, I’ll add a picture later.

Hunter was our dachshund. He joined our family in the fall of 1998, age 18 months. We had not had a dog for several years, and he was a delight from the start. He was friendly to a fault. One time when he wandered from our yard, he gladly hopped in the dog-catchers car. Anything to go for a ride.

He loved to hop up on the couch when I sat there, or when I lay there taking a nap. He would wedge himself between me and the back of the couch. That was his favorite position, to be wedged in behind someone. He seemed to enjoy the television, though possibly what he enjoyed most was his human company.

In the yard he loved chasing squirrels and digging after moles. If he found a carcass of any kind in our field, he would role on top of it. He especially liked to do this right after we gave him a bath. Running in the field was a favorite pastime of his.

In March 2003, at a time when we had another, more quiescent dog, and four foster children, we gave Hunter (I should say my wife gave Hunter) to her step-sister’s family in Oklahoma City. That meant we got to see him from time to time, and he even came back for one or two visits to Bella Vista. He had a good life there, and they took good care of him. But at 12 years of age he was beginning to suffer. We learned in their Christmas letter that they had him put to sleep a few weeks ago.

This is not as sad as a human death (I’ll be writing about one of them soon), nor as if he had been with us these last six years, but still it is sad. Hunter was the inspiration for the following poem, a parody of Leigh Hunt’s famous “Jenny Kissed Me”.

Hunter Licked Me

Hunter licked me on the nose,
showing me his deep affection.
Whimpering, this dachshund knows
who provides food and protection.
Tell me that my poems won’t sell,
that no muse has ever picked me.
Call me crazy, but then yell
“Hunter licked me.”

Health, Writing

Weathering It

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Good morning, everyone. I’m back at work, my first hours here since last Tuesday noon. Fighting that cough last week I only worked 1/2 day on Tuesday. I had Wednesday scheduled as vacation, and we were off Thursday-Friday.

Weather reports didn’t look good on Wednesday as we prepared to drive 450 miles to Meade Kansas. We considered not going, but we got a local weather report that indicated things were pretty good there. So off we went, taking a southern route through Oklahoma and arriving in Meade about 8 PM. No snow at all on the way; Meade had only a dusting.

For the next three days I proceeded to do as little as I could. I parked my over-stuffed hide in a recliner and sat there. They didn’t want me in the kitchen, coughing all over the food. They didn’t want my on the furniture moving detail, since the exertion would set me to coughing. And they didn’t want me much in conversations and games, for the same reason. And I didn’t want that much either. Thursday I was mostly in a fog. I had no head cold, just the cough, but that was taking a lot of energy, so I rested. Outside the prairie winds blew at 40 to 50 mph for three days solid. The house shook and windows rattled. But with some senior citizens in the house the hostess kept the furnace cranked up pretty good and we were all warm enough.

I find that when I have a cough, if I just rest quietly, I can resist the urge to cough for a long time. After a cough I lay back, regulate my breathing to short breaths, and before long I can feel the air going after the tickle in my throat. Then it’s a matter of slowly letting my breaths lengthen, and restricting my air passage as best I can to minimize the irritation of the tickle. Knowing where the tickle is, and controlling my breathing, when the urge to cough comes I am able to endure the pain across the tickle instead of coughing. Eventually the tickle worsens, and I cough, but maybe it’s every 15 minutes or half hour instead of every three to five minutes.

I suspect that helps with healing, but it requires extreme concentration. I can’t read while doing that, for I will forget about the tickle and cough when I could have suppressed it. Even television is too much of a distraction. Don’t want to talk or hardly move at all. I can pray some while doing that, but even praying is a distraction that lessens the benefits of my cough self-suppression.

Of course, driving won’t work either. So Lynda drove on the trip home, and some of the trip out. We came back through Oklahoma City and picked up Sara and Ephraim to come and stay with us a few days. Richard is in Mexico with a group from their church and an extended group from the college on a mission trip. So they’ll be with us until New Years Day, when Lynda will take them back and I’ll batch it again for a few days.

During this time, writing went by the wayside. I hardly checked in at Suite101, didn’t check in at Absolute Write, and didn’t read, think about plots or story lines or poems. I think I need another day or two before I’ll be ready to think about words again.

Oh, yes. That snow that Kansas was supposed to get–Oklahoma got it, but a day later. On Christmas eve Oklahoma City got 14 inches and Tulsa 8 inches from a wrap-around band of the storm–the first blizzard ever in Tulsa. The roads east of Tulsa were still a mess when we drove them on Sunday. Lynda did a great job and we had no problem at all.

Author | Engineer