A few days ago, I gave some January goals. I did that before I had given a lot of thought to 2023 as a whole. I’ve since been able to do that, and have come up with some goals for the year. Here they are.
Edit and publish The Key To Time Travel
Determine the structure of the overall A Walk Through Holy Week Bible study series, and whether it will be six parts or seven. It’s being taught in six parts over six Lent/Easter seasons, but I’m thinking it’s better as seven parts in books.
Finish/edit Part 4 (what may become Part 5) of AWTHW
Finish/edit Part 3 (what may become Part 4) of AWTHW
Write Part 5 (what may become Part 6) of AWTHW, simultaneously with teaching it.
Start Part 1 of AWTHW, after determining the overall structure, of course.
Depending on how work on this goes, publish some or all of the completed parts of the study.
Start writing the next book in the Documenting America series. It will cover the years 1761 to 1775 and is tentatively titled Run-up To Revolution.
One other item, which is non-commercial but which will be a book, is to start transcribing the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia (1981-1983). I don’t think this is something that I can finish in one year, given that it will be fill-in work when I have nothing else to go, but I’d like to at least start it. I’ll wait to start it, however, until I get a few more disaccumulation items done.
Since these are goals covering a full year, and since way leads on to way along this path through the woods, I reserve the right to change these as the months go by. Possibly there will be updates. If not, look for a post in late December 2023 as to how I did in 2023 relative to these goals.
In terms of my writing career, what can I say about 2022? It was productive, but not overly so. That seems to be the best I can say.
As 2022 started, I finished the first draft of There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel, and was ready for beta readers and to figure out what to do about a cover. Also finished, and not yet published, was our church’s Centennial book. I had finished it—all I could see to do on it—in October, and was waiting on proofreading and editing. So two books were essentially ready to go to publication.
While waiting for those to projects to grind through to publication, I began writing a Bible study. Our Sunday school class has been studying Holy Week, during the run-up to Easter. It is a multi-year effort. In a few weeks we will start our fifth part of this, the Roman trail. I had no intentions of developing this into a published Bible study, but in early 2022 said, “Why not?”
I began with what we studied in 2021, the Last Supper. That was our third year. I made some progress on it, then came the time to teach the fourth year, Gethsemane and arrest of Jesus and the night trials. I found writing it as I was teaching it much easier than trying to write what I had taught in prior years.
I count sales of these in the year’s total, even though it wasn’t a royalty producing project.
I worked on the current year and the previous year simultaneously. By the time the end of April rolled around, I had the current year’s mostly done, the previous year’s about 40 percent done, and a plan for the entire series. Although it is a six-year study, I came to see it should have been a seven-year study and that the published books should be divided into smallish seven volumes.
That’s when other things got in the way of writing. That included the three special projects, as well as a number of things around the house and health concerns. Writing lagged behind. Publication went forward, however. The Centennial book was published in April and seemed to be well accepted. TNSTATT was published in June. On-line sales are nonexistent, but in person sales have happened, with much effort and pushing on my part.
Gary is gone, but the letters between us live on.
In July I began work on the next book in The Forest Throne series, titled The Key To Time Travel. After delays of putting a major effort into it, I knuckled down in December and finished it. It is now waiting on beta readers, as well as for me to edit it. Early chapters have passed muster with my critique group.
The Kuwait Letters book is done. This is the final cover—before the typo was fixed. Now done, distributed, and un-published for now.
Two other publications in 2022 were letters collections. One of these was the letters with my good friend, Gray Boden, as a tribute to him after his passing in 2020. I suspect this book will soon be un-published, as it actually includes items for which I don’t have permission of the writer (i.e. copyright holder) to publish. The other was the collection of letters from our Kuwait years. Copies of his have been obtained by all family members that want them and has been unpublished. These were not really commercial ventures, but took time away from what could have been time on writing and marketing books.
I took part in three author events near the end of the year, and spoke three times to the letter writers society I’m a part of. I wasn’t aware of any other events I could have participated in. I’m hoping 2023 will see more of them.
I wound up selling 279 books, my highest year ever. Without the Centennial book (which I count as sales for me even though it was a non-commercial venture), I would have been a little behind 2021 sales.
So I enter 2023 with a completed, unpublished project, two works-in-progress and another soon to start. Here’s hoping and praying that 2023 will be more productive than 2022 was.
It’s a quiet morning at Blackberry Oaks. Ten people in the house and, at 7:19 a.m., I’m the only one up—unless some are up and quiet in the basement. It has been a good post-Christmas celebration, one that will continue for a few more days.
So I’m going to give a somewhat quick progress and goals post. I may come back with a follow-up post later, when I’ve had more time to think about it. First, how did I do relative to my December goals?
Finish The Key To Time Travel. Yes, I managed to do this. Added the last words on Dec. 16. About time to edit it.
Blog twice a week, Monday and Friday. Yes, did this, with real posts, not just fillers.
Attend three writers’ meetings. I may even slip in a fourth. Just three this month. I decided to to forego the fourth.
Read at least some of the Bible study I’ve set aside. I’m going to read it for my own morning devotions. Yes, I’ve been doing this. I’m now up to the fifth chapter, out of seven. Each chapter is divided into seven parts, providing a daily reading for those who want to do it that way. That’s how I’m reading it right now. It has been a blessing to me as I read. Of course, the writer/editor in me can’t help but fix typos as I’m reading for devotions. Occupational hazard, I’m afraid.
Now, to make a few modest goals for January, 2023.
Edit The Key To Time Travel, at least once and hopefully twice.
Finish one pass through A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 4. If time allows (which it should), make a true editorial reading of it. Also, write whatever introduction is needed, and whatever ending makes sense.
Blog twice a week, Mondays and Fridays.
Attend four writers meetings this month. The one I sometimes make, sometimes miss, is a lunch brainstorming session, which I plan to go to.
Work on at least one other part of A Walk Through Holy Week, probably Part 3, which is already well along.
Plan out the next part of A Walk Through Holy Week. I will be teaching that in February through April, and last year I found it was easier to write the current part than one from a previous year.
That’s plenty. I’ll review these over the next week, after things calm down here, and see if this makes sense.
I don’t have a cover for the new book yet. Before long I’ll get that process started.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I was writing fast and furiously this month on The Key To Time Travel. I’ve been working on this since around July 10th, when grandson Ezra and I put the first words on the computer. I suggested a way to begin it, and he gave me some ideas of what to put in the prologue. In a few days I managed to complete the Prologue, Chapter 1, and some of Chapter 2. Ezra and granddaughter Elise read and approved it at that point.
Due to the several special projects I had over the summer, I made little progress on the book. But I kept thinking about the plot and how I would get Eddie into trouble with the forest throne, a.k.a. a time portal. I worked on it some in October and got it up to around five or six thousand words. Again, there it sat. Again, I pondered the plot even as I was busy with other things.
As I reported recently, I got into a good production rhythm after Thanksgiving, and wrote and wrote. The words flew from my mind to the keyboard and screen. December 19 came, and I wrote “The End”—figuratively, that is. Soon I will start the editing process, as well as look for beta readers.
So what’s the story about? Somehow I need to describe the plot without giving the story away. It’s about Eddie Wagner’s experience with the forest throne. As the second of four children, he is anxious to ‘one-up’ on his brother. He knows enough about the throne from older brother Ethan to know what it does and how to work it. He needs the blue and orange pegs. He knows which one does what, and that the ends are marked designating ‘past’ and ‘future’.
But did Grandpa destroy the pegs? Eddie gets to spend an extra week at his grandparents’ Ozarks home after the rest of the family goes home. He has a long conversation with Grandpa and learns things that Ethan didn’t reveal. Grandpa also said that he couldn’t destroy the pegs, and that he didn’t yet want to throw them away.
Eddie makes up his mind to search his grandparents’ big house and find the pegs, then go to the throne and send himself into the future. He will stay there just long enough to get something to prove he was in the future, then he would go back to his time and show Ethan how he himself had the greater adventure.
As you can imagine, it won’t work out the way Eddie wants it to. He takes the pegs, one sawed in half by his grandfather, then sneaks down into the hollow to the throne while his grandparents are busy. He uses the pegs the way they are meant to be used, and…
…well, it just didn’t work out the way he expected. If I say anymore, it will give the plot away. You’ll just have to wait till the book is published, buy a copy, and read it.
It is very cold today, two years before Christmas day. Perhaps some of the snow will stick around and we’ll have our first white Christmas in over ten years.
Last night was cold, probably -6°F, with the wind chill around -25°F. That’s a little colder than the coldest day here in the average winter season, which is more like 5°F. And it’s only December. Lots of winter days and nights to come.
Despite that, the house felt warm last night. Our new (as of August) heat pump kept cranking. Once I turned the heat down to 65° for nighttime, it kept the temperature there without having to resort to emergency heat. When I got up this morning just before 7 a.m., I walked around the house a little before dressing for the day and felt warm.
Our Christmas cacti are all blooming, both upstairs and down. They know the season even without us doing much with them except occasional watering.
Then again, for some reason I was hot last night. It’s -6° out and I’m hot. I got up and sat in my reading chair with a light blanket over me until I cooled down a little, then went back to bed. Now, down in The Dungeon, where I keep the basement thermostat cooler than upstairs, I feel just a little chilly, as I like it. I can just see a little of outside through the blinds, where the one vertical slat is missing. Tree branches are not swaying, so it appears the wind has tapered off. I see snow on the ground on the far side of the hollow from the 2 inches we got yesterday. And, just off to the right, I see the bright horizon where the sun is about to break over. We haven’t seen much of the sun for three days or so.
The tree may not be fully decorated, but at least the Christmas village is up. But only because after last Christmas we left it up, toys added by the grandkids and all.
Upstairs, our artificial Christmas tree is up and the lights are on. Today, Lynda and I will work together to add the ornaments, then clean up the boxes and storage bin. Might even vacuum, though that is more likely a tomorrow task. I wouldn’t even have put it up except for the family coming in a couple of days after Christmas.
In all of this, I’ve been searching for a metaphor about Christmas and life and maybe writing, but no metaphor comes to me. Alas, just as poetry no longer comes to me. Maybe that’s because I’ve been working mainly on prose for the last 18 years. Or maybe it’s because I wasn’t much of a poet to begin with.
A metaphor of the Christmas season, a metaphor of the start of winter, a metaphor about writing. Seems like something should come to me.
Well, I will end this, my last post before Christmas. Be safe everyone. Remember Jesus on this celebration of his birth. And as Tiny Tim said, “God bless us, everyone.”
This was our house. Note the magnolia tree on the left. It’s twice as big as it was when we lived there. It seems to be marked for preservation.
One day a couple of weeks ago, Lynda and I were in Bentonville, we decided to drive out by our old home on NE “J” Street. A ranch home on 7 acres, we sold that in 2002 and moved to Bella Vista. We have rarely driven by the old house over the years, and it had been several years since the last time. So we were ready to see how it had changed.
To our surprise, we saw it had been demolished! Yes, the home we lived in from 1991 to early 2002 was a pile of rubble. We were so shocked that we didn’t think to pull off and stop. Plus, it was starting to get dark. Therefore, we went by it again a day ago. A trackhoe was in the process of loading the rubble into a dump truck. What we hadn’t seen before, the house to the south of ours was also gone. The house to the north of us was still there, but appeared to be vacant. What was going on?
We pulled into the driveway to the back five acres the owners after us had put in. We also drove back to the house on the back acreage and discovered that the house back there was gone. Four houses on 21 acres of land. What was going on?
Another house used to be across the field behind the row of pine trees, which were planted just before we moved to this house in 1991.
Looking at the County GIS site, 14 of those acres are owned by what appears to be a land developer. It appears it’s going to become a subdivision. Or could it be going to condominiums or townhouses? A sign for a public hearing was laying on the ground. Possibly I’ll contact the City and see what it’s going to be. Or, perhaps I can just go to a website.
But do I really care that much? Well, this was the house our children spent the most time at before they hit adulthood. They both went on to college while living at this house. They’ll get to see it when they are here before the end of the year. So yes, I do care. The house was built in 1970. So it’s only a little over 50 years old. The house I grew up in in Cranston RI was built in 1919, and it’s still there, still occupied and, last time I saw it, in 2015, was changed only in color and loss of the front evergreens.
But that was a stable neighborhood whereas Bentonville is a rapidly growing city. The property backs up to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The 5 acre parcel two lots to the north is now owned by Crystal Bridges, and the large house at the back of it appears to be an office of some kind.
Not only is the neighborhood changing, the world is changing very fast around me. The culture is changing. I’ve kind of purposely absented myself from the current culture, such things as the music. Nowhere is that more evident than the music sung in church for Christmas. So different than what we sang until just a few years ago.
There’s not much about modern music I like, though I suppose without partaking of it I have no basis for saying that.
I think I’m rambling now. The house is gone, and the culture I loved is mostly gone. The world moves on and changes just like the neighborhood did.
Forgive my ramblings. It’s kind of hard to see the house you used to live in now being a pile of rubble being loaded onto a dump truck.
I don’t think this was a Christmas photo of Dad and his four grandkids, but it’s a good one.
Most of the Christmas memories I’ve posted had to do with my childhood years and how the family I grew up in celebrated Christmas. A day or two ago, I came upon another memory, but from the time when our children were young.
It was either 1983 or 1984. In ’83, we were newly home from Saudi Arabia. We flew into the US around Dec 15, left our kids with my dad in Cranston, RI, and flew to Asheboro, NC to house hunt in advance of our move there. Lynda flew back to RI Dec 23, and me on Dec 24, if I remember correctly. Christmas that year was celebrated at my brother’s house in Snug Harbor. Our sister, Norma, flew in Christmas morning, surprising all but my brother.
Or, it might have been in 1984. That year we drove from NC to RI for Christmas. I don’t remember if Norma came that year, but the rest of the party and the location was the same. Looking back at the age of the kids, it’s hard to tell which year it was. I believe that beginning in 1985 we stayed in NC for Christmas, so it had to have been 83 or 84.
Our two kids and my brother’s two boys put on a “pageant” for the adults, I think before Christmas supper, which would have been early evening. As I recall, our son Charles was the instigator/organizer of it. The pageant was merely singing Christmas songs, the more common ones that the kids knew. But the highlight was the opening. The children came out, oldest to youngest, and introduced themselves. It went like this.
Edward said, “I’m Mr. Todd.”
Charles said, “I’m Mr. Todd.”
Christopher said, “I’m Mr. Todd.”
Sara said, “I’m Mrs. Todd.”
I remember Dad looking in anticipation as to how Sara would introduce herself, and she said Mrs. instead of Miss, causing great laughter in the adults.
The pageant was good. The kids forgot the words to the songs, or sang the wrong song, or the wrong combination of kids came out from the bedroom—which served as the offstage—to the living room to sing. At one point Charles became frustrated with something that went wrong, or someone who didn’t come on stage when they were supposed to, and Charles blurted out, “We can’t get a d——d thing done!” Again, causing much laughter.
Later in the evening, after dinner, the kids got a little boisterous. I remember my nephews’ older cousin, John, was also there. Dad got tired of the noise, or pretended to get tired of the noise. My dad was a naturally kind-hearted soul who put on a pretense of being gruff most of the time, especially with his four grandkids. The noise got to the point where he said, loudly and gruffly, “All right, you boys. Out to the sun porch for ten minutes of silence!”
The four boys dutifully followed Dad from the kitchen, where they had been cutting up, through the living room to the sunroom. The boys showed no excitement. But there, behind the boys, was little Sara, also going out to the sunroom for “ten minutes of silence.” She had an excited look on her face and was obviously looking forward to what she thought would be a fun time.
As I recall, silence reigned in the house for the next ten minutes, excepting for whatever conversation the other adults were engaged in. The kids obeyed their grandfather (the cousin also obeying).
Anyhow, that’s the memory. Nothing special in a way, but very special in other ways. I tried to get my grandkids to do five minutes of silence out in the sunroom one year. It didn’t work. But Dad got the job done.
The Epiphany was less elaborately decorated than this church, but the decorations seemed sufficient and appropriate.
In a number of past posts in Decembers previous, I shared Christmas memories. I had thought of doing another one of those posts this year, but am not sure what to write about. I’ve covered such things as the way we did our wrapping paper, how we bought and decorated the Christmas tree, the idea of progressive decorating, and the candy house. What else is there to write about?
I’m writing this on Sunday evening. Today we had an excellent service, the guest speaker being Dr. Mark Lindstrom, our former pastor and now district superintendent. Then our adult Sunday school class had its annual Christmas party, something we hadn’t had for a couple of years due to the pandemic.
Church growing up in Cranston, Rhode Island, meant services at the Church of the Epiphany, an Episcopal church. Our church was more English Catholic than Protestant. We attended Christmas morning when we were young, but I remember the year we were first old enough to attend Midnight Mass. That would have been when my brother was around 7 or 8 I would guess. I remember it was a normal work night for Dad, so Mom’s parents came from Providence to get us and take us to church.
I remember the church was nicely decorated with garlands, wreathes, and votive candles on the ledge of each stained-glass window down each side of the sanctuary. The decorations were not as lavish as churches put up now, but they seemed appropriate to us. I guess I ought to say to me, as I can no longer ask other family members about it.
The processional was “O Come All Ye Faithful”. That was different than the processional for morning service, which was “Sing, Oh Sing This Blessed Morn”. But that song wouldn’t have been appropriate for a nighttime service.
About 3/4 of the way through the service, we sang a slow version of “Silent Night”. On the second verse, the house lights slowly started to lower. By the third verse they were out completely, and only light was from the candles on the altar and the votive candles. I remember how beautiful it seemed. A few years later, when I was an acolyte at Midnight Mass, I was the one to control the lights, and was quite nervous about doing it right.
When mass was over, many families exchanged presents. I don’t remember us doing that. What I do remember is that Dad was at the back of the church. The Providence Journal let him off early from his shift, and he came straight to the church.
Once we began attending Midnight Mass, Sunday morning became a little different, but that’s a memory for another day.
Trips and holidays. This is why typically I don’t get much writing done in November and December. Thanksgiving is usually a gathering at our house. That kills November and is one reason why I’ve never participated in NaNoWriMo—the National Novel Writing Month. Then December has always been crowded with special activities and sometimes a trip. So significant writing work is not possible near the end of the year, and I need to do really well in September-October if I want to make any writing goals happen in a given calendar year.
This year, since September and October were filled with special projects, I figured my writing production would be down. If so, it was for a good cause. The special projects dealt with disaccumulation in anticipation of future downsizing. I made progress toward that goal, and so feel good about the time spent.
We went to western Kansas for Thanksgiving. Returning home, finding the special projects mostly done (a few stray papers that defied decision-making still adorn my worktable in The Dungeon. But as we drove home after TG, I made up my mind that I was going to concentrate on my work-in-progress, the second book in The Forest Throne series.
Book 2 is titled The Key To Time Travel. It features the second son of the family, Eddie, who, in a bit of sibling rivalry, decided to use the time portal to travel in time. It doesn’t turn out to be the easy future-and-back followed by past-and-back he was expecting.
I began writing this in July. July 11 to be precise, though I’d been working plot lines out in my head long before that and had a few typed notes on what I wanted to accomplish. I did it when my #2 grandchild, Ezra, was here. In a couple of days, I had a prolog and the first chapter written, around 2,100 words. Ezra and Elise read it and gave me some thoughts., which I worked in.
Alas, that’s about when the special projects started, and the book sat. I pulled it up on the computer now and then, reading what I’d written and making a few edits. My writing diary shows me spending a little time in it on Sept 6 and 12, ending that day around 3,650 words. Since I want the book to be between 35,000 and 40,000 words, that meant I was a tenth of the way through.
We made the trip to West Texas in early October, and I used the time away from home to write on it every day. By Oct. 6, I was up to over 9,000 words. We came home, and there it sat, my time filled with household things. Oh, I opened the file from time to time and edited and added. By Oct 24 I was at 10,400 words, and somewhat pleased with where I was but lamenting that I had never been able to spend a lot of time on it.
Then we got home from our Thanksgiving trip, and I decided to make this my main project. Those minor things on wrapping up the special projects could wait. Filing paperwork could wait. Any end-of-the-year yardwork could wait. On November 28 I sat and worked on it. I had to re-read the last couple of chapters to see where I left off, and then I wrote. Only 500 words added that day.
On the 29th I started to get on a roll, adding almost 1,250 words, then 1,600 on Nov 30th. It kept going. The plot was so well established in my mind that I was able to write and not take a lot of time to ponder what I wanted to do. The additions came, as did a little editing on just-completed chapters. As I wrote, I found it easier to write the next day. Where I hadn’t thought fully through a plot line, a way to make it work came to me with barely a stop.
Fast forward to yesterday. At the end of my writing time, I closed the file with just over 27,000 words written. If my expectations for the length of the complete novel are correct, that means I’m only 9,000 words away from completion, and I should have it done in a week.
That’s the first draft, of course. Editing will take some time, as will running it by beta readers. But I can’t tell you how good this feels, to be back writing, to have good production, and to see a project nearing completion. I need to do that, because four or five other books are in the queue, shouting at me to hurry up and get to them.
I am learning much from this Livingstone biography, not all just about him, but also about the times he lived and places he traveled to. Also, as shown by this blog post, some inspirational material.
Part of my normal schedule is to read the last hour or so of the day. I normally post reviews of those books—not every one, but a lot of them. Right now, my reading is a tome: David Livingstone: His Life and Letters. I’m on page 334 of 631, so just past halfway. That’s after 30 sittings to read. Another month to go on it, I guess.
It is a good book, going into much more depth than the simple biography of him I read not all that long ago. I’m learning lots about him, things I didn’t know at all. But this isn’t a book review. Look for that in a little over a month. This post concerns a statement in this book. It quotes Livingstone as writing, “It is a pity that some people cannot see that true and honest discharge of the common duties of everyday life is Divine Service.”
The book doesn’t always do a good job of identifying the source of the Livingstone quotes, so I don’t know if this came from one of his letters or an official report he might have made concerning one of his missionary duties or exploration journeys. But this got me to thinking. Was Livingstone right? Is faithfulness to everyday responsibilities really a type of divine service?
We are coming up on winter. It won’t belong before we’ll have a snowstorm that sticks on the driveway. I’m very careful as I shovel or scrape, making sure I don’t slip and fall, don’t take more weight in the shovel than I ought to. Is clearing the driveway, something I actually enjoy doing, really an act of divine service?
What about the simple act of taking the garbage out to the compost pile, or taking out the trash on trash day? What about dusting or vacuuming? Fixing meals, washing dishes, cleaning off the counter? Or we could ask about any other type of household or employment drudgery.
We usually think of acts of divine service as something in ministry. Participating in a church work day. Giving to and helping to staff the church pantry. Giving to a compassionate ministry. Teaching a Sunday school class. And many other things.
But to be a responsible adult, to do those works of drudgery or displeasure simply because they need to be done and someone else is counting on you to do them. I can see them as being acts of divine service.
There’s probably a biblical basis for this, though I can’t think of any right now. Paul said something about this in one of his letters to the church in Thessalonica, about living a quiet, law-abiding life. I’m happy to do that, and happy to think that, in doing so, I’m actually serving God and his creation.
