As I mentioned in a very short post on Jan 29, I had a stroke on Jan 27, at 10:08 in the morning. I got to the Urgent Care ER in about 45 minutes, had the clot-buster shot in less than 2 hrs. Was transported to hospital for the mandatory 24 hr observation after receiving the shot.
Here’s the cover for the e-book of “To Jerusalem”.
While in the hospital, my impairment symptoms improved. After the 24 hrs, I passed all the tests, including the final CTscan and physical, occupational, and speech therapy, and they let me go. I spent the rest of that day and the next going from bed to recliner to couch. I slept much. From Saturday morning to Monday I lost 4 pounds as my body fought the trauma. No snacks might have helped too.
As of now, my symptoms are greatly reduced. My speech is back nearly 100%. I can tell I still have a little trouble forming some words. My right hand is much improved. I can now touch-type normally, though not as fast. I’m doing maybe 40 words per minute instead of my normal 60 or so. A sticky keyboard is adding to the difficulty.
And my drooping right eyelids seems better. When people looked at me, they couldn’t see the droop, but it was there. It affected my reading a lot at first. Slowly it’s been better. Yesterday’s reading, of an 11 pt font, I was able to do without much trouble. I can still tell it’s not quite back to normal, however.
Through all of this, my writing tasks have been few. I was within a couple of hours before the stroke hit of publishing To Jerusalem, which is Volume 1 in my A Walk Through Holy Week Bible study series. As my strength, energy, and desire came back, I was able to finally get to the publishing tasks remaining. I published the ebook on Feb 8 and the paperback on Feb 11. So far I have one sale.
I returned to working on another volume in that series, Vol. 8, on Tuesday of this week. It felt good to be back in the saddle. My typing is more or less at the speed my mind is working to put words together. I’m getting less written in a typical writing session than I did before the stroke, but perhaps my productivity will return with a little more time.
So, that’s my story. I have more health items yet to come, but they will be the subject of later posts.
It seems a long time since I published anything. My last book was The Key To Time Travel, published in June last year. Since then, I worked on three different books, two in my Bible study series and one in my Documenting America series. I published the latter one on Kindle Vella, and recently began the work to publish it as a stand-alone book. Hopefully that will be ready for publishing before the end of February. After that, I have a completed short story to release soon, maybe in March.
But, right now, I completed the publishing tasks for To Jerusalem, which is Volume 1 of 8 in my Bible study series, A Walk Through Holy Week. It covers the period from the banquet in Bethany, six days before the Passover, to some of the teaching did on Tuesday of Holy Week.
My granddaughter, Elise, did the artwork for the cover series. Her work is acknowledged in the book. This was version one of the art.
The book is organized into ten chapters, with the idea that this could a series of ten small group lessons leading up to and perhaps going a few week after Easter. Our own adult Sunday School class has been going through this series for several years, one volume at a time (though is six parts rather than the eight volumes of the final series). The class seems to have enjoyed it.
The book is available, both as an ebook and paperback, at Amazon.
The book was republished with a new cover in 2008, and may have been updated from the 1994 edition I read.
Due to the current remediation work taking place at our house, we had to take all the books off the built-in bookshelves in the living room. The workmen then took the bookshelves out to get at the damaged areas. As I pulled books off the shelves, I saw some I didn’t realize were there. Most of the books went into boxes temporarily. They currently decorate our dining room floor, with no end in sight.
One such book was Guard Your Heart by Dr. Gary Rosberg. Published in 1994, this book came out in the midst of several men’s ministries, including Promise Keepers. Rosberg wasn’t part of that, but he was the founder of a different movement called CrossTrainers.
The book is excellent. You would think a book now 30 years old might be a little dated. Perhaps it is, but I found it to be excellent. Dr. Rosberg, a practicing counsellor (well, he was at the time; could be retired for all I know, though his website doesn’t indicate that) points out many things that men struggle with: juggling work and home; workplace difficulties; allocating time; maintaining spiritual vitality.
The book looks at what Rosberg calls “frontal attacks” and “sneak attacks that men he surveyed say are what they experience in their Christian life. Each of several of these attacks are covered in separate chapters. I found the advice given useful to me, even though the book was written for younger men who are still in their careers.
I rate the book 4-stars. It loses one star simply due to its age—there are probably slightly better books written in the last five years dealing with the same issues. But don’t get me wrong: this is very good and well worth the read. Alas, however, it is not a keeper. To the donation pile it will go.
The Davidic Chronicles is just one of Greg Baker’s series.
Most of the authors I interview on the blog are like me: struggling self-published authors hoping to somehow find an audience, trying to sell a book here and there. But today we’ll hear about a successful author, Greg S. Baker. A prolific author, much of his work is self-published. But he seems to have found the formula for getting sales.
So I thought I’d like to hear from him on the blog, and that you might too.
Q: In a couple of paragraphs, tell us about your journey to being an author.
Greg: I’ve always wanted to write, ever since I was a teenager. I even made an attempt at writing a fantasy novel with a friend in high school. We mailed the manuscript off to a big-name publisher and received a very nice rejection letter some months later. Discouraged, I set it aside to follow a different plan that God had put on my heart: pastoring. I pastored a church in Colorado for 13 years, but the passion for writing never went away.
While pastoring, I began writing again, and even landed several contracts with smaller publishers. This eventually led to a passion for writing that would honor God more so than my first attempt as a teenager did, so I stepped down from pastoring and began a ministry in Christian literature. While writing my own books, I also began a ministry specifically to help other Christian authors: Affordable Christian Editing Services. And since then, I’ve published over 20 books myself and our small service has helped thousands of authors with editing and publishing services.
Q: The Davidic Chronicles seem to be the mainstay of your published books. Tell us a little about the series, and specifically about Book 1, Anointed. It has over 450 ratings and a high ranking on Amazon. Is this your highest selling book?
Author Greg S. Baker is a good author to know about if you like Bible-era fiction,
Greg: The Davidic Chronicles is by far my most popular series. It is a set of biblical fiction novels revolving around the life of King David from when he is anointed by Samuel to when he was again anointed king in Hebron. To honor the Scriptures, I did not change any of the facts we are given from his life. But I fictionally filled in what might have happened between those facts. The goal was to create an interesting and entertaining read that would create wonder and excitement for the Scriptures. I wanted people to think, “Is that really in the Bible?” And then I wanted them to go and look for themselves. I tied together many of the facts that people overlook, such as the fact that Joab was David’s nephew or that Abner was Saul’s cousin. I wanted people to see that there is more to the Bible than they think with a casual read.
I also incorporated a tremendous amount of research into the time period, including the culture of the Philistines (Israel’s main rival during David’s life). I flushed out the characters with the personalities that the Scriptures hint about where possible and insert aspects of the wider culture that are often overlooked.
I really did enjoy writing them.
Q: Is the Davidic Chronicles series complete, or are more volumes coming? Perhaps you’ve moved on to a new biblical fiction series.
Greg: I have no plans on expanding the Davidic Chronicles at this time. I wrote another series of four novels on the lives of Daniel, Jeremiah, and Nebuchadnezzar, which I call the Rise of Daniel series. I also intend to write an antediluvian series of 9 novels that focus on three men: Seth, Enoch, and Noah.
Q: One of my problems is a writer is a malady I’ve named “Genre Focus Disorder”. I can’t concentrate on any one thing. I see you have books in both fiction and non-fiction, but fiction—specifically biblical fiction—seems to dominate. Why does this appeal to you as a writer?
Greg: I love biblical fiction for many reasons. First, I love to write, and they say that you should write about what you love and what you know. Well, I know the Bible—at least a little bit—and I love the Scriptures. So writing biblical fiction helps me to get excited about the research, the process of writing itself, and helping others make connections in Scriptures they would not normally make.
Jesus taught in parables. These stories resonated with people and taught them truths they might otherwise dismiss or not apply. I would like to do something similar.
Q: Apart from biblical fiction, what do you write most?
Greg: That depends. I have a set of Christian fantasy/adventure novels that I love writing, but I also enjoy writing non-fiction books. Last year, I published a book that is meant to help first generation Christians with the very specific and particular battles they fight. I write what I’m passionate about, and for many authors, such passion is derived from experience, enjoyment, need, and purpose.
I’m looking forward reading some of Greg’s books. You can find his books most easily through his website, https://gregsbaker.com/.
UPDATE: Everything below I wrote last Friday, in anticipation of where I would be at the end of the month. I didn’t know I was going to have a stroke on Saturday. More on that in a future post.
I didn’t really set goals for January. It took me so long to think through what my goals for all of 2024 would be that it was well into the month before I could even think about monthly goals. So I’ll state some goals as if I had made them, or pull them from my annual goals.
Attend two writers group meetings. One meeting was cancelled due to weather. I attended the other.
Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. I accomplished this, with a meaningful blog on all days.
Get to work on A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 8. I started this on Jan. 22, a little earlier than expected. As of the end of the month, I’m more than 50 percent done with it. So far the writing has flowed easily. UPDATE: I’m not 50 % donel
Finish editing and publish A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 1.I finished the editing around Jan. 10th and got to work on formatting for publication. Bogged down a little on the cover, as I had to first create a template for the whole series. The e-book template was done on Jan. 26.
Begin reading in a source for the next Documenting America book. I did only a little of this. I enjoyed what I was reading—about debates in the Boston newspapers in 1774-75. But I wasn’t sure, from the little I read, that this was the right subject for the next volume.
Finalize and publish the latest short story in the Danny Tompkins series. Nothing done on this.
Begin transcribing the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia. I’m hoping to start this in February. I started this in January, around the 15th. I’m not sure why; it just seemed right. As of now, I have completed all the letters for 1981 (a partial year), and made a small start on 1982. Lots more to go. UPDATE: I still have 6 or 7 letters to go.
So, all in all a good month. What about February? Here’s what it looks like to me.
Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
Attend two writers meetings.
Make major progress on Volume 8 of A Walk Through Holy Week. Based on January progress, I might be able to complete the first draft in February. UPDATE: Probably only 60 percent.
Finish all publishing tasks for Vol. 1 of AWTHW, both e-book and print version.
Make a couple of new ads on Amazon. Maybe one for There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel and one for A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 1.
Continue transcribing our letters from Saudi Arabia.
Continue reading in some source for the next Documenting America book.
And that will do it. My typing is impaired by the stroke. Still not ready to pound the keys at a rapid pace.
The damaged area in the living room, after the built-ins were removed.
Last weekend, the closer it got to Monday, I knew it wasn’t going to be a normal week.
First of all, it was a week with no appointments outside the house. Lately it seems that every week has something: one of my writing groups meetings, a doctor appointment, something. No, wait, I did have one appointment. Monday night was supposed to be a dinner meeting for Life Group teachers at church. But the weekend forecasts for Monday said the day would start out icy. Sunday evening I was pretty sure it would be cancelled. Sure enough, it was. So a week with no appointments.
But I knew it would be a busy week, because, after much delay, contractors were scheduled to be at our house. One contractor was to replace our gutters. The other was to do remediation work on places on the house that have water damage. The house is about 38 years old. We’ve lived here for 22 of those years. We have done nothing much to it.
Great precautions taken to contain any mold or other contamination.
Last October we had a contractor replace the flooring and railings of our upper deck. That revealed some damage to the doors to the deck, more on the doorframes. We got to looking around and saw damage at another place, inside the house wall adjacent the deck. I also knew that some damage had occurred on the other side of the house, in a void space off the master bathroom.
I called out a mold detection specialist. He found a little mold, and a little moisture where there shouldn’t be any, but not any big problems. Still, it was enough things found that he recommended we get a remediation contractor to address three areas.
First, I checked with my homeowner’s insurance company. They sent a man out and he assessed it. A couple of days later I got the answer: long-term damage, not an insurable loss. Whatever this cost, I was going to have to pay for it myself. Off to find a contractor.
I had a little trouble finding a contractor who could do the work. One came by and assessed it, but I didn’t hear from him for another week. I finally reached out to him. He said he didn’t think he would be able to fit me in with his workload. I resisted saying, “It would have been nice if you’d called me a few days ago.”
Meanwhile, the guttering contractor was having trouble with his equipment. After many calls and texts to him, he pushed the schedule for his work out into January.
I found another remediation contractor, who came out to assess. I actually liked him better than the first. He saw things the first hadn’t, and was able to explain things to me in a way I understood. I told him he had the job. But it was now just a week or two before Christmas. He told me he should be able to start mid-January.
Let me fast forward through Christmas, our week-long trip to Lake Jackson, Texas, and two modest snow storms in the midst of a week of single digit temperatures. The guttering man gave me a date, had to move it a little due to weather. Now he is scheduled to be here Tuesday the 24th (I’m writing this on the 23rd).
Meanwhile, the remediation arrived here Monday the 22nd, a little late in the day due to morning icing. The three-man crew got to work on the damage area in the living room. The removed the build-in bookcase, removed obviously damaged sheetrock, and built a containment area. The next day they did the same in the master bathroom. In both cases, it appears they found the source of the water, and have a plan to stop it plus repair the areas. One will be fairly easy, the other difficult.
I’m not happy about the money I’m spending. But when a house approaches four decades old, I suppose you have to expect to spend some money to keep it in good repair. Yes, I hate to spend the money, but am happy to finally have answers and a good start on corrective measures. A good part of this is the plumber (who needs to repair one area), and a roofing inspector (to check out two areas) have been coordinated by the remediation contractor.
But the week has also been not normal was because of the writing I got done. On Monday the 22nd, I began work on Part 8 of my Bible study, A Walk Through Holy Week. My co-teacher and me will begin teaching this on Feb 4, and I wanted to get ahead of this. Each chapter is divided into seven sections. On a normal day for previous volumes, I have been completing an average of 1 1/2 sections per day.
But Monday, I wrote three sections in just my normal amount of writing time. Tuesday I completed another three sections. This is an amazing production. They need editing, of course, but that is a great start—even as I got the contractor started, occasionally interacted with him, and listened to his sawing and other activities. At the end of Tuesday, I was amazed at the progress. That will allow me to finish the chapter on Wednesday as well as get back to publishing the first volume in the series.
It’s now Tuesday evening, and I’m writing this for Friday posting. Hopefully I’ll find time to edit this before then to fill in what happened on Wednesday and Thursday. But even without that, I can confidently say it has not been a normal week.
And I guess that’s a good thing.
Update, Thursday evening: Work inside on the damaged areas has taken place every day. Our master bathroom is closed off from us, the counter removed, some of the cabinetry removed, and more holes cut in the diagonal wall. The good news is that the water damage appears mostly confined to the dead air space behind the diagonal wall. The floorboards there are rotted and will need to be replaced. They don’t yet know about the framing—some of the bottom framing may need to be replaced. But the lateral extent of the water damage is contained, and that’s a good thing.
So things are progressing, a little slowly perhaps, but progressing. I hope the plumber comes tomorrow to check out the leak source. The repair man is supposed to be here Monday to review everything and give an estimate for all the putting-it-back-together costs.
Is it money well-spent? Darned if I know. No, I suppose I do know it’s well spent. When we sell our house in our future downsizing, we will have an easier time of it.
Someone will think me sacrilegious, but I couldn’t get into this one.
As I’ve said many times on this blog, a time of downsizing from our living circumstances is coming. As part of that, we need to get rid of about half of our 3,000 to 4,000 books. That number is after we have sold or donated many already. I figure well over 1,000 books are already gone. So in choosing books to read, I scan our shelves and try to choose something that looks interesting but is something I most likely won’t want to keep.
A number of our books are what could be called Christian classics. So a couple of months ago, when it was time to start a new book, my eyes fell on The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Written over 1,600 years ago, this meets the definition of Christian classic. I thought, it’s probably something every Christian should read. I started it in early 2023, read it on four days, put it aside, and picked it up again in late November last year.
Why did I lay it down after four days? Because I found it hard to read and understand. The book I read it in was translated by John K. Ryan. The original, of course, is in Latin. I suppose the readability will depend on the translation. Or is it possible that all translations can’t do more with the English construction than the original language gives you? I suppose I would need to read a different translation to find out.
Why didn’t I like it? Perhaps it’s due to passages like this one.
In truth, I should have wished, had I then been Moses—for we all come from the same clay, and what is man, unless because you are mindful of him?—I should have wished, if I had been what he was, and had been enjoined by you to write the book of Genesis, that such power of eloquence had been given to me, and such ways to fashion words that not even they that cannot yet understand how God creates things would reject my words as beyond my powers; while they who can already understand, no matter what true interpretation they have arrived at in their thought, would not find it passed over in your servant’s few words; and if some other man by the light of truth had perceived a further meaning, it should not fail to be understood from those same words.
And that’s just one sentence! The whole book is like that.
I found myself reading and not comprehending at all. The Confessions consists of thirteen books, each book broken down into multiple short chapters. I started each book with renewed determination to understand what I was reading. Alas, by the second chapter I would once again be reading the words but not comprehending.
When I was about halfway through I thought about giving up. But I pressed on. Sometimes the paragraphs put me to sleep; sometimes they were just incomprehensible. The main reading took me from Nov 29 to Jan 18. Rarely could I read as many ten pages at a sitting.
Well, this is quite a downer of a review. As you can tell, this book is not a keeper. But no worries: I have two more copies of it. Maybe, in a few years, I’ll pull out one of the others and see if another translation will be easier. But this mass-market paperback is going in the donation pile.
Mine was an e-book, downloaded for free. This wasn’t the cover available to me when I put the ebook together.
Twas not so long ago that I posted a review of the Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 1. At the time, I said I was going to look and see if I had downloaded Vol. 2 and formatted it for Word. In fact, I had. I used the “Send to Kindle” app from Amazon and soon began reading it.
This volume covered the years from after the publication of Origin Of Species in 1859 to Darwin’s death in 1882. It includes a couple of appendixes, one listing Darwin’s publications: books, pamphlets, scientific papers, etc. In the same manner as Volume 1, the book is a mix of biography and letters. Darwin’s son Francis provides much commentary from personal experience. The letters, while extensive, are not more important than the biographical entries.
As this volume begins, Origin has just been published. The early part of the book concerns the next three years or so, when Darwin was being alternately praised and lambasted. Many people, including men or science, rejected Darwin’s findings. Some went partway, but others more or less said Darwin was a kook. Many of the letters are to two of Darwin’s best friends, Hooker and Huxley, both of whom took the lead in promoting evolution as a scientific reality. Another correspondent in this category was Asa Gray, an American.
As the years increased since the Origin was published, other subjects began to enter into the correspondence. Darwin had other books on totally different subjects that he published between 1859 and 1882. Many letters went out about these as he was conducting research, writing the books, dealing with the publisher, promoting the book, and discussing it with friends and colleagues. When it wasn’t bogged down with scientific names, this correspondence was quite captivating to me.
Occasionally, well, more than occasionally, the letters went beyond my comprehension. Here’s an example, from an 1860 letter.
The effect which the carbonate of ammonia produces is the segregation of the homogenous fluid in the cells into a cloud of granules and colourless fluid; and subsequently the granules coalescing, dividing, coalescing ad infinitum.
One thing that stood out to me was the almost religious nature of some of the letters, where evolution was the religions. Darwin frequently said things like, “Thank you for spreading our doctrine,” or “our doctrine has certainly caused reactions from many.” Those aren’t quotes from the book, but represent how Darwin wrote to several people.
Reviews of Darwin’s books, especially the Origin, was a frequent topic. Some of his correspondents were those not favorable to his “doctrine”. He was always patient with them in his letters, as if hoping to convert them by persuasion.
So, after having read both these volumes, what do I conclude? I’m glad I read them. It helped to flesh out some understanding of Darwin beyond what they say in science books. I don’t imagine I’ll ever re-read these, however. I give a combined rating of 3.5 stars. It would be 5 stars except for organization, and the sacrificing of letter space in favor of biography.
Dateline: Monday, January 15, 2024, Martin Luther King Jr. Day
I was about ready to leave The Dungeon and go upstairs, grab my sledgehammer, and fix the modem that way. Fortunately, our internet came up before such drastic repairs were needed.
It’s my regular blogging day. But I woke up this morning to find we have no internet. Thus, I can’t get to the blog to type in a post. I’m writing this on my computer, and will post it whenever the internet comes back to us.
Actually, it has been a horrible weekend for technology. Friday evening our cable kept going haywire. Picture breaking up, sound breaking up, occasional total loss of signal. We suffered through and saw a few things. Wound up streaming something via Amazon Prime, which worked. Or was that Saturday? The days are running together.
Anyhow, called Cox. They said they would have a technician out between 3 and 5 yesterday, and said it might involve a $75 charge. We had internet all day yesterday, but no cable.
The Cox tech was a no-show. But it snowed yesterday, a little over 2 inches, and the temperature never got above 1°, so I kind of understand why the tech didn’t make it. A call telling us that would have been nice. Alas, service providers of every type have ceased being proactive in communicating with their customers in this age of easy communication. Will it do any good to call the office today, on the holiday?
My post today was to be about January being off to a good start. I am one or two days away from the last editing pass through A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. Granddaughter Elise got the cover art done. So either tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll begin publishing tasks.
The first week of the year, while in Lake Jackson, I had a conversation with Elise about the next book in The Forest Throne series, and she read the prologue I wrote based on our prior conversations. She loved it, reading it aloud while our daughter was in the room and putting much drama into the reading. So a good start there on a project just a little down the road. Also, youngest grandson Elijah wanted to have a conversation about the fourth book in the series, which will be about the youngest child in the Wagner family. That book is planned for about four years from now. But we had the conversation and I got some ideas on paper. I may type them up and see what that future book will look like.
Sven months of letters from the Saudi years. The ones on the left are transcribed. The ones on the right to be done. It’s a big project.
I began transcribing the letters from our Saudi Arabia years. This was one of my realistic goals. On Fri-Sat-Sun, I typed five letters each day. I’m going to limit myself to five a day so as to keep the project from overwhelming me as the letters from the Kuwait years did. I have no idea how many total letters there are. As I look at the piles, it appears to be about 300, which is close to double the number in the previous project. But as we had no typewriter (or computer in 1981-83), the letters will likely average a little shorter.
I did a little reading for research for the next book in the Documenting America series. Not much, but a little. What I read, however, makes me wonder if I’m on the right track with this volume. I’ll discuss that more in a future blog post.
I also have made a good start on an author interview for a future blog post. Possibly today I’ll be able to pull my interview questions together and send them to him.
Well, our internet just came up, so I will wrap this up and post this. I’ll have to leave The Dungeon to go upstairs to see if the cable TV is up. I’m not optimistic. But I’m still optimistic in general about 2024. I still expect to see those realistic goals met. But we will see.
