I keep making mention of my novel-in-progress. Tentatively titled The Forest Throne, it will be a young adult novel—meaning it is for teenagers. And I’ve been meaning to say more about it, but seemed to have too much on my mind to concentrate on a post about it.
In this post, I’ll talk mainly about the genesis of the book. In a future post I’ll talk a little about the story.
Before they constructed trails near our house, if, when the grandchildren came to visit, you wanted to go deep into the woods, the only way to do so was down the hill behind our house into the valley, called a “holler” around here. I think Ephraim, our oldest grandchild, was 3 or 4 when we did that for the first time. As the other kids got older, several of us would do this. Once you go down the hill, there’s no going back up. Or, should I say going back up is much too difficult. So we would hike down the channel of the hollow until we hit a road and take the road back to the house. While that meant a longer uphill leg, the road is definitely easier than the rocky, leaf-strewn hill. Once the trail construction began in late 2019 and was completed in early 2020, we never go down the hill anymore.
But I prate.
Sometime around 2017 (I think it was), Ephraim, by then 9-years-old, and I went down the hill. For some reason his two siblings then old enough to be with us stayed at the house. We usually have to hunt around to find a place to get down into the channel of the holler. One time we were working our way upstream on the bank, looking for that place to drop down to the channel, when we passed a depression in the hillside that looked a bit like a chair. One of us, I don’t remember if it was Ephraim or me, said it looked like a throne, a throne in the woods, or the forest.
That’s where the name came from. We mused about whether it was natural or manmade. And I began musing about how it could be worked into a book. A plot came to mind. I ran that plot by Ephraim. He said it sounded good, and so I put it in the writing queue. It finally came to the top of the queue last June.
That’s the genesis. The rest will have to wait for another post. I took a photo of the throne when we went back one time, but I’m not sure I can find it on my phone. Thus, I have no illustration for this post. You’ll just have to wait a while for it.
I’m writing this on December 1st, for publishing on December 3rd. November wasn’t too bad of a month for writing progress, despite the time off for Thanksgiving activities with the family. Here’s how I did compared to the goals I set on November 1st.
Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday. I believe I accomplished this without missing a regular posting day.
Attend my writers groups this month. That will be about six meetings if I make all of them. I attended all these meetings, a total of 5, two of which were on-line.
Continue formatting work on the church Centennial book. With luck, and a few good hours, it will be finished when Dec 1 rolls around. I made progress on this. The essential formatting is done, though I’m still waiting on two outside contributions and a few more photos. Final formatting is impossible until I get those.
More work on The Forest Throne. I’ll even set a word goal on this: 10,000 words more than I have now. I had several good sessions of working on this. I didn’t quite make may word goal, however, adding 9,400 for the month. Still, that’s not bad.
Begin the process of revamping my website. I don’t really have that much to do on it, mainly have a new landing page and move my bio to its own page. I ought to be able to achieve that. This I also did. I spent a day or two on this: refamiliarizing myself with the menus for making changes; adding photos; moving and adding text. I now have a proper landing page, a proper bio page, and have updated almost everything on the site to be current. I still want to make a couple of changes to some of the pages but see no hurry in doing so.
So, what about December? It actually looks like a quiet month in the Todd household, so I hope to achieve much with my writing.
As always, blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays.
As always, attend meetings (in person and on-line) of my writing groups. I’m going to drop one group, as I don’t think I’m contributing much to it and am not sure I agree with the direction they are going. I also suspect some meetings of the groups may be cancelled around Christmas.
Publish the short story I finished in September. Busyness has kept me from applying my mind to creating the cover and doing the publishing tasks. I’ve waited long enough; time to get it done.
Continue work on The Forest Throne. I’m at a point in the book where the writing is more difficult, since I’m dealing with speech and mannerisms spanning three different time eras. So I’m not going to set any word goal. Let me instead set a working-sessions goal. I want to work on it no less than 15 times by the end of the month.
Assuming I receive the two outside contributions I’m waiting on, and find the last photo or two I feel I’m missing, I’ll set a goal of completely finishing the formatting of this, 100 percent finish. That will mean that publishing tasks will happen in January.
Work on two Bible studies—or maybe three. One I started back in February or March this year, and I have quite a bit done on it. I’d like to get that into publishing shape. Maybe this month I can dust it off, read where I left off and add some words. The other two are new, ones that I anticipate teaching next year. One I have outlined but not really developed. My goal for it is to get it fully developed and in teachable condition. The other is a “sequel” to the one from earlier this year. It’s not yet outlined, however. My goal for it for it for December is to get it fully outlined, and maybe start developing it a little.
I think I will leave it at that. That’s quite a bit to get done. Let’s see how I do on it.
Christmas at the Outlet store in downtown Providence, probably 1953. Edward came along in January 1954.
On Saturday, November 27, 2021, my sister, Norma Lilly Todd, left this world for the next, the heavenly one, after a long, long illness. You may find her obituary here.
She was 16 months older than me, two years ahead of me in school. Born Sept 5, 1950 in Providence, RI, she was a premie by at least a month, maybe more. This would show up years later in her health problems.
Four maternal generations at Norma’s christening, winter of 1950-51
We were raised in Cranston, RI, joined two years after my birth by our brother Edward. Norma, as the oldest, was the one to one supply childhood names for our grandparents, Gar and Grime—names that stuck forever. She established the pattern of the Todd children being scholars (a pattern Edward broke, not because he lacked smarts, but because he had to carve out a different territory for himself).
When Mom died in 1965, Norma was 14, I was 13, and Edward was 11. A lot of the burden of the family duties fell on her. Of course, Mom was so sick leading up to her death that we all were already doing most of the chores a mother would do, including Dad taking on much of the cooking. But Norma probably had a greater burden than Edward and me.
Norma graduated with honors along the way, from Cranston High School East in 1968. She went on to Rhode Island College, graduating in 1972 with a B.S. in Elementary Education.
The family, one Sunday about to embark for church.
She discovered that teaching young children really wasn’t her calling, and instead went into retail, working at a Pier One Imports close to our house. They offered her a management position in Evansville, Indiana. So she became the first of the fledglings to fly the coop in, if I remember correctly, November 1973. I did the same in June 1974, moving to Kansas City.
Daddy’s little girl
Once we moved away from each other, and in the age back when long-distance telephone was still expensive, communications became infrequent and visits even more so. I drove from KC to Evansville to visit her twice before I married, and she flew to KC twice to visit Lynda and me after we married. Since, over the years, we made many trips from KC or Arkansas to Rhode Island, we stopped often in Evansville to see her.
At Mom’s grave, 1965
Norma’s health was never good, and she didn’t have a lot of strength. At some point, maybe around 1990-91, she left her retail management position—which involved her unloading delivery trucks—and went to work as a receptionist at her church, a job she held until her retirement around three or four years ago. Her connection to that is an interesting story, one that I had a part in. When I visited her in October, 1974, I witnessed to her about my conversion experience (from being a nominal, Christian-in-name-only to being born again). After my trip, she wrote me a letter saying thanks but no thanks. It was less than a year later that she sent me a card, saying something on front like, “I meant to call, I meant to write, I meant to visit, but I didn’t so…” and then, inside, “…I’m praying for you.” In that card she wrote about her conversion. Needless to say, I hopped in the car as soon as I could and visited her over the weekend, including Sunday morning service at Bethel Temple.
Norma’s high school graduation photo, 1968, Cranston High School East
Norma was a girl scout growing up, active in that throughout her school years. As an adult, her interests outside of work and church included crafts, especially making greeting cards. Each birthday and holiday we received a homemade, personalized card from her.
Norma never married. If she had boyfriends along the way she didn’t tell me about them.
About 10-15 years ago, she called to say she had been diagnosed with uterine cancer. In the course of the examinations, they discovered she had only 40 percent lung capacity, most likely as a result of her premature birth. Due to her general health condition, they would not operate for her cancer. They treated it by radiation, and she was considered a cancer survivor.
A more recent photo, probably from the early 2000s.
But her health deteriorated over the years as her knees wore out and she battled the bulge, like everyone in our family did. She had been confined to a wheelchair, though still living at home. Various friends looked in on her. It was August this year that she took a turn for the worse, spending the rest of her time in hospitals, rehab, and a nursing home. When we last talked by phone, she requested that we not come out and see her. “We went our separate ways long ago,” she said. We reluctantly honored her wish. She had her after-death arrangements made, which included cremation and no services.
Norma is survived by me, our half-sister Deb Harris, six nephews and nieces, many cousins, and a host of friends, mainly in Evansville. I want to give special recognition to Bob and Ellan, the friends who have given her much help and lots of time over the years, especially lately.
On our last visit, in Evansville in October 2015
A popular response to the death of a loved one is to say they have joined so and so in heaven and is now looking down on us. I’m not sure that’s biblical, though it may be comforting. But I do know that’s where Norma is now, because of her faith in Jesus. She fought the good fight; she finished the race; she kept the faith. She has now heard those words that all who love Jesus want to hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter now into the joy of the Lord.”
Eliajah and me. Loves to jump on me or have me read books to him.
On Sunday, we picked up our son and his husband at the airport. On Monday our daughter and husband and their four children drove in. So we have had a houseful. But it all ends tomorrow.
Because of them all leaving the day after Thanksgiving, we decided to make our Thanksgiving meal on Wednesday. Otherwise, there would have been too many leftovers for the wife and I to finish on our own. It was a great feast, even with leaving out the corn. On Monday our son prepared a nice meal of chicken breasts, pasta, and broccoli. Tuesday the four younger adults (I don’t think I can call them “young” any more as they are now at the lower end of middle-aged), and I prepared Grandpa’s Mythical Sandwich along with cabbage and carrots. That, along with a nice breakfast casserole and some blueberry muffins our daughter brought and a fruit salad Lynda made, and we have eaten very well.
Morning reading time worked very well.
I instituted a new rule for this visit: No screens in the morning until they had read 30 minutes in a physical book. They could pick any book(s) in the house. Ephraim chose a Dickens book off our shelves, the one with the Christmas stories. Ezra grabbed the first volume of The Lord of the Rings. Elise picked a Chronicles of Narnia book, but then changed her mind when her uncles gave her a book as an early Christmas present, a book with famous women’s stories, I think. I actually haven’t been able to look at it much. She read it in the first two days and began re-reading it today. It was kind of hard to get the youngest, Elijah, to participate.
With more work after this photo was taken, the fort is 3 posts short of being done, including this year’s repairs and modifications.Ezra worked hard on the fort and the path leading to it.
We worked on the fort in the nearby woods, and it is done, all but three posts. That included finishing one wall destroyed when a tree fell on it and moving one entrance and closing another. Ezra and I also worked on the path to the fort, marking it with logs. They didn’t play much it in, but I have come to realize that the fun is in the building.
Lots of board games were played, the grandparents not really participating. But the grandkids had fun at it. Little Elijah let me read to him several times.
Thanksgiving is in the books for 2021. It was the first time for the whole family to be together since Thanksgiving 2019. May there be many more such times.
Board games resulted in much fun, cutthroat as it was.
An enjoyable read. Well written, easy reading, engaging subject. I must search for his other book somewhere on my shelves.
Peter Jenkins is famous for his walk across America, which he did around 1974 and turned into a bestseller book of that name. I have that book, somewhere on a shelf or in a box, and will someday read it. Meanwhile, I had another of his books conveniently at hand, Along The Edge Of America, so a couple of months ago the wife and I read it aloud. We picked this up as a used copy somewhere along the line, and it has been waiting quite a few years for us to read it.
It wasn’t what I expected. By “the edge of America” he means our southern water border, the Gulf of Mexico. After much planning, Jenkins went by boat solo from the tip of the Florida Keys to the Texas border with Mexico at the Gulf. While it was something I didn’t expect—and don’t ask me what I did expect—it did not disappoint.
Jenkins started by telling about his divorce, from the woman he met (I think in New Orleans) on his walk across America, who he married and who finished the walk with him. He made his money off the first book, bought land in the hills of Tennessee, and went there to live rather than back to his native Connecticut. He married again. But his feet became restless, and decided to do something else. Meanwhile, since his first, famous walk, he had done others and published the stories.
He decided to follow our southern coast. Buying a boat, he engaged teachers of boatsmanship (that may not be a word), navigation, survival, and whatever else he needed. He went to the coast and, after shakedown, he was off. His starting point wasn’t Key West, but uninhabited American islands beyond Key West named the Dry Tortugas. Thence to the better known keys. Thence up the west coast of Florida, thence along the Florida panhandle, thence across the Alabama coast…well, you know your geography and get the picture.
Along the way, he met lots of interesting people. Let’s see, there were commercial fishermen in southern Florida; marijuana trans-shippers further north, old friends in New Orleans, victims of repeated hurricanes in western Louisiana, and modern pirates in Texas. He made a trip up a river into Alabama, a hundred miles inland, and met interesting people there.
While often he was solo, he had his new wife and baby come for a while, as well as his older children. When he stopped, it wasn’t for a night, but for months at a time. The book describes many interactions with local people he encountered along the way. This is as much a part of the book as his time on the water.
Jenkins talked about how he quickly picked up the knack of operating the boat, how he built relationships with people. Sampling of various native foods was part of it.
This is a good book, easily read. My wife and I read it aloud in the evenings. Seldom were we bored, and never did we want to skip a day. I give this book 5 stars.
But is it a keeper? Alas, no. Too many books in the house already, and, my criteria for keepers nowadays is two-fold: 1) will I ever want to read this again? and 2) is it part of a larger collection I want to keep intact? The answer is no to both of these. So it has gone into the donation/sale pile. A trip to a thrift store is likely to happen this week, and this will go. Now, where did I put that other Jenkins book?
Every year, in November, tens of thousands of writers, at the start of November, sign pledges, set goals, and sit their rear ends in seats in front of computers and begin a novel. Yes, it’s National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. Internet groups have formed for it. Some in-person meet-ups are probably happening. The goal is 50,000 words for the month. That’s not quite a novel for most genres, but it’s more than just a good start. It’s well on it’s way to writing a novel.
But I am not participating. I never participate in NaNoWriMo. The main reason is the busyness of November. Our main annual family celebration is at Thanksgiving. Preparations for this normally consume much time and energy, leaving little for writing and certainly not enough to complete a novel or even 50,000 words of one. I am working on a novel, and today hope to carve out enough time to add 1,000 words to it. But I can’t commit to NaNoWriMo goals.
This year the time crunch is made worse because of decluttering. Two bedrooms have been in use as decluttering staging areas. They are cluttered. The dining room and our large dining table has also been a site of staging. Boxes and piles, boxes and piles, seemingly everywhere. They grow a little and shrink a little, depending on whether we are finishing with something or starting something new.
Saturday we made some good progress, so naturally the dining room looks much worse than it did on Friday. I said progress because we finally, after nine months, dug into boxes of linens left behind in our house when my mother-in-law died three years ago. We sorted. Somethings we discarded (which means put them aside to go to Goodwill, which takes odd cloths and makes things out of them). Today, Monday, with a little extra effort, might have all this sorted out and put either in the garage for storage/donation or in smaller boxes for storage. I hope.
Writing will continue, even as I work on both physical and digital decluttering. But I have no real goals for output until after Thanksgiving. Then, maybe by the end of December, the first draft of that novel will be done. Meanwhile, I will say with Emerson, there is time enough…for all that I must do.
What would you do if you were reading a book and came across this in it:
bowing at the altar of individualism, including individualist spirituality
I encountered it in a book I recently read. I won’t say what the book is, nor why I was reading it.
Let’s just say that I’ve run across this concept time and time again recently. Individualism is bad. Rugged individualism is a sin. We need to expunge individualism from society and the church. You can’t do discipleship solo. I don’t understand this concept. But perhaps we need to take a moment and define what individualism is. A modern dictionary definition is:
1. the habit or principle of being independent and self-reliant.
2. a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control.
Wikipedia has the following “executive summary” for their article on individualism:
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one’s goals and desires and to value independence and self-reliance and advocate that interests of the individual should achieve precedence over the state or a social group while opposing external interference upon one’s own interests by society or institutions such as the government. Individualism is often defined in contrast to totalitarianism, collectivism and more corporate social forms.
Individualism makes the individual its focus and so starts “with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation”. Anarchism, existentialism, liberalism and libertarianism are examples of movements that take the human individual as a central unit of analysis. Individualism involves “the right of the individual to freedom and self-realization”.
Individualism has been used as a term denoting “[t]he quality of being an individual; individuality”, related to possessing “[a]n individual characteristic; a quirk”. Individualism is also associated with artistic and bohemian interests and lifestyles where there is a tendency towards self-creation and experimentation as opposed to tradition or popular mass opinions and behaviors such as with humanist philosophical positions and ethics.
I’m really having trouble finding anything wrong with individualism, based on these definitions. I don’t find the necessity of such extreme manifestations of individualism as anarchism or bohemianism. For all conditions in society, you will find extreme examples, be that for individualism or the opposite. And, what is the opposite of individualism? Is it collectivism? Is it tribalism? Is it state-ism? Enquiring minds want to know.
The concept of self-reliance seems good to me. Don’t burden family or society any more than you have to. Can someone explain to me what’s wrong with doing for yourself to the greatest extent possible rather than burdening society?
Sometimes I think the war on people wanting to be unique individuals is an extrovert vs. introvert thing. Neither one fully understands the other, but I think extroverts tend to be more aggressive in trying to make the introvert be more extroverted than the other way around. Maybe I’m wrong about that, but as one who leans more to the introverted end of the spectrum, that’s what it seems to me. Sometimes people just want to be left alone, to do for themselves—to be an individual rather than one of the herd.
When I encountered “bowing to the altar of individualism” in that book, a clear case of over-the-top rhetoric in my not so humble opinion, I came close to throwing it in the trash. But I never throw any book in the trash, not even those I disagree strongly with. I have thrown out a couple that were cheaply made and had fallen apart, but not for disagreement.
Complete self-reliance is, or course, impossible unless one can live in a remote cabin somewhere and have the skills necessary to live alone. If someone can do that and maintain their Christian faith, God bless them, let them do that. But the world’s population is too large to allow many people to do that. Mankind has to mix in society nowadays and has had to for a long time. But why not live as self-reliantly as possible? Why not, when encountered with a task that needs to be done, say “How can I accomplish this on my own?” rather than to say “Who can I get to do this with me?” Why burden society if I can do it myself?
I’m no hermit. I’m not fully self-sufficient, nor do I want to be. But I don’t bow at any altar of individualism and I resent that statement. I see the moral worth of the individual. I believe each individual needs to do his best to take care of himself first before seeking help from society. And I don’t see that changing.
One more book like the last one coming being suggested for me and…I won’t be buying any more from it.
My new landing page. I hope you’ll check it out before leaving today.
Those who read this blog regularly know that it has been a goal of mine for a long time to do some updates on the site. What specifically? A writer friend said having my bio on the landing page wasn’t best. It should be on a page by itself and have the landing page for notices. After thinking about it, and seeing what some other writers did, I decided she was right. Also, my works-in-progress page is forever behind times. I looked at it on Thursday and saw I hadn’t updated it in a year.
As I say, it has been a goal to do some updates, but I kept putting it off. Why? The short answer is: technophobia. Yep, I’m scared that I will mess up and will see my website go poof into the ether. My security program supposedly backs up my site, so in theory I could restore it, but that’s something I wouldn’t look forward to or have confidence in. So, for months, I’ve had updates as a goal but have put off working on it.
Last Wednesday I finished a certain milestone on a different project, and had to decide what to do next. I have my novel-in-progress to work on, but before I got back on that I took a look at my writing goals for the month. And there it was: Begin the process of revamping my website.
That’s a good thing to do today, I thought. So I did it. With WordPress, everything is menu driven. You don’t really need to know html for the simple things. It took me a little while to orient myself to the menu system, as it’s been that year since I last looked at it. But I finally did. I created a bio page, moved the bio from the landing page to the bio page, and saved. Then I put some new text and photos on the landing page. I saved and…I couldn’t find the bio page. What happened?
The top part of my new bio page. I probably should re-read it for typos. You can find it through the Menu.
I discovered that you have to manually change the menu to have a new page show up on it. I’d done that twice before, at least eight years ago. So I dug into the menu on menus and got that changed. I hit save, and there was the Bio listed in the revised menu. That was enough change for a day.
On Friday, I looked at everything again. I realized that the Bio page needed some photos. So I searched my photos, selected a few (including the embarrassing 4th grade photo with the lock of hair sticking up), loaded them to the Bio page, saved. I think it looks fairly good. For good measure I added a couple of photos to other pages.
No, my website isn’t splashy like many peoples’. It never will be unless I learn html and grow an artistic bone. The best I can hope for is to do no harm with it, and I think I’m about there. This week I’ll update my works-in-progress page. I’ll also put a reminder on my calendar to update that page monthly
A book that covers the years 1935-1947 in JFK’s life.
It’s no secret that I like to read about the life of President Kennedy. I’ve posted several reviews about him. My JFK collection is around twenty volumes. In my closet, on a book pile that I dig into from time to time and found The Search for JFK, a 1976 book by Joan and Clay Blair, Jr. At 671 pages, my copy of this is a good quality hardback bought at a thrift store. When I found it, it was, I believe, the only JFK book in the house I hadn’t read.
This book covers JFK’s years in prep school, university, pre-war, World War 2, and the start of his political career, the years of 1935 to about 1947. While these years had been covered in other biographies and histories, the authors felt that something was missing, that the true facts about this period in the president’s life had not been adequately documented.
So they poured over what was available at the (then temporary) Kennedy Library in Waltham MA. They interviewed over 150 people in the years 1973-74. Just a decade after the assassination and three to four decades after the years covered, many people were alive and willing to tell the story of how they intersected with JFK’s life. This included classmates, military comrades, fellow politicians, relatives, and the many women he chased/dated. Not everyone would talk with the authors. Some refused to answer certain questions. Some gave interviews only by phone or in writing. But the authors doggedly persisted, and a story emerged.
The authors have dispelled three myths about Kennedy—successfully dispelled, in my opinion. Those are:
that Jack was a robust young man. Not true. His health was perhaps the worst of any president ever elected. Born with a bad back (forget the lies about football or PT boat injuries), frequently given to infections, requiring numerous and lengthy hospitalizations before he ever got to Congress, and finally beset with Addison’s Disease, Kennedy was a basket case, health-wise. His health should have disqualified him from serving in the armed forces, but his daddy pulled some strings.
that Jack was a dedicated and brilliant scholar. That JFK had a superior mind is beyond doubt. But he was no scholar. He lost a couple of years of studies to illness. He never attended two schools that most biographers said he did. His writings were primarily done by others. His “cum laude” Harvard years were anything but stellar.
that Jack was a war hero. I want to be careful here. As one who never served in the armed forces, I tend to think that all who did so should be considered heroes and deserve our respect and support. But what the authors have done is document the carefully crafted PR campaign that attributed to Jack things he never did, that glossed over the fact that the ramming of PT109 was likely due to Kennedy’s negligence—it was the only PT boat rammed in the entire war. His hero status got him elected to Congress, which was never what JFK wanted. His father wanted it more than he did, and since the oldest son died in WW2, it fell to Jack to pick up the family’s political ambitions whether he wanted to or not.
Note that, while the book discusses the many women in Kennedy’s life, it does so in a discrete manner. Many other authors have covered his womanizing in great detail. I guess the Blairs decided they didn’t have to. The names of many are included; the reader has to guess at the nature of the relationships, or find another book to give the full story.
The book is well written and well worth the read. It is refreshing to read a JFK book that isn’t about the assassination. I’ve poured through enough of those. I do have one fault to pick, which is the authors used quotes a little more than I would have liked. I thought some of their selections didn’t actually add to the story. A little shortening of those and I’d be giving it 5 stars. As it is, only four.
But, is this a keeper? Will I ever re-read it? I’ve thought long and hard about this. I have a shelf full of JFK books. I’ve enjoyed reading them. While they all are history, a lot of that history happened during my lifetime, making it all the more interesting. But, in the spirit of dis-accumulation/decluttering/preparing to downsize, and given my age, the number of years I have left and the huge number of other books I want to read, I am unlikely to ever read these again and thus they have to go. Now that I’ve finished this one, I will list the collection on Facebook Marketplace and see if I have any takers.
And, I’m also not likely to buy any more. Well, maybe one I saw today on Amazon, if I ever find it used. Then no more.
Start of a new month. Time to report on what progress I made in October, and to establish some goals for November. First, the progress.
Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. I have a couple of conflicts coming up, so maybe those pre-written and to-be-scheduled posts will come in handy. I almost achieved this. I looked back over the month and realized I missed one day. I’m not sure how that happened. I thought I had one scheduled for that day. I suppose I hit a wrong key and the post disappeared.
Work on my work-in-progress, The Forest Throne. I did get back to this. I worked on it a couple of times at a writer on-line event (more on that another time), then worked on it three or four days in a row. I’m liking where it is and how far I’m into it.
Link the four novels in my Church History novels series. Why do I keep putting this off? This month I didn’t put this off. Got it done.
Begin formatting the church Centennial book. I received one of three outside contributions and pasted it in. I have a promise of receiving the other two very soon. I’m happy to report I accomplished this. I now of two of the three outside contributions; I have the book formatted for book size; I’ve been adding photographs. I suspect I have another five hours of work for the book to be ready for someone to make a cover and begin the printing process. Well, first finding a printer.
Attend writers groups this month. I’m not sure how many it will be. I may have conflicts with the meeting dates of two of my regular groups. Maybe I’ll be able to get in on the new group a couple of times. I did this. I missed two meetings while traveling, but attended three meetings of a new group, an on-line group. A productive month in this category.
Publish “Foxtrot Alpha Tango”, once I get critiques back from the Scribblers & Scribes. I have one back already. Publishing will mean cover creation, but I’m already pulling ideas together. Did not get this done. Just too busy on other things.
Take a look at, but don’t necessarily write more on, the Bible study I was working on during the spring and early summer. No, didn’t get this done.
Ok, what do I want to accomplish in November? This is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). But November, with our family Thanksgiving celebration, is always too busy for me to participate. Plus, we still have decluttering/disaccumulation activities. Still, I want to establish some goals. Here they are.
Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday.
Attend my writers groups this month. That will be about six meetings if I make all of them.
Continue formatting work on the church Centennial book. With luck, and a few good hours, it will be finished when Dec 1 rolls around.
More work on The Forest Throne. I’ll even set a word goal on this: 10,000 words more than I have now.
Begin the process of revamping my website. I don’t really have that much to do on it, mainly have a new landing page and move my bio to it’s own page. I ought to be able to achieve that.
I think that’s all I’ll establish as official goals. An unofficial goal is to continue to go through my writing papers and see what I need to keep, what I can get rid of.
I’ll check back in either late November or early December with a progress report and new goals.
