Category: General

Day Two

Day two was a little tough. I had planed on writing during lunch, but ended up a customer meeting, and only had 300 words written by the time I got home from boy scouts. Was up to eleven writing.

Two day and tomorrow are going to be tough because of evening meetings. I’ve got to get lots of words written at lunch both days.

The other issue will be what to write. I have an outline for most of the days this month, but the next two are blank – with just the general topic of the rise of technology.

October Newsletter

The October newsletter is out with one day to spare.

Needless to say September and October were busy months, and now with NaNoWriMo starting, November will be even busier .

On the Novel from I have a phone call at 10Am today with a publisher. The publisher is Christian based and does both traditional and partnership publishing. I visited their web site and this is the follow up call. My guess is that it is a sales call to get me into a partnership deal.

I’ll let everyone know how it goes.

August Newsletter

The August newsletter is ready to go. This marks one year. Looking back over the year it is interesting to see were they’ve gone. At first I thought I would write one for each of the characters, but I’ve only written about one of them, Julie. I’ve written about God, about the town, about dwarfs and turpes, and about writing.

This month I asked Emma what I should write about and she said, “pets.” So that’s what I did. It kind of surprised me as I wrote it because I didn’t think I had written about animals very much in my story. When I was done I had written two full pages.

So what will next month bring? I’ve finished the first pass through the book and now I’m going to try and do quick focused passes. May be I’ll write about my experience with editing the first line of each chapter.

Goal Check

Six months into the year, it’s time to see how I’m doing on the goals for the year.

1) Send out a news letter each month.

So far, so good. I’ve written and sent one news letter each month. A couple times I was finishing the newsletter in the last couple days of the month, but I sent one out each month. It has been interesting picking the topics each month. This year I’ve written about: Dwarfs, Journals, Fight Scenes, Where is God, World Building, Where I’ve been.

2) Post at least one character blog entry per week.

Julie – 6

Hector – 1

Samuel – 1

Annay – 2

Turies – 5

Brian – 4

For a total of 19 in 26 weeks.

Better than half, but not were I wanted to be. Part of the problem is that I sabotaged myself. I started looking at my blogs and wondering if they were becoming a prequel to my novel. In other words if they were or should be centering around a central story. While thinking about that question it distracted me from writing just random posts. I think I do want to have the blogs tell a story, but I still want the blogs to be spontainous and free formed. I’m going to spend the next couple weeks mapping out where I want the blogs to go and get back to writing one a week.

3) Have my story flogged.

I sent in the first 16 lines and they were flogged. I learned a few things and I’ve made some changes. At some point I probably should send in my revised 16 lines.

4) Complete the first revision of my book by June.

I’m about a third of the way through and have not made any progress in the last three months. It has been a bit frustrating. I think there are two my reasons that I’ve been making slow progress. The first is that I’ve been working so much at my full time job that I come home I am mentally exhausted. The second is that I think that my check list of things to check in the first revision was too ambushes. I think I need to go back and run through the book in multiple passes.

My new goal is to get through the grammar pass by the end of July. Then I’ll pick something else off my list and try and do that in August.

5) Read the two books I got for my birthday.

I’ve read 3/4 of the manuscript makeover book and skimmed through the other. I want to finish the manuscript book this summer. It is still a little early for the second book to have much meaning to me. Maybe this coming winter.

Duty

I just wrote a journal entry for Brian, Master Gees’ houseboy. The entry was a reflection on duty. In Boy Scouts we say, “I will do my duty to God and my country.” I get to ask each boy what it means for them to do their duty, and what their duties are to God and to their country.

Almost universally the eleven year old boys have a tough time expressing what duty is and what their duties are. Even though I’ve tried to explain it dozens of times. I still have a hard time explaining duty in words that a boy can understand – maybe because I’ve never really put it into words that I understood.

I think about my duty to God. Is it obedience to God? I would say that it is my duty to be obedient, but not the other way around –  I am being obedient by doing my duty to God.

In the blog I wondered if duty had to do more with the motivation than the actually thing being done. Is it my duty because I’m afraid of the consequences? No. Is it my duty because I’ve been charged with the obligation? Maybe sort of.

I think, at least in part, that I do my duty to God because of my realization of how wonderful he is. He is so great that as an act of recognition of that greatness, I feel a sense of duty. Doing my duty is not about the results of my actions, but instead a response to God’s actions in the past.

Is the same true for my country? I feel a duty to my country, not because I might be rewarded for doing my duty, but instead because of how good my life is because of this country. I follow the laws and pay my taxes, not because I fear the punishment for not doing these things, but because I believe that I live in a great country that deserves that response from me.

Perhaps that is the problem with how we view duty. We are surprised when people don’t do their duty. But if someone feels betrayed by their country, where would the motivation to do their duty come from? And when citizens stop feeling like they have a duty to their country, the country has to find another way to obtain obedience – fear.

How much better when citizens feel a duty to their country. rather than when a ruler has to use fear. How much better when we feel duty towards God because he has loved us, rather than to live in fear of the wrath of God if we are not obedient.

I’m glad I feel a duty to God and to my country, not a fear of God and country.