Morning Things

 The morning began well. 

I had an email from my primary care doctor informing me that our local hospital will begin COVID vaccine shots next Wednesday. I went online and signed up. I get mine at 8:10am, Inauguration Day! It's the Phizer vaccine, so I'll get my next one three weeks later. That puts me one day after my wife who got her first one this past Tuesday. She got the Moderna, so she has to wait four weeks.

Then I watched the news and It made me depressed, sad, mad, and then fed up, so I turned to English soccer. My team, Tottenham, is currently in fifth place, so that didn't help my disposition.

This past Tuesday we had our first meeting of the new year and we had 10 of 14 people show up (virtually). Most enjoyed the book. I began reading next month's book this morning. It is labeled historical fiction, so it's based on a true story. Sounds interesting.

It takes place in 1739 South Carolina and is the story of a 16-year-old girl who manages the family's three plantations making indigo ink. I don't anything about making indigo, so it should be interesting.

Finally, I got a text from my wife who is working this morning about 10 miles away. She said it was snowing heavily where she was. I went to the door and looked out. There was a small dusting on the ground, but only wetness on the street and walkways. It was barely snowing here. Thirty minutes later I decided to take a picture for the blog. Here's what I got.

Excuse the lack of clarity; the window did that. In any case, the snow was gone.

Two Books a Day

I have been posting on Facebook for the past week or so, some books from my library. I usually post two in the morning, together in one photo, usually with a connection of sorts. Then I post again in the afternoon another two. Most of the time I say nothing about the books, letting the titles and authors speak for themselves. 

If someone asks a question or comment, I respond. Some of the books I've read; some I intend on reading. I don't differentiate. 

Here is one of my old bookcases I bought At Corfe Castle in England in 1971. I paid $5 for the pair. Solid walnut. This is where I get a lot of the books I post.

The Man Who Wrote A Page A Day

 Today is the beginning of a new year. The day that many decide to make resolutions. The day that many decide to try new things or stop old things. I have been one of these - in each category - for many, many years. I don't know how many times I was successful, but I do know that I failed more often than I won.

I was thinking over the last few days about what I accomplished during the self-imposed isolation caused by COVID. I am still trying to come up with a few other than I got more reading done (52 books this year). But if you look at sheer numbers. I am down from 2019 (65). Fewer, but many were longer and more difficult to read. And I tried to write a novel. Which brings me to the title of my post today.

Jim McCahery was a friend who taught foreign languages at Xavier where I worked. He was also a published author. The one pictured above is actually his second of a series. I loaned the first one to another teacher and it was never returned. The series is about a retired woman who was a radio star in the '30s and '40s and is now a gardener of flowers. And she solves crimes.

But the purpose of this post is not to tell you about the book or series, but to tell you a little about what Jim taught me about writing. Jim and I would often find ourselves in the faculty lounge at the same time. I guess we had similar free periods. I don't know how the subject first came up, but I mentioned to Jim that I had always wanted to write a novel.

Jim had many things that he passed on to me, but I have forgotten most of them. That's primarily because I never had the discipline to consistently practice them. But the one thing I do remember was his method of producing a page of written story each day.

Jim would come home from school each day at about 3:30 pm. If it was light enough outside he would do some gardening first. Otherwise, it would wait until the weekend. When he sat down to write his goal for the day was first to edit the previous day's page of output. Then he would put it aside. Next, he would write that day's page but without any real editing. He found he could do this in less than three hours. That was his schedule.

I tried it, but my schedule couldn't accept it. First, I didn't get home until after 7:00 pm in the evenings. I had a wife and two small children (Jim lived with a partner, but had no children). I had my running that I was addicted to as well, and that had to be fitted into my schedule. So it never worked. Truthfully, I probably never let it work for me.

Jim died before he could finish his third book. After that, I lost any built-in incentive to keep writing. This was in the mid-1990s. I've tried to start writing again several times, but all have been failures. During the COVID shut-down, I have done some outlining for a book. If I had conscientiously been writing, I could have had over 300 pages done by now.

So I am going to give it a try. Starting today. Each day. I will write periodic reports, truthful reports, here in the blog to keep myself motivated.

Wish me luck!