Cindy Koepp's Blog, page 3

2017 Goals: Writing Goals

I didn’t quite make my writing goals last year. I made some good progress in the right direction, but the mission was not accomplished. Several factors played into that (moving several states north, some challenging editing and critiquing assignments, job hunting, losing a good chunk of the work done with my smartpen, etc), but in the end, the goal was a bust.

I’m going to try again. My second goal for 2017 is to finish the draft of A Suitable Arrangement.

The good news is, some of the smartpen OCR text can still be used. I was able to resurrect some of it and parts of that still work with the new plot outline a friend helped me put together when I discovered my original plot map had holes you could parallel park a semi in. So far, I’ve been able to bring across about 7500 words (typical novel is about 90,000 words). I know there are some other usable parts that will survive, too.

I’m also going to take part in “JaNoWriMo.” Every November, there’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which is a sort of writing contest in which novelists try to put together 50,000 words toward a novel. (50,000 words is considered the smallest acceptable word count for some kinds of novels). A pile of my writer pals all decided that’s a stupid time of year to do it because of holiday shenanigans. So, about 100 of us are doing JaNoWriMo (January Novel Writing Month). I’ll be working on A Suitable Arrangement. To make the goal of 40,000 words (they also thought 50,000 was a little ambitious), I will need to write about 1300 words per day. Doable. Definitely doable.

No, the work I did in December and the text I bring across from the old OCR file won’t count. I’ll account for that so only new writing gets counted.

I currently have about 10,000 words on the project, so successfully completing JaNoWriMo will give me the first half of the novel.

After January, I plan to keep up a writing goal of 500 words per day until it’s finished. Some days I’ll manage more. Some days I’ll manage less … or none.

Once I have it written, the revising part comes next. I’ll spend some time polishing it up myself, using the self-editing checklist put together from comments I consistently get from different editors.

By the end of 2017, I plan to have a completed and revised draft of A Suitable Arrangement.

2017 Goals: Career Goals

For 2016, I set some goals for myself with various, mostly favorable results. I’m setting new goals for 2017 in the areas of career hunting, writing, crafting, and eating.

 

After the Grand Northward Move, I started looking for work in fields I’m interested in doing for a living: editing, writing, training, and/or improving performance. Although some of those are not apparent in my resume, I actually do have experience in all of the above.

By January 1, 2017, I had about 80 applications out in the world and I was signed up through a few agencies. Unfortunately, few companies actually hire people at the end of the year. Tax phenomena become less challenging if they wait until after the first of the year, and a lot of the hiring managers take time off for family, like a lot of folks do.

In the meantime, I’m doing some project work for my brother’s business by listing some sterling silver jewelry on eBay.

Presently, I do have some traction on a couple applications through an agency and one that’s a direct hire. As the new year kicks off and people get back from vacation, I’m hoping some of the others will gain some traction, too.

My first goal for 2017: Find a job, preferably in the field I spent so much time and effort studying for.

 

2016 Goals

In January 2016, I established 5 goals:

Draft a novel.
Apply for 50 jobs in my field (performance improvement/corporate training)… or land one.
Start an LLC based on the things I can do (edit manuscripts, do crafty stuff, performance improvement projects).
Make Christmas presents for everyone on my list.
Research at least 5 different marketing strategies and try at least 3 I haven’t done before.

So… How’d I do?

Goal 1: Draft a novel.

Well… not that great. Moving north, job hunting, and a few particularly involved editing/critiquing projects put a damper on my writing time. I did get a good chunk of a draft started (the sequel to another work) … and then my smart pen died and the OCR work on the text I did manage to record was horrible. I ended up having to start over. Adding to that challenge, I realized the plot I had designed had some holes in it. A friend helped me plug those up again. I also worked with a critique partner on straightening out Bird’s Eye: The Novel Needing a Better Name. It’s back in the queue to be worked on.

I did, however, make progress. I have A Suitable Arrangement, the sequel to Lines of Succession, plotted out to fix the problem parts, and I’ve started the draft. So, I didn’t accomplish the goal, but I did make ground on a couple projects and wrote some short stories.

Goal 2: Apply for 50 jobs in my field.

Pfff… I had that done by March 1. I didn’t land a job in the field, though. Between applying cross-country, teaching kids for 14 years, and not having a certificate you need 5 years of full-time work in the field to qualify for … I amassed a lovely collection of flush letters.

I decided to take a break after I applied for (and got a flush letter for) the 100th job.

I have not given up. Now that I’m up in the part of the world where I want to eventually find that job, I think I have better prospects. In December, I sent another 78 applications out and signed up with a couple agencies. We’ll see how this goes as the new year starts.

Goal 3: Start an LLC

I had that one done by the end of January.

When I moved to Iowa, I had to shut it down. Iowa doesn’t recognize Texas LLCs, and Texas says I have to live there to have an LLC (or have an agent of the company living there, and I do not since I am the LLC).

Will I start another one in Iowa? I doubt it, but we’ll see. The outgo for the company exceeded the income, which makes upkeep the downfall.

Goal 4: Make Christmas presents for everyone 

Yes, actually, I did manage it. They weren’t the quilts I had in mind, but I did make cloth origami ornaments and angel ornaments for folks. The quilts are in the works, but to do a good job, I need more time. I didn’t want to slop together some flotsam and call it done.

Goal 5: Marketing strategies

Yep, I got this one, too.

I actually did 6: book trailer, Facebook events, DIY blog tour, DIY book signing at a craft fair, hired blog tour, and book signing at a book store (arranged by my publisher).

Kylie Jude at Frozen Creek Studios put together a book trailer for me to showcase Remnant in the Stars and The Loudest Actions. She did fine work.

I did 2 Facebook events for the two books that released in 2016: Like Herding the Wind and The Loudest Actions. I also took part in a 3rd event for an anthology I was in: Avatars of Web Surfer. The first one, for Like Herding the Wind, was almost immediately after release. A spike in sales was reported by my publisher. The second was a couple months after the release of The Loudest Actions to coincide with a hired blog tour. The third, for Avatars of Web Surfer, was a group effort but unfortunately, conflict with 2 other author events reduced our results. Ultimately, folks had fun, but they were costly to host (especially the first one for Like Herding the Wind ).

The DIY blog tour didn’t go so well. Didn’t cost me anything, but I couldn’t find enough people to play.

The book signing at the craft fair wasn’t too shabby. I sold 6 books and a couple bookmarks. Cost: $10 to set up.

Then Like Herding the Wind’s publisher arranged 3 book signings for me at different Barnes and Nobles, one in Texas and two in Iowa after I moved. One of the Iowa ones fell through when the fellow in charge of organizing the event made a wee error. I handed out a lot of book marks and sold a bunch of books at the first one and only 1 book at the second, but again the cost of the swag associated exceeded the increase in sales.

For The Loudest Actions,  I hired Tomorrow Comes Media to arrange a book tour. Stephen Zimmer did a fabulous job of lining people up and guiding me through the adventure. When I get my next royalty statement from Under the Moon, I’ll be able to tell if the ROI is worthwhile. It, too, cost a good chunk of change.

So, in the final analysis, did I see a spike in sales sufficient to overcome the costs? No, I don’t think so, but I won’t know for sure until I sit down with all my royalty statements and compare this 2016 to 2015.

Overall

In the end, I would say 2016 was a pretty good year as far as goals go. I hit most of my goals and made good progress on the one I didn’t get to finish.

In January, I’ll outline my goals for 2017.

Christmas Traditions

There are lots of traditions associated with Christmas in this part of the world. There aren’t (m)any that show up in the Bible, so where’d they come from? (No, this isn’t turning into yet another post about whether Christians should celebrate Christmas. There are enough of those out there. Personally, Colossians 2:16.)

The Date

The last article went over the date controversy. December 25 was chosen by a Roman Emperor (Constantine) and ratified by a pope (Julius I) to draw emphasis away from pagan holidays at the same time.

Now, it’s meant to symbolize how Christ is the light of the world (December 25 is about the time when days are noticeably longer than the longest night: December 21) and conquered the darkness of sin.

Decorated Evergreen Trees

These were the special tree of the Viking sun god Balder.

Martin Luther re-purposed them to show the endless life of Christ.

Candles

Romans used candles during Saturnalia (a couple weeks before the current Christmas date) as a gift to the god Saturn.

Now… they represent the light of Christ in the world.

Holly

Druids used holly to represent the continuation of life throughout the winter, when all the deciduous trees go dormant.

Christians use holly to represent the thorns used in the crown at Christ’s crucifixion.

Gift-giving

Gifts were given to royalty, which is why the Wise Guys showed up with gifts. Gifts of (wax?) dolls were given to kids during Saturnalia.

Now we give gifts to remember the gifts given to the Christ by the Wise Guys.

Santa Claus

The fat guy in the red suit? That actually pre-dates the Coca Cola ad that most folks think is the origin. There are magazine covers before that ad that show the modern depiction of Santa Clause in the early 1900s. Further back from that, though, he’s based on St. Nicholas, who gave gifts to gals who had no dowry after their daddy spent the family fortune on goofy stuff.

Yule Log

If you wanted good luck, the Viking men of the house had to find an oak tree big enough to burn for 12 days, and it had to catch fire on the first try.

Now it’s a snack cake shaped like a log.

Mistletoe

In the Roman Empire, meeting under mistletoe was a time to trash old enmities and restore friendships.

Christ took away our enmity with God and restored our friendship with him. … And, unrelated, guys smooch girls they meet under mistletoe.

“Twas the Night Before Christmas…”

That’s a poem by Clement Moore from 1822.

Bells

Bells (and other noisy stuff) were used to scare away evil spirits.

These days, they proclaim good news: church is starting soon, Gospel, marriage, etc.

 

That’s a bunch of them anyway. There are more, I’m sure.

What traditions does your family observe for Christmas?

 

Jesus’ Birth Date

So, was Jesus born on December 25 in Year 0?

Well, no.

In our current year reckoning system (whether you use the traditional BC/AD scenario or the newer BCE/CE one), there was no Year 0. 1 BC(E) was followed promptly by AD (CE) 1.

What year was he actually born?

Boy is there debate about THAT. If you look at a variety of resources you get everything from 7 BC to AD 1. Folks base their reasoning on comments about Herod’s death and the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.

Most of the sources center around a 4-2 BC time frame.

How about the December 25 part?

Not likely, but there’s a lot of hubbub about this, too.

One of the arguments against a December birth date involve the shepherds tending their flocks at night in the open air. It can snow in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, which are higher altitude locations. Shepherds were probably not hanging out in the open fields with snow likely. Other folks refute this by saying that it doesn’t get that cold and these people were sturdier sorts than we are today, so they’d handle it. I don’t know about that. Even 40 degrees is mighty chilly.

Another suggestion involves the feast days of Israel. Jesus’ death and resurrection line up with the spring feasts (Passover). The church’s birthday was Pentecost, the one really different holiday in the middle. What lines up with the fall feasts? Well … there are those who say that Jesus was born in conjunction with those. No chance of snow in the mountains to impede traffic headed for the census, and the One who will provide atonement shows up on/near Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).

A third point against the December 25 date is the way it was assigned. Roman Emperor Constantine picked December 25 and a few years later Pope Julius I nailed it down. Why? So it’d coincide with some non-Christian holidays as a sneaky way to get folks to convert to Christianity without losing all their fun and frivolity. In fact, many of the “Christian” traditions around the holiday (yule logs, decorated trees, spiced fruit/alcohol drinks, etc) were direct carry-overs from the non-Christian holidays celebrated right about then.

A different idea supports the December 25 date. This one involves signs in the stars and software (like Stellarium) that can backtrack where the stars were 2000ish years ago. One presentation I saw some 2 decades ago suggests that some interesting shenanigans occur in the sky right around the end of December about 4 BC. Stuff like the constellation Leo being directly opposite the sun relative to Earth and a natural phenomenon (supernova? It’s been a while, so I don’t remember) accounting for the Star in the East that led the wise guys. The Bible does mention signs in the sky as a way to mark major events.

So, what is Jesus’ birthday for real?

No solid ideas here. The Bible doesn’t give any absolute dates. It gives a couple relative reference points (15th year of Tiberius, the death of Herod, John the Baptist’s birth — combined with the timing of when his daddy would have served in the Temple and had his angelic visitor), but nothing to hang a stocking cap on. My personal opinion is that Jesus was probably born sometime around September-October-ish in the 6-2 BC time frame.

What do you think?

Wise Guys

Go to Matthew 2:1-3.

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

We learn there that not only was Herod upset about the Magi, but also the whole city was.  Why was the city of Jerusalem in a panic about the Magi showing up?

Unfortunately, we’re all victims of the cute little nativity scenes showing three guys on camels.  That’s simply not a realistic representation.

First, you need a little history to understand what’s going on.  Daniel was put in charge of the Magi (Daniel 2:48 — Then the king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon.).  Later, when the Persians came to power, he rose to one of the top positions in the country again (Daniel 6:2 — And over these three presidents; of whom Daniel was first: that the princes might give accounts unto them, and the king should have no damage.).  Although the Bible doesn’t record this, some historical accounts and traditions suggest that Daniel trained a group of men to recognize the signs in the heavens.  (That’s not astrology, but astronomy.  God does mention using signs in the sky).  The tradition was passed down through the years.  The Magi became the King Makers of the Empire.  They decided who would be king next and supported that person’s reign.

Jump ahead to the Roman Empire.  What had been the Persian Empire came apart under the Greek Empire and what was left became the Parthian Empire (http://www.parthia.com/).  You don’t hear much about them, but the Parthians and Romans were perpetually at odds over Israel.  The whole area traded hands back and forth several times.  In fact, it was so unstable that when Herod was put in charge, he couldn’t even live there for quite some time.

So, Israel is a very unsteady place around the time of Jesus’ birth.  Rome had control at that point and named Herod the king.  He was not Jewish, and you can guess how well that went over with Israel.

You also need to bear in mind that long distance travel in those days wasn’t safe.  There were armed brigands and wild, dangerous critters everywhere.  People typically traveled over distances with a caravan, and if you had any wealth to speak of, you went with an armed escort.  If the Magi are bringing such expensive gifts as gold, frankincense, and myrrh, they were not poor folks, so they had protection with them.

Okay, put it all together.  You have a group of (probably a lot more than 3) Parthian King-Makers show up with military escort to talk to a non-Jewish, appointed, unpopular king about the real, hereditary king of the Jews.  For all Herod knew, these guys were there to start a new fracas with Rome.  As for the folks of the city, war is an unpleasant, dangerous business even if you’re a bystander, so the townsfolk were also in an uproar waiting to see what these Parthians wanted.

Write This Man Childless!

Go to Jeremiah 22:30.

Thus saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.

There is a curse on Jeconiah, the king of Judah, that no man of his seed will prosper or sit on the throne of David.  Jeconiah, being a king of Judah, is a descendant of David and an ancestor of Jesus.  We know Jesus sits on the throne of David, so how does God get around the Blood Curse on Jeconiah?

Well, with a virgin birth, of course.  God also arranges for Joseph, who is a direct heir of Jeconiah, to become Jesus’ legal father.  Joseph is not, however, related to Jesus by blood.

King Herod

For the Christmas season posts, let’s go for a little trivia…

King Herod the Great had control of Israel at the time of Jesus’ birth. He had a convoluted history that involved odd, belligerent, dangerous relatives. He himself was not exactly a nice guy, history tells us.

He took advantage of the political climate of the Roman Empire to come to power by backing the right guy in a civil war.

After the birth of Jesus, the Wise Guys … er … Wise Men stopped in Jerusalem to check in with Herod. Herod asked them to tell him the location of Jesus, but hey, these guys were smart, and they went home by another route to avoid Herod.

Not to be thwarted so easily, Herod ordered the murder of all baby boys (under 2 years old). Fortunately, Joseph got a warning from an angel and took off Egypt with his family before the massacre occurred. Joseph and Mary kept Jesus in Egypt until Herod the Great became Herod the Deceased.

Although Herod was a king in Israel, he was not a Jew.  What was his nationality?

Thanksgiving in the US

Popular tradition has it that Thanksgiving started with the Pilgrims, and it did. Sort of.

The European settlers landed first at Plymouth, but ran into very unhappy natives, so they headed south and settled in Cape Cod. The winter was a disaster, but the following spring, a couple of the local Indians taught them survival strategies and ways to grow food more effectively.

In the fall, the colony threw a party and invited the Indians who helped them out. The food was more than our usual turkey day dinner. Pretty much any food they had to share, was shared. Sports were involved … but I’m pretty sure football wasn’t one of them.

This was not a yearly gig. There were a couple other celebrations in the 1600s and 1700s, but the yearly phenomenon didn’t start until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

There was some jockeying around with the date. President Franklin Roosevelt moved it around to give retailers more time for Christmas sales, a sneaky trick he though would contribute to America’s recovery from the Depression.

So, who locked it to the 4th Thursday of November? Congress in 1941.

How does your family celebrate the day?

 

Source material for this week and last:

http://www.coolest-holiday-parties.com/thanksgiving-traditions.html

 

SpecMusicMuse—Review of Remnant in the Stars by Cindy Koepp

A review for Remnant in the Stars!

Scott M. Sandridge

The freelance crew of the Gyrfalcon are given a special mission to find the Kesha, an exploration vessel that disappeared after leaving a garbled message. All Derek needs to complete his crew is a pilot and an Aolanian astrogator. He recruits Kirsten Abbot, an injured fighter pilot with a malfunctioning prosthetic arm; and Calonti Sora, an Aolanian banished by his people who has a daughter who was onboard the Kesha. In order to save the crew, they must deal with two anti-Aolanian groups seeking to sabotage the search and rescue.

Remnant in the Stars by Cindy Koepp reminds me of some of the more old-school science fiction where characters resolved conflicts with their brains instead of just their weapons, but while also focusing on the characters instead of just the gadgets while delving deep into cultural, philosophical, and religious themes. Koepp takes a basic plot, a search and rescue…

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