​To is the last day of November.  I finished my manuscript on Monday and in its rough draft form I finished with 86,366 words.  I wanted to write a novel with 80,000-85,000 words so I’m not far off the mark.  It is anyone’s guess how many words the published novel will have.  At the beginning of the year I wanted to finish the draft by the close of December and now find myself done a full month early.  Who could have anticipated that?
What has the journey been like, you ask.  It was been both a surprise and revealing.  I know myself well enough to give myself a weekly word writing goal – simple math – 85.000 words divided by 52 weeks is 1635 words a week.  I also know myself well enough to know I couldn’t sustain writing every week, so I fudged the weekly goal and made it 1750 a week, to ensure that I would at least get the rough draft done this year.
Just like the first time I gave myself a weekly writing goal I found that I often exceeded my goal.  It’s a matter of rhythm and losing myself in the story.  As is my nature, I recorded every week how many words I wrote, even it was zero.  As it turns out there were eight weeks that I didn’t write a single word.  Looking back on the process, it is a wonder than I finished by the end of November.  There was also a two week period devoted to re-writing the first three chapters which I decided was needed after comments from my editor.  So, rather than a nice smooth pattern of weekly creativity, my path was fraught with starts, stops and repeat.  A mirror of life.
I’ve read a lot on how to edit your own work.  For my last book I dived in with a red pen soon after writing ’The End’ and worked on sentence structure, grammar and spelling.  This time I’m taking a different approach.  First, I’m going to take a break in December and not read a single word of the draft.
Then in January I’m going to print out all 346 pages and read it.  I need to see if the story has my interest and hangs together.  For the second reading I’m going to concentrate of plot and pacing.  The third reading will explore characters, their relationships with each other and their authenticity.  The fourth reading will look at sentence structure, word choice, tense and technical grammar issues.  After that I’ll let someone else have read for their reaction.
The Wisconsin Writer’s Institute is offering full manuscript reviews this year and my teacher Christine De
Smet is offering the service.  I’m going to sign up for a full manuscript review, the first time I’ve used this approach when the person isn’t also my publisher.  For Out of Darkness, Christine Keleny worked as both my editor and publisher.  I don’t know, maybe it’s something about the name Christine.
I hope to launch Dead Reckoning to the world by this time next year – wish me luck.       

​This year marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.  History has left us a few scarce facts about the person we regard as the greatest playwright in the English language.  We   do know he died on April 23, 1616 in Stratford Upon Avon.
To mark the death of the playwright the Folger  Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. are sponsoring a tour of the First Folio to all fifty states.  In Wisconsin, the Chazen Museum in Madison Wisconsin was selected to display the First Folio from November 3 to December 11th.  During that time a host of events have been scheduled to teach about the importance of the First Folio to our culture.
I have been fortunate to attend four separate events, attend a docent tour of the Folio and the Chazen Museum and a performance of the Madison Shakespeare Company.
My first impression was that it was simply a fluke of history that we have the First Folio.  When Shakespeare was writing copy right laws did not yet exist.  Here’s an interesting fact, Shakespeare did not own the plays he wrote.  The plays were actually owned by the theater company, The Lord Chamberlin’s Men, that he was a partner in.  In 1603 King James I offered the company a patent and from that time on were called King’s Men.
In the United States the Folger Shakespeare Museum was started by Henry Folger and his wife, Emily.  Henry was CEO of Standard Oil Company and had enormous personal wealth.  The Folger’s didn’t have children but they had two passions, running Standard Oil and collecting Shakespeare Folio’s.  Frankly, Henry was obsessive.  The Library owns 82 copies of the 1623 First Folio.  While Folger spent a lifetime collecting he didn’t live long enough to see his Library finished.  His wife took on that role after his death.
Publishing plays was not common during Shakespeare’s career.  The purpose was performance, not creating a written legacy.  Two fellow actors and partners in The King’s Men performance company, John Heminges and Hendy Condell collected thirty-six of the plays, classified them by type and had them printed them in one volume seven years after Shakespeare’s death.  It is clear that following Shakespeare’s death there was no rush to have his work published.
My second impression was why it took so long to have the plays published.  I wonder what the motivation was to publish the plays when they did.  The King had extended the acting company a royal patent so obviously they had the right to publish at any time.  My guess, as a historical fiction writer, is that it took seven years to collect the various versions of the plays.  We also know that the 36 plays in the First Folio do not include:  Pericles;  Prince of Tyre; The Two Noble Kinsman; and the two lost plays –
Cardenio and Love’s Labour Won.  I wonder why three of the known plays were not included in the First Folio, it would only be conjecture.
The Chazen has the First Folio on display in a dimly lit room on the third floor.  The Folio is rests in a pedestal encased in ¾ inch glass surrounded by a motion security system with a guard from the UW-Madison Security staff.  The 630 page book is open to Hamlet and the “To be or not to be’ soliloquy.  It is humbling to read the words from the first printed version of the play.
My final impression was that the Folio is a book.  The plays are not printed in a way that would lend them to use in a stage production.  It is abundantly clear that the First Folio was intended as a Legacy work, to ensure that posterity had the plays.  Words are how we define ourselves and books provide a method to record words for eternity.  Printed books may not always be the medium, however, as human’s we must save what we create to the benefit of future generations.  We owe a debt of extreme gratitude to Heminges and Condell.  How tenuous history can be.
      

​In a nearby small Wisconsin town there is a coffee shop and bakery.  The husband and wife owners have owned the business for eight years and appear to some success.  To augment their business the baker, Shawn, offers inexpensive ($20) two hour baking classes.  My wife and I decided to take the class on rustic bread, one of my favorite foods.
We each received a three ring binder filled with recipes, baking tips, and the chemistry of baking bread.  There were eight other souls in class with us.  Everything was prepared for us to be able to learn how to make rustic bread. We had a choice of working with regular white bread flour, Wisconsin red wheat flour or sprouted grain flour.  Lynette wanted the challenge of sprouted grain flour and as usual she proved to be right.
Shawn guided us through the process of making bread.  Rustic bread is based on using a “poolish”.  A poolish was developed in Poland hundreds of years ago and has the distinction of being the only culinary development not claimed by the French as their own.  The poolish includes warm tap water, organic bread flour, organic wheat bread flour and yeast which are mixed together with exactly 100 strokes.  You let it rise (proof is the bakers’ term) for two hours and it forms a warm spongy ball of goodness.
I won’t bore you with the rest of the process but it involves two more proofs and 15 minutes of kneading.  So, do the math.  Just to get the bread ready to bake – takes 6 hours.  Making rustic bread is not for the faint of heart.
Shawn taught us to bake bread at a very high temperature – 425 degrees F for a short time – about 15 minutes.  Then he uses a meat thermometer, stabbing the bread, to ensure it is between 180-215 degrees.  The higher the temperature, the crustier the crust.  Never before have I taken a loaf of bread’s temperature.
But, it works.  So for the next few years I’m going to stay home and make rustic bread.  I’ve already signed up to take a sourdough bread baking class in March with Shawn, that should keep me busy.  

​It’s the day after and of course it’s tempting to blog about some political topic.  I won’t do that.  I don’t feel compelled to share my views with readers and I’m fairly certain the bottom line is – they don’t care what my views are anyway.  This much I will say – we must now face the challenges of governance.
At least once a week someone will ask me ‘how’s the novel going . . .?’  I’m always surprised by this question.  First, I’m surprised that acquaintances remember that I am currently working on my third historical novel.   Second, I am surprised that they are interested enough to ask about my progress.
Working on my third novel has been like walking the Camino in Spain.  You know in advance it’s going to be challenging but you do it anyway.  You struggle with being lost, crushing uncertainty that what you are doing is worth it, taking long breaks to rest and restore your resolve, asking others along the journey what their experience is, asking for help – from anyone.
While trudging along you form a picture in your mind on what the end is like and what it will feel like.  I have written three separate final scenes.  I don’t know which one if any of them I will use.  This past week I finally drafted the climax scene and have shared it with my muse.  I’m sure I will re-write that chapter many times but the initial scene is expunged from my soul.  I am waiting with some trepidation for my muse’s response.
When setting out on the journey of drafting a third novel I set the goal of writing 80,000-85,000 words, similar length to Murphy’s Troubles and Out of Darkness.  This past week I reached 75,986 words – so the end is in sight and I know I will accomplish my original goal of completing the first draft by the end of the year.
So, there you have it – it’s going well, thank you very much.              

​November.  It’s the second day of November.  October slipped through my fingers far too fast.  I have trouble remembering each and every day.
This past weekend we gave our kids a special wedding anniversary gift.  They celebrated their 9th year of not quite blissful marriage.  As in any marriage they have had their challenges but they are resilient and have two healthy, energetic boy – one almost 6 and the other 2 ½.  Our gift – time – we picked up the boys Saturday morning for a special program at our library and they stayed overnight and we took them back home mid-morning on Sunday.
Our oldest grandson has been having sleep over’s since he was two.  This weekend was the first time our youngest grandson has slept over.  In fact, we had not even been able to get him to take a nap when staying with us for a day.  His Mom was worried.  She sent us a detailed e-mail on all his sleep patterns so that we would have written instructions.
The two boys are exact opposite in temperament.  The oldest is relaxed, funny, and could move in with us without blinking an eye.  The oldest is high strung, energetic and currently has a bad case of the terrible twos.
The only hitch in the weekend was that we learned the hard way that our youngest grandson hates, let me repeat, hates taking a bath.  This also is an exact opposite of his brother.  He brother could stay in the tub with bubble bath and toys for an hour if we would allow it.  It took quite a bit of time to calm down our youngest grandson and convince him his life was not at risk due to water.
Both boys went to bed easily and slept soundly – until 4:00 am.  Our youngest grandson got up ready to play at 4:00 am – still don’t know why.  By 6:00 am after playing and having pancakes for breakfast he took a nap until 7:30 am.  Our oldest grandson rose at 5:00 am and was up for the day.  This was a bit earlier than I had planned on.  When dropping the kids off the first think my son said was; “Oh no, you have the ‘look’.”  It’s ok, I said – been up since 4:00 am.”
Even with the challenges having the boys was great and now we’ve broken the ice for having both boys for sleep over’s.  I’m looking forward to years of having the boys stay with us.