https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CND89PZS
Friday, November 17, 2023
Harvardinates
John Leverett, first secular President of Harvard (1708-1724), used Harvardinates (sons of Harvard), instead of Sons of the Prophets, to refer to Harvard alumni. That was his way of saying, we educate all men, not just divinity students (yes it was boys only at that time). This is the story of opening up Harvard, and all higher education in North America, to a wider audience - which is still a trend in progress.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CND89PZS
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CND89PZS
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
Hooray!
Nov. 14 is an auspicious day - I just finished, and uploade, a new book. It's called Harvardinates. You will see it exploding on social media, etc., tomorrow. You're hearing about it first, here.
My wife said, get me a proof copy, and I'll proofread, fast, I can do it really quickly. She can, though she doesn't like my style, and will give me a hard time about such things as commas. I will get her a book, but I won't hold my breath. Same with my brother. He's really one of my best careful third eyes. I value his advice.
But, the problem is this. You spend a few months on it, you do tedious research, you get all finished, toward the end there's a big rush of all-consuming days as you finished, and it's all like a dam. You have a thousand gallons of water waiting, dying to get through. On the other side it's dry - nothing produced in a long time. No reads. No sales. No nothing. You've been neglecting all that so you could finish writing. Well, the balance is too tipped. I can't wait another minute. I have to have it out there.
Now fortunately one can still change a book after one publishes it. I am counting on that. This time, I have this one pretty good, I think. I've got most of the proofing errors, although I know of two already in the paperback copy. They're small. If they were a problem I'd just change them on the spot. One of them you have to read all the way to the last page, and read the notes (which are actually a very interesting part of the book).
It's partly because I've gotten a little discouraged in proofreading my own books. I find it virtually impossible. So why not let my wife do it? Simply because I can't wait. And she won't want to do it, once she knows it's published. To her, that's the last step. You have to proof before you publish. If you don't it's like dealing with rotten fish.
One last reason is that I'm dealing with a truly ancient computer on the Word end of it. Here I have a pretty good one - on the blogs, on the graphics, on the promo - but when I write, it's ancient. It blanks out a lot. The space bar has become unreliable. I have to use incredible patience and grit to get through anything. In the end, if I have a misspelling or something, I don't want to go through the whole process of uploading, changing, etc. I'll let it wait until the last minute or just forget about it.
Ah but I'm done. If you buy the paperback, watch out for the sachem and the archaeologist. I misspelled them both. But it'll be fixed soon - as soon as I find a few more. It's only a matter of time.
My wife said, get me a proof copy, and I'll proofread, fast, I can do it really quickly. She can, though she doesn't like my style, and will give me a hard time about such things as commas. I will get her a book, but I won't hold my breath. Same with my brother. He's really one of my best careful third eyes. I value his advice.
But, the problem is this. You spend a few months on it, you do tedious research, you get all finished, toward the end there's a big rush of all-consuming days as you finished, and it's all like a dam. You have a thousand gallons of water waiting, dying to get through. On the other side it's dry - nothing produced in a long time. No reads. No sales. No nothing. You've been neglecting all that so you could finish writing. Well, the balance is too tipped. I can't wait another minute. I have to have it out there.
Now fortunately one can still change a book after one publishes it. I am counting on that. This time, I have this one pretty good, I think. I've got most of the proofing errors, although I know of two already in the paperback copy. They're small. If they were a problem I'd just change them on the spot. One of them you have to read all the way to the last page, and read the notes (which are actually a very interesting part of the book).
It's partly because I've gotten a little discouraged in proofreading my own books. I find it virtually impossible. So why not let my wife do it? Simply because I can't wait. And she won't want to do it, once she knows it's published. To her, that's the last step. You have to proof before you publish. If you don't it's like dealing with rotten fish.
One last reason is that I'm dealing with a truly ancient computer on the Word end of it. Here I have a pretty good one - on the blogs, on the graphics, on the promo - but when I write, it's ancient. It blanks out a lot. The space bar has become unreliable. I have to use incredible patience and grit to get through anything. In the end, if I have a misspelling or something, I don't want to go through the whole process of uploading, changing, etc. I'll let it wait until the last minute or just forget about it.
Ah but I'm done. If you buy the paperback, watch out for the sachem and the archaeologist. I misspelled them both. But it'll be fixed soon - as soon as I find a few more. It's only a matter of time.
Saturday, November 4, 2023
Knee-deep in reading, having started a read-marketing site (yes, consider joining us if you are an author), now, I'm a little burnt out on reading and unable to enjoy concentrating on the usual. It's partly because I'm not a huge horror fan, and got a little too many horror ones in the spirit of the season, and just got tired of them. But it's also because my home life is a kind of a horror, so that just piles up horror on top of horror.
So, I delved back into the Puritan colony of late seventeen-hundreds Massachusetts, and that helped me get through it. I actually made progress organizing my book and getting it on the ground. It's a long, difficult book, and it flies through the witch trials because they only indirectly affect what happens at Harvard and the relationship between the people that run Harvard and the Mathers, Increase and Cotton. Interesting that, out in Salem, nineteen people are being executed, while at Harvard, one of my relatives is cranking out logic books in Latin and keeping mum. He dislikes Cotton Mather; he probably isn't big on spectral evidence; but you don't want to speak out against the big honcho especially when, at the time, he was directly employed by Increase.
Engrossed in my own little Puritan world, I care even lesss for the stuff I'm reading, although some of it is well-written. My read-only site has generated a little action but keeps threatening to stall. I don't quite know what to do about it, and, oddly enough, the other Read-Only site disappeared almost immediately after I opened mine. It's like that admin, who had done quite a good job, was just so sick of it, she was grateful to be out of there. She had kind of half-heartedly said, "maybe after the new year," and I found that to be unacceptable (waiting), which led me to start mine. But she apparently was very glad to just slip completely out of sight. Why? It's a mystery to me.
So far I don't find running the site to be that bad. I'm not one for disciplining people: telling them to do this or do that, or your book is too long, or inappropriate, or whatever. I will have to, of course. I might as well gear myself up to do what I have to do.
We all pick up an hour either tonight or tomorrow, sometime. I'll use mine doing the witch trials maybe.
So, I delved back into the Puritan colony of late seventeen-hundreds Massachusetts, and that helped me get through it. I actually made progress organizing my book and getting it on the ground. It's a long, difficult book, and it flies through the witch trials because they only indirectly affect what happens at Harvard and the relationship between the people that run Harvard and the Mathers, Increase and Cotton. Interesting that, out in Salem, nineteen people are being executed, while at Harvard, one of my relatives is cranking out logic books in Latin and keeping mum. He dislikes Cotton Mather; he probably isn't big on spectral evidence; but you don't want to speak out against the big honcho especially when, at the time, he was directly employed by Increase.
Engrossed in my own little Puritan world, I care even lesss for the stuff I'm reading, although some of it is well-written. My read-only site has generated a little action but keeps threatening to stall. I don't quite know what to do about it, and, oddly enough, the other Read-Only site disappeared almost immediately after I opened mine. It's like that admin, who had done quite a good job, was just so sick of it, she was grateful to be out of there. She had kind of half-heartedly said, "maybe after the new year," and I found that to be unacceptable (waiting), which led me to start mine. But she apparently was very glad to just slip completely out of sight. Why? It's a mystery to me.
So far I don't find running the site to be that bad. I'm not one for disciplining people: telling them to do this or do that, or your book is too long, or inappropriate, or whatever. I will have to, of course. I might as well gear myself up to do what I have to do.
We all pick up an hour either tonight or tomorrow, sometime. I'll use mine doing the witch trials maybe.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
