Writing Update

This has been one of the most unusual weeks of the about 15 months that I have been "retired." It is the first week in that time that I have had no meetings or other commitments, especially evening meetings. Part of the explanation is that a lot of what I do is church based and this being Holy Week, the secular side of the church kind of shuts down. That also makes it difficult even to do church work at home as information, follow up etc. from the church office isn't that easy to do.

As a result this has been a week to concentrate more fully on writing and reading and it has been productive in both areas. A lot of the reading has been focused on "The Way We Live Now" by Anthony Trollope, the last of my three books for the Victorian challenge. It is about 900 pages long, but for some reason I have been flying right through it, well past half way and enjoying it as well.

However, it has been the writing that has really gotten the most attention and it has been a very productive week - to the point that after doing one more thing, I think I am going to take off until Monday. Of course, a lot of that is involuntary, Easter has its own schedule and tomorrow, Carol and I are off to the Pearl Theatre in New York to see another play where my God-daughter is the assistant stage manager. I expect to write about that within the next few days.

There have been two focal points for the writing - the proposal for the Ebbets Field book and the editing of the William Lloyd letters. The proposal for the Ebbets Field book is due by May 1st, but it should go out of here well before that. I am very happy with the team that we have put together, five published authors with a good background in baseball, Brooklyn and ballparks. How's that for alliteration - DT would be proud. I think the proposal has gotten better in each draft, the input of the contributors plus the thought process has really made a difference. I am really excited about this possibility and very much hope we get the project. The process has also led me to think again about another book possibility - something that would combine a biography of Charles Ebbets, a history of the Dodgers from 1883 to Ebbets' death in 1925 and how the team became such a community institution. The Ebbets Field book could help set the stage.

I have also made quite a bit of progress on the William Lloyd letters. Lloyd was a member of the 33rd New Jersey and something like 40 of his letters survive. About two years ago, a special friend introduced me to her God-son who volunteered to transcribe the letters themselves. He did a great job (he is now part of the potential Ebbets Field team) and I have been working on editing them. To my surprise I have already finished a rough first draft, there is still a lot more to do, but I should meet my self-imposed deadline to get it off to a potential publisher by September 1st. I am going to intentionally take a break from that project to think a little bit more about the best way to do this. I keep seeing or feeling a connection between William Lloyd and the attitudes/actions of various soldiers in "Henry V," so I need to think about that some more. DT may have some thoughts as he usually does with anything regarding Shakespeare.

My non-fiction reading this week has been related to another possible book project. I have posted before about the possibility of a book about Andrew Jackson and his war with the Second Bank of the United States. My next step in pursing that was to read the biography of Nicholas Biddle, the President of the bank and Jackson's adversary. It would be an exaggeration to say that I can't put it down, but I am reading it with a lot interest in the subject. I think there are some related themes here that could make for an interesting book - the wisdom of populist attitudes towards banks, attitudes about people who make money from money, how the BUS actually worked and our relationship to material things. I need to keep reading and thinking about this as well as the larger Brooklyn book, no matter what happens with the Ebbets Field book - so we will see what happens, but I am grateful for such a productive week.