This week I’ve been taking care of various Peace Hill Press duties, meditating on the format for the middle-grade levels of the Writing With Ease series…and turning back to work, in my creative hours, on the next volume of the history of the entire world.

I don’t yet have a title for the third volume, but that’s another blog post.

Anyway, I’m attempting to adjust to my new frame of mind: working on the third volume, weighing and discarding themes that will tie it together, drawing up chronologies and time lines, following rabbit trails to see if they lead to anything–an incident, a chronicle, a character, a tragedy-worth clearing out around.

Not so easy. I’ve been working frantically toward the deadline for the last book so long that I’ve gotten too goal-focused to do this sort of exploration well. It takes a certain willingness to waste time.

So today’s task: wander down the road without wondering where it ends.

ourroad

(Actually I know where that road ends–it’s the farm lane that comes out onto Route 615 in Charles City, but I thought it was a nice dramatic way to end the post.)

Showing 10 comments
  • Kim in ID

    Happy wandering!

    I just wanted to thank you for making history interesting for me and my kids. It started with the SOTW books, from which I learned more than I did in my college classes. I began re-reading HOTAW this week, and your writing style is just so engaging! I look forward to re-reading SOTW, Vol. 2 with my daughter this school year, and I eagerly await History of the Medieval World.

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!

  • Yabusame

    I can’t wait for the History of the Medieval World to come out next year… I loved your History of the Ancient World too. I see your four-volume history series as being the cornerstone of my historical enquiries over the coming years, so please, PLEASE, get going on volumes 3 & 4.

    Anyway, thanks for volumes 1 & 2 (when I can get my grubby little hands on it!)

  • Kate

    Just please remember the Muslims!

  • Sharla

    awesome. very dramatic indeed.

  • A Circle of Quiet

    I.Love.That.Road.

    Di

  • Bethany

    um… History of the EuropeansTryingToTakeOverTheWhole World?

    or wait, maybe that would be vol. 4. yeah, it would be vol. 4. okay, well you’re all set when that one comes around, then.

    volume 3, volume 3… era of explorations and colonies and conquerings and all that…
    how about History of the Expanding World?

    you’re very welcome. i’ll take my royalties in nutty bars, thankyouverymuch.

  • Christie in Pensacola

    I was interested to note that there is a book entitled Phonics for Dummies. I was wondering (and don’t know anyplace else to ask except here) if you’d encountered it and had any comments on the book.

    (I am not considering it. I have purchased OPG and love it!) I can’t wait for my DD 4 to grow and get into more materials such as HOTAW.

  • DD1 is starting 1st grade this year, and we have the Complete Writer just in time. So in my humble microsphere, you have a four-year deadline for the middle school book. Y’know… if anyone gives you any trouble about finishing it sooner…

    DD1 also asked to go ahead and start history. She’s already asking who the first people were, etc. SOTW, here we come!

    Thanks a million time to you, your mom & PHP (norton, too) for giving such a wonderful alternative to the madhouse that is the Chicago Public School system!

  • moshome7

    Do you….carry a camera wherever you go?

  • Susan

    Only on beautiful evenings.

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