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Now the middle of 2022 and very little done on 6019.  Could blame it on a lot of things. Many are valid, 1.e., illness and injuries, but all are excuses since anything close to my writing pace would have completed book a year ago. Blame it on inertia, don’t blame it on me. But today, I am going to put 1000 words to print.

Working on what currently is CMD 6019 and still hesitant to dig in and start writing. Continuing to do research, while useful, is also a way to procrastinate. A reminder of what CMD was: a proclamation by the British that there must be a pathway to a multi-ethnic, multi-religious democratic state which began with the end of uncontrolled immigration of Jews into Palestine. Over eighty years have passed and CMD 6019 has passed down the memory hole.

That is the background that always is alluded to by the actors in the story. Here is hoping that I will be able to get in gear and write. Just write.

Still haven’t gotten down to writing, spending less than an hour a day researching, reading the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on an almost daily basis trying to grasp the workings of Israeli society. Writing this I need to spend more time dealing with the Muslims and Christians in Israel and Palestine. While there is a controlling narrative within Israel and abroad protecting the status quo, it is encouraging that there are Jewish Israelis who see the need for change.  The pandemic of Covid-19 has created an awareness that all parties need each other. The over representation of Palestinian health workers compared with their numbers and that they are treating Israeli Jews is significant.

Anyway, I know that doing research everyday is a form of procrastination and I need to focus on what to write and begin. So far I have managed 2500 words. I need to do that every day. I think I have written something like this before but this time……

As  noted before plans are for two books in 2020. Did get some traction on the Blue Mountain story but discovered the need to recreate the very first character I tried to develop which will also create a need to change the story.

On what is now CMD 6019, I have not even attempted a beginning, actually did write one sentence. Plans now to finish draft of Blue Mountain story by end of March then go full bore on the Arab-Jewish/Muslim-Christian-Jewish story. Fiction but historic and cultural background requires a great deal of research. The first two books also required a great deal of research, but the third will be even more challenging. Still determined to write it.

Well, we finally finished the third Christmas story and still waiting for the revised Battle For Blue Mountain. At this time, this is what the fourth one will be about. Two young people, five and three, are lost on Blue Mountain. Or maybe better, they are kidnapped and escape only to get lost. Wandering through the thick forest, they are spotted by the arch-villain Wotan. And on and on to a happy ending, we hope.

The third book now only in my mind’s eye about the land now called Israel and Palestine is bound to be the most challenging because its historical context is set in the twenty-first century. It like the previous two books, The Circle and Your Is Our and Land, ends on a hopeful note. At least that is my intention.

Having a hard time getting started and I suppose the best approach is to put something down on paper, that is, to begin.

I call it the last of the trilogy but I wonder if I will stick to my guns.

Well, Rachel and I didn’t make the December 25 Christmas deadline but  we will meet the deadline for the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches which is January 7. Also the Coptic Church which is the same. I hope readers, when they discover this and my other books, will enjoy reading them as much as I do writing them. The puzzle for me regarding the Battle for Blue Mountain is the target age group. No matter, for my smaller grandchildren and great grandchildren, they can read it when they get older.

As  mentioned before, I will be spending time in the new year writing about a very challenging subject, the relationship between the Jews and Arabs in Israel. It is and will continue to be both complex, changing and dynamic. I know how I want to begin and how it should end but in between is a challenge. I won’t hold myself to the now imagined beginning and end, but right now I am pretty sure about them.

Note the title has changed from the Invasion of Blue Mountain to the Battle For Blue Mountain which suggest actions by the invaders and defenders. Rachel and I are hoping the book will be ready for Christmas for all the young children in the family.

I think its pretty good although I am stumped as to the age of the children it is for.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam–for the greater glory of God. The motto of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. That is the subtitle of Roothaan’s Dream.  Superior General Roothaan, a real person, had a dream of recreating the missions in South America two centuries before. In the novel Father Charles Benet is one of the Jesuits chosen by Roothaan to create missions in the American northwest. The novel is about that but it is more than. It is also a story of the son of an Irish immigrant surveyor whose journey through life coincides with and is affected by the Jesuit efforts to bring Christianity to the northwest Indian tribes. Captain Sean Quinn’s story goes beyond this relationship to encompass his earlier military career in Florida and Mexico, his struggles as an Irish Catholic  and the courtship of the beautiful Francesca Obredo.

What began as Black Robes is now Roothaan’s Dream. As I may have mentioned, the title Black Robes has been used before. I have submitted the manuscript to Nick for formatting and cover design. The original focus was the Jesuits and their attempts to duplicate the missions they created almost two centuries before in South America. Although a major theme, the story is also  built around the son of an Irish immigrant Sean Quinn.  Paths of the major Jesuit protagonist Father Charles Benet and Quinn cross in the northwest interior. Rivalling the pursuit of the souls of Indians by Jesuit Charles Benet is the pursuit of Francesca Obredo by Captain Quinn. I am satisfied with the ending. For now.