Completion is on the distant horizon

Progress reports

The first quarter of 2024 is only half done, but there is enough progress to warrant a report.

Work on the seventh sermon has progressed satisfactorily. The single thread to be spun through the many Big Ideas is becoming clear. While much of the narrative that needs to become stanzas is quite complex, I currently feel I’m probably up to the task. The draft currently stands at 33 stanzas, with a few more removed since the last progress report. I’m increasingly optimistic I might finish it before the end of this year, if the vicissitudes of life permit it. This means I’m nearing completion of the entire set of seven!

I will then do some amount of finishing touches, a PDF, and recordings. But inevitably, there comes a point where I will need to come up with a plan how to actually publicize it all. Traditional book publishing is out, because:

  • I have waived all copyright,
  • traditional book publishing is old and boring, and
  • I expect books of poetry in particular almost never amount to more than a few dozen copies printed, most of them bought by the author as gifts for friends and family.

I would like the Sermons to reach far more people, and currently lack a coherent strategy how to go about this. If you have ideas, I would be happy to learn about them via email or X.

The translation of the fourth sermon is also coming along and currently has 63 finished stanzas. As usual, the remaining ones tend to be the hardest to translate, so this is months from done. Still I think I can probably meet my deadline in early summer. As usual, this renewed intense work on a finished sermon is also producing improvements to the English language text. I have not yet worked these into the published version as I expect more will be coming.

I have started work on another song. This time I’m doing the German language version first and will translate it into English later.

I have started voice training and hope to eventually get to a point where I can record my songs without sounding too terrible, and put them on the downloads page, the YouTube channel and on X.