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I watched a long YouTube video yesterday about Jesus, and I made notes on paper as it played. Halfway through I got bored, so I paused it. That's when I saw another tab in my browser with the same video, paused at almost the exact same spot. I checked my notes file and, sure enough, I had made virtually the exact same notes.

Another video was about the finding of a tomb that some argue contained Jesus and his family. There are bone boxes inside for a man named Jesus (son of Joseph), James and Joses (brothers of Jesus according to the Bible), one or two Marys (there's some confusion about the inscriptions), and a son of Jesus. The argument was that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and they had a son, which would have been the norm for men of Jesus's age (most or all of the apostles were married). It turns out, though, that Jesus and Joseph were two of the most common names in that period, making up almost ten percent of Jewish males. Probability analysis suggested that it was still very possible to find all those names in a tomb without them being Christ's family.

My estimate for finishing the majority of my research by the end of April wasn't even close. I'm still months away from having an outline for the first book. In the meantime I'm drowning in notes. What I would give for a better way to organize this stuff.

That book I read about the Via Dolorosa being the wrong route for Christ's final steps through Old Jerusalem is going to play a big role at the end of book one. $2 and time well-spent.

My latest book is called Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus, which I'm about 40% done with. I still have to convert all of my Kindle highlights to Word, though. Tedious.

The mother of all research efforts will be my recently acquired Ignatius New Testament Study Guide. Fortunately, mostly I just need the Gospels for now.

V2 of the book summary. I shortened 'living in a Catholic orphanage in Rome' to 'an orphan in Rome', and used K's word order. I also trimmed elsewhere. Although not strictly required, I chose to keep Catholic in the summary, but moved it down. 'from the possessed' also isn't strictly required, although I prefer to keep it for now. I also decided to limit the dying to bishops and cardinals, no priests. The Antichrist would be after the Vatican leadership. Although 'Council of Cardinal Advisers' is a mouthful, I chose to use the Council as the proxy for the Pope. The Pope is ailing, so the head cardinal (the Secretary of State) will serve as my main Vatican leader. Connor will meet the Pope at the end of the book.

The two paragraphs take up 2/3 of a well-spaced Word page, so that should easily fit the back of a book cover.

My thanks to K.

In definitely thinking about trimming it to be sure it all fits on the back of a book, but I hadn't considered shortening the first sentence since the target audience is Christians, especially Catholics. Also, I think the fact that I mention the setting being in Rome is a plus, although it's mentioned later, so I don't need it in the first sentence.

Ponder, I will.

About this Series:

The above summary is primarily to help me plan/focus the story (along with a pending synopsis and outline). The above will appear on the back cover of the book, along with a paragraph like that below, specific to each book.

The above two paragraphs won't leave room for anything else on the back cover. Is that a problem? They seem like the most important things I could place there.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how best to handle the fact that Joseph has both his dead grandmother in his head AND eventually his mother, too? Both women have strong personalities and both play key roles, one military and the other motherly/decisive, although I rarely need them both in the same chapter. I'm thinking of killing off the mother completely and giving her lines to grandma. If I do, I need to come up with a powerful reason for Joseph to resume his quest after abandoning it completely and trying to kill himself following his mother's death, which he caused. Currently, he resumes the quest with relish because he believes his mother has joined him in his head, telling him that the quest is the most important thing he'll ever do. Or do I keep both and simply use them only as needed? In that case, one or the other might not appear for at least three full chapters, since Apollo's story lies in between as well (e.g., grandma advises Joseph, Apollo gets a chapter, Joseph's mother advises him, Apollo gets another chapter, then finally back to grandma). Even when they do appear, these ghosts have very limited lines since God and Andrew are Joseph's main ghosts. I think it would weaken the roles of both women. I suppose I could have Joseph O.D. on antidepressants rather than sleeping pills. Antidepressants often make one drowsy. He would then be manic long enough to get to Earth.

Thoughts?

v4 note:

There will be three books total in this series. Book one v4 converts God into archangels as part of Archangel Syndrome. Apollo will get Germanus (his executed best friend) in his head so I can do humor without making the archangel silly like Apollo's God currently is. Germanus will be Apollo's version of Andrew. Colonel/General Lucilius will be killed off in the attack on the Imperial Palace by Lupus and Hadisius. Gaia then steps in as her replacement, hopefully making her a stronger character. There will be one news anchor droid/news organization used throughout the book, except for the one with Fox Blitzen & Bunny Divine. Acme products should have more failures/near failures.

Book two will be Joseph growing/managing his chaotic religion, which takes off among the Maya after he releases the prison video of his resurrection near the end of book one. Apollo will be trying to grow the Imperium at breakneck speed while also converting it to Christianity. Gaia, Caligula, and Leonardo (with Stronza) will have roles to play. The real cause behind Archangel Syndrome will be revealed as Dr. Francis from the future and the news droid from book one. The year will be 4021.

Book three will be set in 7329 AD. With the help of the news anchor droid and Professor Hinkley (the time traveler), Joseph and Apollo travel to the future, where they play key roles in the overthrow of the galactic government by Joseph's fanatical followers. They go "wild Fremen" when they realize who Joseph is. Joseph will lead his followers in a plot to overthrow the sprawling Imperium that Apollo helped create. Apollo will appear to oppose this. Secretly, the two cousins may be working together. Need to involve Dr. Francis. Try to include Leonardo (with Stronza), Gaia, and Caligula. Acme and Mama's Big Butt Shipping should still be around.

Heaven help me work out the causality problems caused by Dr. Francis. He personally should be immune to the causality problems, which is what allowed him to keep tweaking the future even as he changed it. Use technology for that.

Galaxy Tales never really worked as a title for this series. The new title will be Archangel Syndrome.

The song is in the public domain. I was asking if I could mention the name of the singer. According to numerous web sites, I can, but that won't stop someone from taking frivolous legal action if they don't want to be mentioned. I'll mention the song but not the singer.

Thank you, Malcolm. I tell other people to use Google, but I often forget to do so.

Too bad I deleted my Facebook account. Too many cat videos and half-naked Russian women wanting to be friends. Too much like the Kardashians. Somehow, I don't think they're my target audience for Christian-friendly books.

Just rewrite them all using was/were. ;-)

Chapter 33, The Imperium Cracks, is up. It's a cleaned up version of the same chapter from v2. Lots of minor edits.

Quick, go read!
Dirk