Mark Hayes Peacock – blogs

I took services today in Wolf Creek and St.Croix Falls United Methodist Churches. I pastored those two congregations for 11 years and retired from them in 2008. Wolf Creek is scrappy and has several new people, so attendance is about the same, if perhaps slightly smaller, than when I was there. St.Croix Falls is painful. Two weeks ago there were about a dozen people in attendance and about the same this morning. When I was there, the place was full, with a side room about half-full on most Sundays. The pianist, who is quite good,  is a refugee from the now-defunct Church of the Nazarene. There was another woman I’d not known before.

Small can be beautiful. I’ve seen small become large; Birchwood almost doubled in size during the 9 years I served there. What happened was that the congregation decided they really did have something to offer, so when they invited someone to church, it was not “please come help us so we won’t die” but “we have something good here; come, taste and see!” People can “smell” the difference. In Birchwood, people who’d lived in town all their lives and had never set foot in that church except perhaps for a funeral started coming to church. In summer, the place was full because cabin people were around; I loved it when my counseling elder and his family showed up one Sunday and couldn’t find anywhere to sit because the place was jammed. That was fun and it made me look good; but it really wasn’t me: the people had let the Lord work and when you do that, things happen.

Yesterday, I attended a graduation party for the daughter of a couple whose wedding I did 20 years ago on the St.Croix River. Jon and Jen have two daughters, both sharp and gracious. They play tennis well and went to State for Mahtomedi. Maggie, the elder, was #3 in her graduating class and will go to Bethel. Grace, the younger sister, also is at the top of her class. I believe the two played as a doubles team in tennis and both expect to play college tennis. Great-grandma is Lucille Henry, of the Exeland United Methodist Church I pastored. She’s 98 years old and teaches Sunday School every week. Lucille cared for a sickly husband for 40-some years and owned the town’s cafe. She also took in her granddaughters when their home life became abusive. Lucille is a remarkable person, erect and alert and fun to be around. She is one of those people who is a good example of the payoff from decades of trying to live out a Christian life.

Just received a very positive response from a reader, who just happens to belong to a book reading club, which means she’s used to reading books with an eye to criticism and discussion. I’m glad to receive that kind of feedback.

On Thursday in Luck, WI I had the opportunity to read “I’ll Cook For You” to the Wisconsin Retired Educators Association Northwest Wisconsin chapter. I had a delightful time and a strong positive response to the story. I sold several books–thanks buyers! Teachers are used to grading the work of students and retirement doesn’t change that, so to have a strongly positive reaction from this group tells me that story (at least) is very good. One never knows how good a story really is until it’s out there to be evaluated. With my 40 years plus of article writing, an editor always gave a “thumbs up” to what I submitted and sometimes–but not often– we negotiated changes. I want reader/listener feedback on my stories because I self-edit my fiction and what I think works might not work for everyone else.

 

Thank you, WREA members for a fun time and a thank-you to the women of Bone Lake Lutheran Church who provided all of us a delicious lunch!

The second batch of print books arrived on friday and some have been sold already. I spent some time tidying up things that needed fixing in the first run of the books and after tinkering with the cover to make the back more read-able, I had just one line to fix in the front page endorsements. That has been done, so I should see the results of that with the next batch of books I get.

 

I do have some issues with this website in that I can Google myself and a bunch of things come up, including this site with the ability of anyone to enter it and change or write whatever they wish. That’s odd and thus far I can’t find a way to prevent that. Webroot has not been helpful.

Well, I spent last Wednesday night correcting and adjusting stuff that needed tweaking–this, after I received my copies of “The First”. Adjusting 8 1/2×11 that was OK for Kindle and online to 6×9 format for print book saw some odd things like sentences that were not connected, missed quotation marks and italics and a few odd dots here and there. That means the people who bought the first batch of my books have a rarity, for whatever that’s worth. Meanwhile, sales of both the Kindle books and the print book (“The First”) have been clicking along. even though I have not unleashed any media publicity about having those stories in print.

 

It’s raining today, so I just might be able to get to continuing work on the next story, “In The Eye Of The Beholder”. We shall see.

Today I was able to hold in my hand for the first time a copy of my print book. The next task is to go through it carefully and note things to adjust and correct for the next printings. I’m talking about things like closed quotes that got missed, a dot that’s out of place, words that should have been in italics and so forth. This is the equivalent of the author’s proof and I’m grateful that I can do that electronically from my cozy office.

 

I’m at an age where I don’t demonstrate excitement as obviously as when I was younger, but I must say that holding my book makes me excited. What a nice milestone!

 

Again, the book is available through Amazon.com. It’s called “The First Gathering of The Break Time Stories” and people tell me they can pull it up on Amazon either by the title or by my writing name, Mark Hayes Peacock.

My paperback book, “The First Gathering of The Break Time Stories”, is published and is available now through Amazon.com. First reports are that simply entering the title brings up the book quite quickly. Yay!

My print book collection of the three published Amazon Kindle short story books is in review. Copies should be available soon through Amazon.com. I will have a few at my public readings. The book sells for $15 and is called “The First Gathering of The Break Time Stories”. Obviously, I’m hoping for a good reception. I have two invitations so far to read from the book, the first in July for the Osceola Seniors and the second on a Thursday evening in September to be selected at the St.Croix Falls Public Library.

The date of my reading from “The First Gathering of the Break Time Stories” has been changed to Wednesday, July 12th at the Party Room of the Third Street Apartments in Osceola, WI.

 

As for the coming edition of that print book, I’m in the process of fussing with the cover. That done, we should be able to print quite soon. LaMoine MacLaughlin, Jade Ring Prize winner for fiction and Amery’s First Poet Laureate and Judy Breuer, Duluth Budgeteer’s lifestyle columnist both have written some nice things about my stories and give good reasons for people to read the book. I appreciate their willingness to do that, as well as the fact that they said nice things. (Not to LOL!)

I’ve begun the process of converting to a single print volume the three short story collections (Four Break Time Stories, More Break Time Stories, Yet More Break Time Stories) that have been on Amazon Kindle, beginning in 2015. The volume will be called “The First Gathering of The Break Time Stories” and it will run about 185 pages, which seems respectable. For the cover I’ll use Aaron’s painting of the cooking utensils that I used for “Yet”. Fellow writers LaMoine MacLaughlin and Judy Breuer will contribute some comments for the back cover. I appreciate very much their willingness to do that. At the end of the book I have a long list of people that helped contribute to the stories; you’ll just have to guess which person or institution identifies with which story.