Friday Done List February 13

I am trying a new daily organizational plan to deal with my body falling apart, as bodies do, and it's worked great these first few days. I feel as if I've worked more, though not much new writing, and my desk is the cleanest it's been in ... maybe a year? Also ended up unexpectedly organizing a shelf. 

No, of course, this isn't going to last.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

• I Was an '80s Tradwife was published last weekend.
• Submitted the yogurt essay.
• How Much Would My Spiritual Ancestors Have Spent to Save Some Yogurt (the yogurt essay) was published at Tastyble. I spent some time editing this piece, because Tastyble does real editing of their submissions, unlike almost any publication I've dealt with on Medium. One editor, in particular, is very impressive, and I greatly appreciate her work.  
• Finished a The History Reader post and published it here at Original Content.
• Began revising the first two History Reader posts to create an essay to submit.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Promoted I Was an '80s Tradwife on Facebook and BlueSky
• Promoted How Much Would My Spiritual Ancestors Have Spent to Save Some Yogurt on Facebook and Bluesky
• Promoted The History Reader post on BlueSky. Skipped Facebook, because I've been promoting a lot of work there recently and getting little response. I don't get much response on BlueSky, either, but I don't know those people. 
• Updated the Goodreads blog with a post from Original Content.

Goal 3. Submit Book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

• Submitted The Mummy Hunters to an agent I heard about through SCBWI.

Goal 4. Begin Some Writing on the 19th Century Novel Idea

• Well, no writing. But I did organize some notes.

The Reading History Project: "Thinking About History" by Sarah Maza

I wanted to start my reading history project with some reading about history, which is exactly what Thinking About History by Sarah Maza is. In my history journal (something I will write about here at some point) I describe the book as being about how historians do history, how it has been done in the past, and how the doing of history has changed. (What can we expect from a journal entry?) Maza also covers different types of historians, something that is a relatively recent development. 

I think I may be referring to this book off-and-on this year in relation to other books I read, but for now I'll touch on some of what Maza says about the "history of history," because I think it could help make sense of some of the present-day controversy over how we view history and what we consider to be appropriate history.

Saying Good-bye to the Good Old Days of Nineteenth Century History

I like the nineteenth century, myself. I see it as a period when a great deal was happening in various fields and a period when knowledge was appreciated. By the end of the nineteenth century, it was a period when the world was getting ready to transition into the twentieth century. Things were going to change!

Or maybe not.

According to Maza, in the nineteenth century practitioners of many fields of study were interested in professionalizing, and history was no different. Historians wanted their work to be considered scientific like the other academic fields. Maza says, "...scholars assumed that a scientifically examined source could yield only one meaning..."  That kind of uniformity is easy to understand because from the end of the nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century history departments "were extremely homogeneous workplaces peopled by white male Protestant scholars from upper-class backgrounds." They tended to value the same kind of history--political and military, for instance, and focused on great men who, coincidently, were frequently white, Protestant males like them.  

But in the second half of the twentieth century, the academic world opened up as women entered colleges in greater numbers and the GI Bill brought nearly 8 million men from different backgrounds to campuses in its first twelve years. Some of these new people became historians who were interested in a broader range of topics: labor history, women's history, gay and lesbian history, and environmental history, for instance. You name the subject, it has a past that can be studied. 

In this period, "the history of things" also became important. Food ... clothing ... the natural environment... I am particularly interested in "things," and will direct your attention to Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash by Susan Strasser, which I liked. (Social history. That's another whole subject Maza addresses.) 

As long as we're on the subject of the history of things, I'll also mention The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers by Tom Standage. 

These two examples illustrate that we are no longer talking "the history of leaders, political elites, and state-related activities," which is how Maza says nineteenth and even early twentieth century historians thought of their field. 

You Can't Go Back to the Past, Folks

But "the history of leaders, political elites, and state-related activities" may be how some people in the present do want to think of history. Over the last couple of years, we've been hearing talk of manifest destiny and the Monroe Doctrine, concepts from the nineteenth century. There's also been talk of the present administration turning to eighteenth and nineteenth century laws to support its actions. Last year's Executive Order 14253 Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History raised the question of just what truth and sanity American history should be restored to. Should we be turning to the nineteenth century for that, also, and looking, again, for the history of leaders, political elites, and state-related activities?

Oh, please, no.

While there are concerns right now about groups who had been lost to history being lost again if  present-day lawmakers are able to impose restrictions on public historical sites and schools, I think there's a limit to how far they'll be able to get with that. The reason? History without those groups is boring.

That's right, "the history of leaders, political elites, and state-related activities" is boring. All the time I was studying history in college, I was hearing about how boring it was from people who didn't care for it. "Memorizing dates" was how it was viewed. To some extent the boring argument is true. What makes it boring is not the dates but that there's a limit to how much interest anyone can maintain in the leaders and political elites who had little to do with our ancestors' lives. We only care about the history of royal figures if there's sex and weird stuff involved. Would anyone care about Queen Victoria if she wasn't portrayed as having a love interest with whom she had a great many children? I think not.

Over the last half century, the past has become far more about how everyone lived than what a few people did. There's a circular aspect to history now, in my humble opinion. We see history now as the impact of individuals on events and the impact of events on individuals. All individuals. Many of these individuals are unknown to most of us because of their ethnicity, employment, gender, religion, and more, and thus they are very, very not boring.

History is a pandora's box and the lid has been opened. It's going to be very difficult for anyone to shut it again. Especially if we all keep reading.

  

The Story Behind the Story: Tradwife Lifestyle Parody

Odile on Unsplash

My first humor publication of 2026 is I Was an '80s Tradwife. Thank you to Muddy-um for the  acceptance. 

I started submitting this piece last October. Putting aside the whole humor-is-subjective business, I think there are a few reasons why it took a while for this piece to find a home.

• It may seem essay-like, and some humor sites don't publish essays. Even though I didn't submit it to any publications that openly state they don't publish essays, that still could have been a factor.
• Tradwives may be a timely subject that is no longer timely. I read a couple of articles late last year (after I'd written I Was an '80s Tradwife) indicating that some readers find the tradwife lifestyle unsustainable. Others associate it with a level of affluence not available to all. Editors may not be interested in this subject anymore.
• I Was an '80s Tradwife could be perceived as housewife or domestic humor, which may be of limited interest to some editors. Only Shirley Jackson and Erma Bombeck managed any level of success with that kind of humor, and it's been a minute since they've been writing. 

This was a piece I enjoyed working on and am glad to see it published.

Friday Done List February 6

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

• Finished writing the first Reading History post
• Finished reading first book for Reading History project
• Received two rejections, one of which was, well, painful. But the most important writing skill is sucking it up and moving on. So I sucked it up and moved on.
• Resubmitted one of the rejections.
• Finished the yogurt essay.
• Spent time on the yogurt essay images. It is very, very close to submission ready.
• I really wanted to take another writing workshop this week, but I had to accept that I just didn't have time.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Published the first Reading History post.
• Promoted the above post.

 

The Reading History Project: What I'll Be Reading in 2026

Reading history is an interest of mine. It probably got started before I was reading much, when I was watching TV Westerns with my father and then gladiator movies that played late in the afternoon on one of the three TV stations we had access to in rural Vermont. Actual reading history started as a teenager, when I read my fair share of historical romance but also these enormous tomes on royal figures from centuries back and family stories that covered generations. 

A pivotal moment in reading history for me came in my freshman year of college when my History of Western Civilization professor told us why his license plate said "Bodo."  All his students were expected to know this. Bodo was a ninth century peasant living in St.-Germain-des-Prés. (That is all I know about St.-Germain-des-Prés. Bodo lived there.) He gets an entire chapter in Medieval People by Eileen Power, which I still own.

Gauthiers: Like Bodo but different

Bodo is all I remember from that class. What I got from the professor's license plate story was that history is not just about the great and mighty of this world. It is also about people who might have been my ancestors. People who were not at all great or mighty. Not even close.  

America's 250th Anniversary and Executive Order 14253

The United States is approaching its 250th anniversary, a good reason to focus on reading history this year. But another good reason might be the little historical brouhaha that came up last year after President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14253 Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. Please read it yourself, but some highlights:

"It is the policy of my Administration to restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing."

That paragraph ends with "Museums in our Nation's capital should be places where individuals go to learn—not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history."  

"Ideological indoctrination" is a very loaded expression, and after reading the whole executive order, one might wonder who is trying to ideologically indoctrinate whom and with what ideology. Also, who is the "our" in "our shared history?"

Last year there were concerns about the present administration whitewashing history or reshaping it. The concerns continue, though they now have to compete with all the other concerns that have turned up since last March when Trump signed 14253.

Keep in mind that whatever is going on historically as far as the U.S. government is concerned, this particular order 14253 deals only with Federal sites. (History in schools is impacted by another, earlier executive order.) For now, at least, publishers, booksellers, and private museums are not touched.

That puts those of us who read history in a position, maybe not of power, but of advocacy. We can still read any work of history that we want to. We can support any type of historian we want to support, either by buying their books or spreading word of them. 

By reading as much history as we can, we create the possibility that we, and other history readers like us, will retain it no matter what else happens to it. By educating ourselves, we act. 

The Reading History Project

My reading history this year:

• Will be somewhat random. I want to enjoy this, and I have a lot of different histories on my TBR iPad.
• Will probably lean toward the nineteenth century, since that's a favorite period for me right now. Sorry Revolutionary Era!
• Will probably lean toward groups who were not in positions of great power. Remember my Bodo story. I have what is known as a cognitive bias. I tend to read things that play to my interests. I don't believe I've read a great dead white man bio since Fawn M. Brodie's Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, originally published in 1974. It was controversial at the time, because it was the first popular biography of Jefferson to address his relationship with Sally Hemings, a woman he owned. DNA would later prove Brodie right. 

Some upcoming books:

Thinking About History by Sarah Maza. I'm nearly done with this. An unusual book in that it is exactly what I was looking for.

Speaking of whitewashing, as we were recently, I've just started reading Black AF History: The Un-whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot. 

The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier by Megan Kate Nelson will be published in April. I have a galley from NetGalley,  will be reading it this spring, and writing about it closer to publication.

That's the plan, folks. And don't I love a plan!

 

Friday Done List January 30

I spent a lot of time shoveling snow Monday and Tuesday. That's not an excuse. It's a statement of fact.  

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

• Made a submission. That's 5 submissions for this month.
• Added 2 new publications to the short-form marketing research spreadsheet, one of which I will submit to. 
• Took an excellent essay workshop. It required quite a bit of prep reading, but that included reading the writing prompts for the generative part of the workshop.
• Got some good starts on essays while taking a workshop. 
• Have nearly finished the first post for The Reading History Project. 

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• I did a blog post on my first publication of the year. 
• Promoted that blog post on Facebook and republished it at my Goodreads blog, for my 16 followers there.
• Also updated my reading for 2026 at Goodreads. I'm on target.

The Story Behind the Story: My First Publication of 2026 is...

 "I Educate Myself, Therefore I Act:" My Top 7 Heritage Month Reads in 2025! Published in Books Are Our Superpower. 

Getting this published was important to me, because my Heritage Month reading last year ended up being...ah, well, a little profound, is probably too highfalutin' a way of thinking of it. It was meaningful. I read some good stuff. I read a couple of authors I'd heard of but never read, and they were terrific. I read some authors I'd never heard of, and they were terrific, too. I read a genre I didn't foresee myself reading for this project, and it was terrific, too. I got to read a few books I'd had on my TBR shelf/iPad for a while, and that was was...you guessed it...terrific.

It was also eye-opening. I'm saying "eye-opening," but I could say "humbling." I saw myself as advocating for groups who are not part of mainstream white Anglo-saxon Protestant America by reading these authors from nonmainstream white Anglo-saxon Protestant America and writing about them. But these authors didn't need Gail advocating for them. They were already well-regarded, well-read, even award-winning writers. Who did I think I was?

At least, I ended up being a reader who enjoyed their work and told other readers they could enjoy it, too. A good use of time, and a great reading year.

What Am I Reading This Year?

I was also happy to get this essay published, because it wrapped up last year's reading. It was a conclusion, before getting started on something new.

The something new I'm getting started on is reading history. This year's reading project is, indeed, called Reading History. In fact, on this blizzardy Sunday afternoon, I'm going to go move my history books to a lower shelf so I can get to them easily and spend some time on the first history book I've been reading this year. 

More to come. 

Friday Done List January 23

I believe it's been a while since I've posted food pictures here. This one's  appropriate, because it illustrates what I was doing this afternoon instead of writing. Yup, I was making two kinds of soup and a stuffed gluten free bread with which to sustain life in case we lose power this weekend. While I was putting the second soup into the Instant Pot, I saw a Facebook post from our town indicating that this storm isn't expected to cause widespread power outages here in Connecticut. So I guess I will gain some writing time next week when I don't have to cook what I cooked today.

In better news, I got my first publication of the year today. I will write about that in another post. Maybe on Sunday during the storm, if I do, indeed, have power.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

• Made 3 submissions. I've already met my objective for making 2 submissions this month.
• Have resubmitted one of the last two pieces that were rejected in 2025. 
• Updated my short-form marketing research spreadsheet, meaning I've done a little more lit journal reading.  
• Signed up for a writing workshop 
• Worked on the yogurt essay. This involved a little research in old cookbooks in my basement. 
• I had some problems with the submission of a  final Heritage Month essay to submit to Books Are Our Superpower. I think there's some kind of technical problem. And there was! I resubmitted with a new title, and voila!
• Updated my info on NetGalley and requested a book coming out in April that I'd like to use for The History Reader Project.
• My NetGalley request was approved! I have the egalley! 

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• Did a couple of blog posts that weren't related to this Friday Done List.
• Promoted those blogs.
• Updated my 2026 Goodreads reading challenge. I've read two books!
• I set up a second flat file in my upstairs office. This will make an enormous difference in my life, won't it?

Goal 4. Begin Some Writing on the 19th Century Novel Idea

• Barely. But I have a spot for notes in that extra flat file!

My First 2026 Encounter with History

Today is the birthday of Ethan Allen, the most profane and hardest drinking noise to come out of pre-Revolutionary Connecticut. A legend in his own time, but not in ours.

Yet sometime in the 1990s while researching a book, I went into the late Briggs Carriage Bookstore in Brandon, Vermont, when it was in its first, smaller location, and said, "Do you have The Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen?"  Jeezum Crow! They did! The bookseller went right to the shelf and put his hand on it as if he sold copies of it every day.

This past Saturday I was in Dakin Farm in Ferrisburg, Vermont, a store known primarily for ham, cheese, and pancake mixes, not books. What do I see in its little Vermont book area? You guessed it! The Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen! Since I already have a copy, I didn't buy it, though I did get a book there on the nineteenth century prohibition era in Vermont. As well as a bottle of my favorite Vermont wine. 

Allen's book is what is known as a captivity narrative, which were popular in his time. They usually involved Europeans being held captive by Native Americans. The Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen is about an "American" of European decent being held captive by Europeans. (He was a prisoner of war for around two years during the Revolution.) It's supposed to have been a bestseller when it was published in 1779.

Published in 1779 and still on shelves. Well done, Colonel Allen.

My The Hero of Ticonderoga was originally called The Narrative of Therese LeClerc, but the marketing people at G. P. Putnam's Sons thought that sounded like a nun's diary. Middle grade readers don't like nuns' diaries?

I plan to focus on reading history this year, so I'm delighted to have had this encounter with a historical narrative without even trying. 

I Don't Think the Retreat Week Bliss Will Be Lasting Much Longer

My yard today. Nice, eh?

Today was my first day back at work after returning from my annual reading and frolicking in the snow retreat. I also worked on trying to create a meditation practice and took a terrific meditation class last Thursday. Coincidentally, Thursday was the day I began to feel chill.

I made a submission today and tried to contact a Medium publication that rejected something I sent them before I left town because it has not responded in any way to a resubmission I made. What's going on there, guys?

The big thing I did today was file my claim as part of the Anthropic case. It was pretty simple for me, less so for a family member filing for a late relative who was a textbook author. Books classified as "education" require a lot more thinking for their claims.

I did some additional reading on the Anthropic case and realized that the court didn't rule against Anthropic on anything. The first part of the case it clearly felt that stealing books to train AI is fair use. The second part of the case involved Anthropic downloading books from pirate sites to use for training AI. I thought the court had ruled against them on that, but I was wrong. Anthropic continued to deny it had done anything wrong and merely settled out of court. All this talk about this settlement being the largest of its kind sounds good, but it diverts attention from the fact that the court case doesn't change much and authors still have no protection from AI companies going forth.

And on a Personal Note 

I have to start cooking again and sometime in the next couple of hours plan meals and make a grocery list so I can go out and restock this house tomorrow. On top of that, we had snow yesterday and last night, and it's four-thirty in the afternoon here and my plow service hasn't shown up yet. Not all is lost. They didn't come until four o'clock after the last storm. 

Still, there's a real possibility that I'll have to spend part of tomorrow cleaning the driveway as well as dealing with groceries. Glad I got some work done today. Though, you may have noticed, it was work that didn't involve new writing. 

I'm still feeling kind of laid back, but I'm not stupid. That can't last much longer.