The Lovely Jane and I took a ten-day trip to Italy: Milan, Florence, Perugia, Assisi and Rome. We went to see art, mostly: the Last Supper, the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s David, the Uffizi Gallery, the Pieta and Bernini’s columns in Saint Peter’s Basilica. We walked everywhere, up and down many hills and stairs, and I sweated a lot. But it was worth the effort. The weather and the food were superlative, and we had a wonderful time, though we are now dead tired after returning late last night. I’m glad we went — Italy was one of the few places in Europe I’d not visited, and always wanted to do so.
The highlight of the trip for me was the Papal Audience. Sitting in St. Peter’s Square with tens of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world, listening to the Pope’s message in multiple languages, and hearing the faithful joyfully celebrating being in the Holy Father’s presence is simply something every Catholic should strive to do, in my opinion. It’s a happy, uplifting experience, and we loved being there. We arrived early with an organized tour group, and picked out seats close to where the Pope passed by. My charming bride snapped this photo of Leo XIV in his “Popemobile”, passing us just a few feet away:
Pope Leo XIV says hello!
Seeing the Crooked Lines, the prequel to Great Purpose and Book 1 of what is now The Modern Miracles Series, is scheduled to be published on Amazon on October 30th. I’ve received some very useful feedback from a few early readers. Generally, people seem to like it, but the tone is quite different from the other novel, and a couple expressed concerns about the main character, Father Karl Becker. I’ve taken that feedback to heart, and I am making a few tweaks and adding another chapter near the end which should make Becker’s emotional arc more explicit, to give the story a more satisfying conclusion. It sets up the events that follow in Great Purpose quite well, I think, and I hope people enjoy reading the final published version.
Getting away from the manuscript for a couple weeks has been very helpful. I find I have to set a novel aside for a while after writing it, before I can do a proper job with final revisions. Editing it right away is impossible, as I’m too emotionally connected to the prose. I need time to detach and become more objective. Our trip to Italy certainly did that, so now I think I make the needed changes with more discernment.
I also got a few ideas to add to Book 3, which is currently titled The Fire We Carry, as we were touring the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. I think it will round out the trilogy with the message I am trying to convey. So, our trip was successful on a variety of levels.
I’m still on track to publish Book 3 in early 2027. And I’m already collecting ideas for the fourth volume, Twice Present, which I’m really excited about. All I’ll say abut that one is this: bilocation is a weird mystical phenomenon.
The Lovely Jane and I are now planning our next big trip to Ireland, which we hope to take in the next year. We can’t wait for that one!
Life is good!
