David Todd | Let’s Chat

Welcome, Everyone.

David Todd honors us with some thoughts this week. Welcome, David.

David Todd is a civil engineer by profession, and a writer by passion. His interests include history (especially American history), politics, and genealogy. He writes novels in multiple genres, non-fiction books in USA history, poetry, and Bible studies. A native Rhode Islander, he has lived since 1991 in Kansas City, Saudi Arabia, North Carolina, Kuwait, and Arkansas.

After a 45-year career as a civil engineer, David retired in 2019 and published the fourth novel in his Church History Novels series earlier this year.

David is giving away one paperback copy of any of the four volumes in this Church History Novels series, reader’s choice. So, please join the chat below.

A Word From David

The writing adventure continues. I self-published my first items ten years ago, a short story and a non-fiction book on US history. My genre focus disorder (GFD) is not in remission. In fact, I think it has grown. My 34 items available on Amazon include 12 short stories (11 of those in two series), four church history novels, two baseball novels, two engineering workplace humor novels four U.S. history books, a book of poetry, a Bible study, and a few other things.

While retirement has given me more time to write, it has also made my GFD worse. I’d tell you what my current writing projects are, but you would think I have no ability to focus at all. I’ll simply say I’m wrapping up my main current project, a history of my church, Bentonville Community Church of the Nazarene, for our 100th anniversary.

David Todd: You’d think I’d be writing more in retirement.

You’d be right, other than health challenges hitting the family, a little for me and a lot for my wife. Then, there’ those long drives from Northwest Arkansas to West Texas to see our daughter, son-in-law, and four grandchildren, and long drives to Chicago to see our son tend to cut into writing time. Still, writing continues at an accelerated pace.

The Teachings presents a fictional account of the writing of the Didache, a church manual thought to have been written in the mid- to late-first century, incorporating the teachings of the twelve apostles.

No one knows the author of the Didache. Augustus ben Adam wrote it in the novel. Recently married, without employment, his wife pregnant, he takes on the lucrative commission from church leaders to write this manual. In pursuit of that, he travels to Egypt to conduct research just as the first Jewish War breaks out. Augustus’s family is trapped in a small city in Galilee that comes under Roman siege. Augustus returns to Israel but is detained in Caesarea and can’t go rescue his pregnant wife.

Augustus’s father, Adam ben Zechariah, a Romanized Jew who does a thriving business with the Romans, is also trapped in that city. He and Augustus are estranged from each other because Augustus has become a Christian. In addition, describing the writing and research methods, The Teachings includes Augustus’s attempts to rescue his wife and reconcile with his father.

David Todd: In chronological order, the series to date covers three generations of a family involved with document creatio.:

Adam of Jerusalem, about the writing of the source document for the gospels
Doctor Luke’s Assistant, about the writing of the gospel of Luke
The Teachings, about the writing of the Didache
Preserve the Revelation, about the writing of the gospel of John and the Revelation.

I wrote and published these in a 2-4-1-3 order. I don’t recommend that method for other writers. However, the whole series seems to hang together well, and each novel stands alone.

I programmed more novels in this series, up to as many as eleven. When I finish our church history, I plan to shift all attention to a novel I’m writing with my oldest grandson. After that? I have about 20 novels queued up. And a poetry book started. A new short story started. And another Bible study started.