[As usual, you’re watching this two weeks later than folks on my Patreon feed. See below for details.]
Fall might finally be upon us. After one, final taunting, I have not seen any presents from Jimmy-Jack in the yard. Thus, he has fertilized things sufficient. I always worry, because he’s about thirty, and that’s old for a retired racehorse. In the past, other neighbor Randy would call and ask if he could park a flatbed in the yard, so they could bring up a backhoe.
I do not know how many dead racehorses are buried up there, but if and when that woman finally dies and her kids want too much for the land, I’m looking forward to telling prospective buyers. The answer is more than I can count on one hand. Hell, I figure it would take about $30-50k to clean up all the shit, crap, and leftovers up there. She has been there for more than fifty years, and there are a dozen dead cars to go with the buried horses.
This summer, my fear was that I’d come out and there’d be a dead horse in my yard. And that Randy would have to find a space down here to bury him, instead of hauling him back to the top of the hill for internment.
Normal people do not have migratory horses in their lives.
Monday. Went shooting this morning. Did well, even. 35#, 28” Martin Jaguar takedown recurve in a guitar case. 30 yards, which is just out of range for a short-bow, according to Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition. (80/320’) Shooting with Disadvantage
Followed that up with CPL 99 Tai Chi. Knee has been hurting randomly from where I nearly tore something several years ago while roofing. Stretched it as far as you can without a tear, though there might be a small one. Expect I’ll have to have something done at some point. Tai Chi has a lot of weight shifting onto that left knee and aggravates it. Might have to find something else. Or invent a new form for my aliens and do it in the morning. As one does. (Taunting Lucas, as it were. Hi, M…)
Didn’t hardly write this past weekend. Tai Chi Saturday, and feeling yucky enough in the afternoon that I took a nap. Fabulous Publisher Babe™ did as well, so we might have caught a hint of something. Fine after sleeping.
Sunday, got a few words done, then friends came over and gleamed my apples and grapes fully. And, then the Babe had a friend over and they resinned the tiles for next summer when we redo the bathroom at the main house. Then a double date for a late lunch.
Soft weekend. Ramping back up. Hoping to fall back into something of a rhythm. Published two anthologies as well, so that was a lot of last minute crazy shit to handle.
Starting to read the next Boundary Shock Quarterly as folks are getting in late. (I offered to charge late fees with one of them, just as a prompt. We’ll see what he says.)
Next issue is the Pirate issue, and I have no idea what I’m going to get. Also invited several new folks to submit, some of them from After the Fall. Always looking for SF writers I can add to the Syndicate. Know lots of writers. Not many of them are into SF. If you got friends or a fan base, give a yell.
Past that, about halfway through the third Occult Detective novel in the Augustus Dexter Derlyth series. Ongoing, and no idea how far they will take me. I do already know the rough plot of #4, so if folks end up liking this series, I’ll be ready to follow up. Dropping all three of them in June 2023, so mark your calendars if you are into Occult Detective stuff. London. 1924. Magic. Nuff said.
Will keep banging on Derlyth. Not sure after that, but I have a lot of shorter stuff I need to write before the end of the year. Have a third Fatima and need a fourth, but it might be straight thriller with a new character set.
Also, I have been researching comedy. I rarely write intentionally funny things. And find that a lot of humor tends to not age well. Watched Blaze Saddles front to back over the weekend. Watched Airplane last week, again credits to credits. Both times, it struck me how dated some of the references were, and how few people would get some of the jokes today. Physical humor and slapstick is universal, but subtle things require set up.
Sat down with the More Than Complete Hitchhiker’s Guides To The Galaxy Omnibus that I’ve owned for thirty years and not read in at least fifteen. Again, comedy, but it stands a little better, because SF and you have to explain everything instead of assuming a society and culture like you do with “modern” genre/fiction.
Have several old television comedy shows on dvd on order from the library. F Troop. McHale’s Navy. Get Smart. A few others. I wanted to look at things that were NOT family sitcom. Instead, these tend to be Found Family, and revolve around something at work, instead of semi-disfunctional families. At some point, I’ll dig into Cheers and few others, to see what I can draw from the past.
Question for all y’all:
What comedy television over the last decade or so would you recommend.
Not a family sitcom. Not a dramedy (MASH did both serious and comical in its time, growing more serious as they went.) Preferably SF (and I’m given to understand that Oroville is more of an homage to Star Trek than anything, and that the suits initially made him make it a comedy, which he moved away from later.) Also, I don’t want a kid’s show, because I want adults, instead of coming of age, teen angst, etc. Finally, it has to be available on dvd. (Not interested in downloading illegally. If folks like Disney don’t want to let me watch their shit on disk, I won’t watch it, because I am not in the mood to go to town and sit in a coffee shop to watch tv.)
Past that, what have I missed that I should make up for now?
Shade and sweet water,
b
West of the Mountains, WA
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