20230102
[As usual, two weeks lag here, if you aren’t reading this on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/blazeward). If you’d like your news fresher, and the monthly Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef newsletter, all I ask is a buck to help keep the lights on around here.]
Monday. New Year. New me. New something. Trying to make it as mundane as possible, because I’ve had about enough. All the warm, friendly exterior is about ground off at this point, leaving all the hard, sharp, and pointy bits that nobody has really gotten to see in a long time.
Honestly, not even Donna, my first wife, let alone Fabulous Publisher Babe™, though she knows.
[Sidebar story on that: We were at a writing thing, and they had us all go around the room: standing up, giving our name, and saying where we were from. One of the folks up front takes my future wife aside and tells her that FPB should run a background check on me. Just from that little. The Babe smiles at her. “I already know what I’d find.” Told you I married another great one.]
Hoping shit settles down. Gotta replace the heat pump and air cycler entirely, because not even Lennox can figure out why it is acting like that, so I have stumped everybody. At the same time, the well tank is leaking, and that’s another expensive replacement coming up.
I would greatly appreciate all of you telling all of your friends to buy my books, because I’m about to write an ugly check. Like, way shitty.
Brighter side, I’m hoping to launch the Corsac Fox Kickstarter in a few weeks. I have a script for the video I need to record. The story itself to polish and insert some art. Then get approval and launch.
There will be links. And hype. And pleas for you to tell everyone.
Ten years ago, before I met Fabulous Publisher Babe™ the first time, I had ideas for two grand space operas. In those days, there was no such thing as writing for money, so I was planning to turn them into a couple of science fiction RPG campaigns for my crew.
Then things went a little sideways.
Story Arc #1 turned out to be “The Science Officer.” Most of you are familiar with how that turned out. And continues to.
Story Arc #2 was, at the time, called the “Lone Gray Wolf” in my working notes. (And I still have those notes in a file, but they are long past relevant at this point.) It turned into “Corsac Fox” when I started world-building for writing a novel series.
The original idea literally spanned about forty years in my head. Epic, in the context of kid at the start and old man at the end, with a lifetime of crazy adventures in the middle, continually building to greater and greater operatic tones.
And now, I’m about to Kickstarter Corsac Fox #1. I’ve got #2 done already. And plans to write #3 in the spring. No idea how many novels this first block of stuff will require. Feels like six, but that really only gets me to a certain spot barely a quarter of the way to my original plan.
Watch this space for more news.
Went shooting this morning. Very briefly. Like 31F and 30mph winds meant I shot three rounds (3×12) and called it good, because I was shivering and that makes it hard to shoot accurately.
Came home and wrote. About halfway through Last Stand #10. Already have #11 and #12 mapped in my head, then we’re done with “Season One” and cover every month in 2023 with a Last Stand novella.
Plus other stuff. LOTS of other stuff. Like two Pacific Force Action/Adventure novels (both up for pre-order). Some Urban Fantasy. Three Derlyth (Occult Detective, all dropping in May). Two Corsac Fox. Three Marrakesh. The second of Kincaide’s War. Still gotta write the next Science Officer novel (#13) but the rest listed here is done.
Hoping to do Kickstarters for both of the Corsac Fox novels. (All of them, as a matter of fact.) And offer certain things for backers that other folks get to pay a premium for later, like art and secondary origin stories of some of the major characters. And whatever other crazy stuff you folks can come up with for a wishlist.
Right now, I’ll hype January projects, because those are barely a week away. Time flies, ya know?
Hope your holidays were less interesting than mine. (The Chinese covered this.) And remember, you made it this far, so all those [redacted] who tried to stop you have failed.
Surviving is often winning. I can testify to that, given some of the things we don’t talk about in polite company. (aka You’re buying the beer if you want to hear it.)
Happy Monday. Happy New Year. Go knock ’em dead.
Also, the January story (Bellerophon: Origin) is not going out tonight. I have to GM what should be the last bit of an undead dungeon crawl and that’s one thing too many, so you are getting it tomorrow night.
Shade and sweet water,
b
West of the Mountains, WA
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