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Monday. Getting tired of scraping the windows on the car in mid-April. 35F at dawn. Warmest I encountered while out driving to breakfast and home was 41F.
Fuck that noise.
Stayed in. Sun’s kinda out, but I can see the clouds coming off the mountains, looking out my window. That means cold rolling back downhill. Staying in.
Finished Science Officer #13 last week. Quite pleased with where it came out. December. Probably go up for pre-order in July or something, just to build traction.
I have no idea what I am writing for May’s Patreon short. Have given thought to giving you the first few chapters of the Air Pirates of Cyrenaica, just to mess with you.
I have three of them done. And got about 5,000 words into #4 when writer-brain said no. Stop. Now.
Did.
Took a year, and writer-brain explained that I had the wrong ending. And here was the right one.
So this morning I started book four. Plan at present is to drop them all back to back next year sometime. They don’t complete the tale, but complete an arc and I can go back later and add more. Usual for many of my series, where the end is merely the “happy-for-now” moment before something else breaks.
Because I slowed my writing way down this year (and it was a good idea, in spite of getting jittery every once in a while), I might also hold off on releasing Marrakesh until January. Have three of those, all Monster of the Week Space Adventure like the old days. (ST:TOS or ST:TNG for instance, where each story is self-contained and builds, instead of being an ongoing mess of threads to tease out. You’d be able to pick up any one and understand, but starting at the beginning will give you more depth and richness.)
It is April (I’m pretty sure), so I might have a fourth or more by this time next year. Similarly, four Air Pirates means that I have at least half of 2024 in hand, and could fill up a significant chunk of the year while I keep writing ahead.
(I have a list of future episodes for Last Stand that amounts to at least a while second season without working too hard, so that might be a whole year of stuff as well.)
Always concerned about publishing, because the bots reward you for consistency, and I have a streak going back to 2017 at this point. Want to keep that going, but some of the longer projects take time.
Kincaide’s War #2 (Vehicles of Epiphany) is 158k words. Functionally three months of effort at the current pace. Thus, 40k Air Pirates and Marrakesh novels to offset. And 22k Last Stand novellas.
And, hopefully this fall, I’ll pick up the Taft Station series (1 and 2 done) and finish it as well (5). Plus more Heather and the other half of Corsac Fox block one.
Corsac is up for pre-order everywhere, if you missed out on the kickstarter. Folks been enjoying that one, and #2 will kickstarter in late summer, I think. Getting ready to hire Maria to do more alien art for me.
Past that, Monday. Need more coffee. Busy week ahead, mostly unrelated to writing and publishing.
Y’all try not to get arrested. Don’t have time to bail you out today.
Shade and sweet water,
b
West of the Mountains, WA
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