20240513

[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.]

Almost sort of maybe recovered this week. Had a quiet weekend, after all the crazy. And still shoveling horse shit, but that just means that Jimmy is healthy, bored, and generally smart enough not to go beyond my yard in the middle of the night.

One of these days, dipshit might wander all the way to the bottom of the hill. Dunno if he’d get himself lost, but he might. I’m a quarter mile up the way, around a long curve, with ponds and streams on the north side, his home on the west, crazy drunk hillbilly on the south, and space east where he might go if he felt the need.

At least he’s not as stubborn as a goat. Always wonder if he’ll run off with one of the elk herds that come through.

Writing is going nice. Finished the sixth Corsac Fox last week. Need to write #7 and then Block One will be done.

Those of you who have been around long enough might remember a story set in a universe I was calling Cloning Blues. Notes say I wrote Kin in 2021. Think I sent it out to y’all at some point, but can’t honestly remember. (If I didn’t, someone remind me and I’ll insert it into the queue at some point.)

Anyway, picked it up and started to finally turn it into a novel series. Originally, I had intended to start in media res in a different place, but realized that I could simply tweak the end as written and start the rest there. So I did. Original story was right at 10k, so I’m just counting up from there.

Had a stupendous amount of world-building done. Got sidetracked on other projects, as usual. But writer-brain insisted that I dig it up, reread and polish it, then extend it finally. I’m not one to argue.

In this case, I think it was something a little more raw and rough than the Space Adventure/Opera I have been writing. And not military, which I’ve had a lot of lately as well.

Operatic in tone, I think, but a really twisted take on family. (IYKYK) And weird places I can go in a Roger Corman/SF kind of low-budget-feeling Setting.

Saw that Roger had died over the weekend. 98, so one hell of a run. And made some stupidly fun movies in his time. Battle Beyond The Stars didn’t inspire the Cloning Blues, but I will have it in the back of my head going forward. In a good way. Sort of.

Maybe.

I’m only a few days from getting the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ finally home. Went this morning and got groceries to last me the week, and have things for her to pick from when she arrives and collapses after six weeks away. Also bought beer, for the same reason.

I’m hoping that I can say, this time next week, that the crazy shit of the last year or so is finally over. I might be lying, but all the pieces appear to be coming to closure, so I can start a whole other realm of stupid, as it were. But new stupid, as opposed to ongoing drama (none of it our fault).

Summer coming. What grand plans do you have to celebrate?

shade and sweet water

b

West of the Mountains, WA

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