[As usual, three 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.]

They say hurt dogs howl. Nice phrase for someone blindly lashing out when confronted on their bad behavior. Had a couple of folks surprise me by biting recently.

World of difference between “No, thank you,” and “Hey, fuck you, I don’t need anything from you!” when the question was “Need any help?”

Might be a bit grumpy. Might just be almost June. Anyone who’s been around here for a while should remember that I tend to reinventory things around June 1 and throw out things. Old trash. Bad ideas. Good ideas that never rose to claim any mindspace.

Something.

Kinda that week.

Changes, but that’s normal. Always learning means always looking at old things and either adapting them to new circumstances or chucking them onto the burn pile.

Monday.

Finished Felix. Wrote another Boston short story as the start of an arc of several such tales for next year’s Thrill Ride magazine.

One of May’s changes was me (quietly) taking over as owner and Publisher of Thrill Ride, starting with Issue 009 next year. Lots of prep work. Recruited a new editor to handle those duties for me. Recruiting a new syndicate to close submissions and make things work better. Probably have that done by mid-June, as I’ve been talking to the first tranche of folks and gotten a solid core to build on.

Short fiction for Swordmistress Zhen about halfway done this morning before I start. Traveler From The West (01) is out. Jade Tiger (02) is in Sisters In Arms (Thrill Ride 5). Writing a third story now, but not sure if I’ll put out individuals or collect them all up later. Don’t have to have answers today.

Not sure what’s “next” after Wan-Xian. Planning to write the second Scour novel soon. Some of you got #1 as a monthly a while back. Returning to the land of Duff, Red, and Lefty, because I have a lot of story there to tell. A whole long arc of post-apocalyptic railroad blues.

If you have any short fiction needs (some character I haven’t touched in a while), don’t hesitate to hit reply and let me know. I have a ton of open universes there to work with.

Or new stuff. Writer brain helpfully threw an idea at me yesterday that had a really interesting character backstory, if I wanted to pursue it. Might. Could be really any genre, though the idea itself was all set for modern action.

Simply don’t have the hours in the day to write them all, unless I have about another dozen folks knock on the front door and demand that they could handle editing/first reader chores. Fabulous Publisher Babe™ needs time off to do her things.

Not a lot past that. Next time we talk will be June, and things will have started changing. Got a lot of summer plans that come into focus. Farm work. Mind work. Future work.

That first pebble has started down the hillside.

🙂

shade and sweet water

b

West of the Mountains, WA

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