[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.]

Stupid freaking bear. Keeps getting into the wife’s birdfeeders and destroying them. Turned out she’d moved away from using the cayenne suet. Birds don’t care. Squirrels and other critters won’t eat.

Had a bear twice now in a week. Transient male I assume, presumably fattening up for winter, and I’m on a wildlife corridor so everybody wanders through at one time or another. Cost of doing business out here.

Got the walls of the barn interior sanded. The inner wall is covered over with 5mm plywood from ceiling to about five feet up. Haven’t gone lower because I need to build a floor once I get the gravel (waiting to hear from him on delivery), then go up with a 4×8 sheet of plywood as the lower level all the way around.

Hit the hardware stores over the weekend and picked up a light fixture and what we needed to run wiring and such. Probably have power partially installed by Friday. Getting there. Not close to done, but closer. A lot of fiddly bits to do, wrapped around a couple of big things. Still hoping to have it done in six weeks. Or at least soft open. Y’all are invited to visit and see.

Writing: wrote the B4B last week. It’ll drop in October, I think. Then a short for BSQ and another short for TRM. Will write some more shorts soon, but Scattered Tribes will keep you busy a bit longer.

Started the second A’Zedi Survey Corp novel yesterday. This is the series where everyone is tuckerized (like 20+ people). And writer-brain handed me a plot for the next Marrakesh novel, so that might be coming. Marrakesh I can just tack on the end, as it is an ongoing series built that way deliberately. Same with Survey Corps, but I have to write 3+ of those before I start dropping them, so I don’t get yelled at.

Heard back from one of my First Readers on Red Branch, and he’s really enjoying that series, so it gives me hope to move forward with those as we go. First part of the year utterly sucked for writing, but I managed to hold pace. Planning to push a little this fall as things [hopefully] settle some.

Made some drastic changes, but none of them were more than extending existing themes out to more logical conclusions. And most of them reduce my stress, which is better.

Got a Monday ahead. Drizzly (good) but humidly muggy (ick). Gonna go write, then work on technical stuff for Author Nation and such. Will send out your story later today or tomorrow, depending. Coming down close to the end of Book One, and still not sure how to do book two yet, so your thoughts are welcome.

Y’all enjoy.

shade and sweet water

b

West of the Mountains, WA

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