[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.]
Just sent the April Newsletter. Now on to the sausage making.
Or something.
Got a gallon of Blueberry rum on the counter, slowly finishing fermenting. Started with two quarts of blueberry juice from the store, and a jar of molasses. Let that run for a couple of days, then found some vanilla beans that had been mostly dried out flavoring brown sugar and tossed them in as well. Bubbled like hell for a couple of days. Week in now and probably killing it Thursday, give or take, so that it can rest, then be distilled down into a half-gallon or so of darkly flavored rum.
I usually split the carboy in half and distill one and pour all the alcohol into the second. Given the yeast I used, we ought to be around 15% ABV starting, so maybe close to 60 proof when done and ready to backsweeten, because I like ports more than I do dry wines.
Will be nice as a thing to sip come summer.
Finished Red Branch 5 last week and have gotten 14k into Heather’s War #4 so far, targeting 65k. This is the one where shit gets a little dark, because I’ve set up a three-sided civil war, into which troublemakers are adding their own, deadly mischief. Knew when I started that it would be five novels worth of story. And that 4 would get the dark one, before things started to turn into something better.
And a transition, because I have whole generations of characters I intend to explore from here, as the Republic, Empire, and others evolve slowly over time.
I have a buddy who wants to write one of those grand, multigenerational epics like James A. Michener did in his illustrious career. I’ve never been that ambitious, but the various Republic of Aquitaine series will probably fall into that category, because in the chapter I just wrote it was Date of the Republic April 23, 418. For comparison, Auberon starts Date of the Republic June 26, 392. If my math is right, that’s twenty-six years so far, and I have another year or so here, then two more series behind that, taking me forward probably another twenty to twenty-five years from here, or around Republic 440.
Can’t talk much about those characters. Well, I can, but I’m four novels ahead of the rest of you, and the name Veronika Provst won’t make any sense, except when I tell you that she’s Tom Provst’s oldest granddaughter. And eventually, you’ll meet Kati Weigand, youngest child of Casey and Vo.
Did I mention BIG?
Spring coming. Lots of books coming, so I’m putting out a lot of things to try to clear the trunks and start earning rent here. More Chace Haig and some Pizzafarmer coming, in case you haven’t gotten your preorders in.
Just hit publish on the latest Boundary Shock Quarterly (Issue 030: Fading Empires) and expecting more stories from my Syndicate. Editing on the latest issue of Thrill Ride, with 010 (“Fast Cars”) coming in June.
Make sure you are signed up for my various newsletters, because I’m not on facebook hardly at all anymore and not much on Bluesky, either, so you gotta hear it direct from the horse’s mouth.
https://www.boundaryshockquarterly.com/newsletter/
https://thrillridemagazine.com/newsletter-signup/
And remember to keep banging the rocks together!
shade and sweet water,
b
West of the Mountains, WA
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