[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.]

Having kind of a hard morning getting motivated, but I’ll go make more coffee shortly.

Yesterday kinda took all my spoons and it’s gray and rainy out there.

Working on Red Branch. As noted elsewhere, I enjoy the research and writing, so I’ll keep doing them regardless of how everyone else likes them. #2 came out this week, with 3 and 4 on preorder and 5 in the can. 6 is maybe about a third done. I’ll dive deeper into how it came about next year when it gets published, because that requires its own full blog post or newsletter.

One major project coming up right now is to catalog and organize all the short fiction I have written to date. Been doing the monthly patreon for a lot of years (Late 2019, I just went and looked). That’s a lot of stuff. Issue 31 of Boundary Shock Quarterly comes out July 1. Issue 10 of Thrill Ride comes out June 1. Several other side projects like Blaze Ward Presents.

It adds up to a lot. I have been slowly assembling them into collections to publish, but then 2024 happened and I fell off that wagon after getting Trevor and Harper out. Back to work. Have identified as many as a dozen potentials to do, some of which will be a bit (the first six Beckett Fernsby, with #6 coming out in BSQ this summer for instance). Laima and Brother Jon, but I’m not sure if they are “done” to a resting point.

But lots. And get them out earning rent instead of moldering in a trunk. So that’s my project this summer. With Heather and Ollie filling 9-10 months of the 2026 publishing schedule, I need to find 2-3 things to fill in the rest. That might be this, dropping several collections all at once.

Not a lot of news past that. Did karate last night and kinda stiff and sore this morning, but that was leaving a lot of it on the dojo floor yesterday. Getting better. Sensei likes my progress. And helping some of the young’uns (got 11 year olds transitioning in with some experience but a new start).

Reminder that I’m still planning to be at WorldCon this August. If you were tuckerized into Knight Errant (the first A’Zedi Survey Corps book) then I want you to sign my copy at some point.

I will also be at the Enumclaw Beer Walk on June 7, obviously in Enumclaw. Talking to the folks at Superstars about possibly being involved next winter. News when I know.

Past that, I just keep banging the rocks together. That’s really all that matters.

The only thing in the world you control is your attitude, after all.

What’s yours like?

🙂

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

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