20250610
[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.]
Tuesday. Spent last week dealing with a dead control board on the furnace, so no AC or heat. Wasn’t bad, and they got the parts installed by Friday when shit started getting hot. Summer might have finally arrived, which is weird, because usually this month is cool and damp and we call it June-uary around here.
Knight Errant came out last night. Hope y’all enjoy it. First In The Field next month.
Finished Marrakesh #6 last week. Title is Undaunted and I had a lot of fun drawing inspiration from the historical elements around Napoleon Bonaparte’s original exile to Alba. Or rather, the elements leading up to it. Filtered, of course, through the worldbuilding I’ve done.
Originally, I had planned for it to be a 2-parter, but once I got into the story, adjustments I made meant that any second part will be at a remove. Possibly with a second story slipped in to make it #8 instead of #7.
Dunno.
What it did mean was that the next writing project turned out to be Last Stand #13. I left things at a good spot at the end of Season One, but I have EXTENSIVE notes about future story ideas, and delved into those. At the same time, I came up with a meta-arc that might span at least half if not all of Season Two (another 12 novellas) into one big things. Because why the hell not?
At present, the target is for this story to go into Boundary Shock Quarterly Issue 035, coming out a year from now. That means that I might start publishing more Last Stand stories in 2027, which isn’t that far away, but I would need to write several so I am extending. And more Marrakesh. And more Survey Corps. And a bunch of other things, but adding one story to an existing series is a lot easier for me, because I don’t have to generate a half-million words to publish. I don’t like leaving you hanging, and have too many First or Second books in a new series that need banging on because they don’t stand alone.
And, because I’m having too much damned fun, I’m about halfway through the third story in “Two Against The Stars” which is the new space opera erotica stuff for Cole. Talking to Mark tomorrow and see how he’s feeling. Maybe we build a new quarterly anthology magazine. Maybe not. News next week.
Lots of critters around here. Saw a mama deer with two zoomy fawns over the last week. And saw a barn owl hunting snakes during the day. She must have a nest just up the hill a little from the way she was flying. Never seen a daytime barn owl, so extra cool. But I live in a rural zone that I keep wild for them to enjoy and survive. My fun is just a bonus
Past that, y’all keep keeping on.
Oh: WORLD CON IS IN SEATTLE in August. Knight Errant (A’Zedi Survey Corps, Book One) is out. I will have a paper edition (it is sitting on my left on my desk). If I Tuckerized you into that book (just about everyone I got permission from at this point, saving a couple), and you will be in the Seattle area (WorldCon or any other reason), I would like to get you to sign my copy. And I’ll sign yours.
Mark your calendars. I’ll also be in Vegas for AuthorNation in November, and am talking to the folks at Superstars for February. Hoping to make it to Minneapolis in December for family holiday, but that’s not nailed down yet.
Also happy to road trip to Portland to see you, but not any greater distance than that or Spokane or the Canadian border going north. You let me know.
More erotica in the background. If you wanna first read it, lemme know. If you write erotica or know folks who do, I suspect we’ll give serious talk to starting a Syndicate Magazine at some point, so we’ll be talking and recruiting. Film at 11, as it were.
Past that, y’all have a lovely Tuesday.
shade and sweet water,
b
West of the Mountains, WA
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