[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.]
It’s always useful to see the three-weeks-lag newsletter show up on Tuesday morning, so I can see where I was at that point. Plus, I open last week’s doc and save with a new date moving forward, so I can glance back.
I’m just over 30k into Ollie 4, which should be the end of the current series. As always, I have an amazingly rich and deep world here to play in. And made it big enough that I could set others here without ever spinning them off from Ollie and crew if I chose. Actually did that a while back with the Roland stories some of you might remember from several years ago. Don’t think I’ve every published all of them. Or maybe even any. I’d have to look.
It is August. My brain made the transition to Con mode midday yesterday, mostly because my normal Monday schedule got blown to hell. It happens. It’s also August, and I have a reminder in my phone to be wary of bouts of extreme depression or extreme xenocidal tendencies.
Woke up angry this morning. Understand that it’s all in my head. Mostly related to the heat and my preference for some rain. I moved up here for the rain. My perfect day is 62F and a little drizzly. That’s Seattle for large chunks of the year, so I’m happy.
Summer up here is hot and dry, generally ranging from July 4 to Oct 1. Hot. Nasty hot some days. Gonna be 90F+ today. Was yesterday. Might cool down some this weekend. Might rain.
This time tomorrow, I’ll be at WorldCon, downtown. We’re staying in a B&B not far from the lightrail line, so we can park once and take the train both ways after that. And be away from people when I’m done. Shortly, I will turn into the carnival barker. I pull him down off the shelf and put him on for cons when I have to people. Be up on stage giving good panel. Being extroverted.
Cost of doing business, and my father taught me how to do it by example. Pretty good at it.
Still a little grumpy.
Started a short story yesterday that I can write on the phone this week. DARK. Been researching the classical definition of Anti-Hero. In the 1990s, the “90’s Anti-Hero” was an asshole who eventually turned out to have a heart of gold. But an asshole still. Not someone I hardly ever wanted to sit down and have a beer with, and that’s the best working definition I’ve ever encountered.
If I don’t want to put up with that bullshit, why am I expecting my readers to? Right up there with folks who write TSTL characters. Too Stupid To Live. Always making dumb choices and SOMEHOW the Deus Ex Machina saves them enough to advance the plot. Dunno. I usually put the book down long before that, assuming I don’t throw it across the room.
Grumpy today. Tasker is a good character to explore, because he just executed three punks in the story. Has a reason. Good one, by his standards. Not a 90s Anti-hero. Maybe not even a classic Anti-Hero, because the definition there is simply a morally complicated character with doubts, hatred, and side hobbies, when the Classic Hero (see most Westerns made before Clint Eastwood) is Superman with a six-shooter. Never doubts. Never flags. Never questions good and evil. Cardboard cutout archetype in a white hat.
As you know, Bob, I write much messier characters. Not Byronic bitches, but messy.
Realistic. People with something interesting to say and more than a wind-up toy. More Batman than Superman. More Daredevil than Captain America.
Messy.
Eventually, you’ll meet Tasker.
And Phil, because the Ambassador made the mistake of DEMANDING more Kosnett stories. He wasn’t prepared for me to turn him and Alison into semi-retired government assassins in a new Action-thriller short series (The Agency, 001 done). Heh. Hopefully he forgives me at some point.
If you are reading this in real time, maybe I’ll see you this week at WorldCon. Otherwise, in three weeks I hope you caught up with me at some point. Got my book for folks to sign. I’ll even sign yours.
Gonna go Tuesday for a while.
shade and sweet water,
b
West of the Mountains, WA
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