[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.]
You missed it, but late pledges are still live briefly
Reminder that the Kickstarter link is finalized and ready to go for the Make 100.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blazeward/make-100-2026-collection
Five volumes: 60 stories SF. 20 Fantasy. 10 Thriller. 10 Superhero. $25. Hell of a deal.
Those of you lagging three weeks will have to hustle if you are just catching up as it’s that close to done, only running three weeks. Tell all your friends because I’d like to make life-changing money from this one.
Pants are still overrated.
Good news, the kickstarter (1/13) is over $2500. Good money. Not life-changing, but thank you to everyone who backed and I’m hoping you enjoy something like 3000 pages of stories. Current stretch level includes six more stories in a Volume 6, including my one (to date) attempt at a romantic meet-cute. More fun, we’ve hit a goal where I will write something FOR volume 6. Not sure what. If you have ideas, speak up and maybe trigger inspiration. Gotta look at the pile and see what jumps out at me.
Seriously, kinda at a loss for stretch goals, because I’m already farther along than I thought I would get. And folks have suggested swag, without understanding how much time, energy, and money would go into handling merchandise. It is a pain. Plus, I’m in the middle of a Swedish Death Cleaning, getting rid of stuff so brain doesn’t want more stuff.
It’s Kickstarter, and I’ve been part of too many kickstarters where the person doing the project blew through the money before delivering, and I ended up getting nothing. In one case, he had to declare bankruptcy, sell his ttrpg to someone else, and that guy offered us the chance to buy it at his cost, so I ended up paying twice for one of the games on my shelf.
No, thank you.
Speaking of games, you are going to hear me talking about ttrpg and board games this year. I have a project I want to write, after I get others wrapped up, so I might get to Book One this year. The project is called Hoshiyama, which loosely means Star Mountain and refers to the Observatory on the top of it, but only as the name of a starship.
Another Grand Epic Military Space Opera, because. Drawing inspiration from the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica, plus both Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon Bonaparte, both of whom managed to reign for about the same length of time.
Old-timers will remember that I was working on a table top roleplaying game engine up into 2024, when the guy I was working with decided that he wanted to make a game that was a pale echo of AD&D1. Shadowdark, basically, with a few additions and most of the character classes stripped down until largely Red Fighter/Blue Fighter.
I am forced to play level/class/D20 games because that’s what everyone is building these days, but I remember when DnD 2 wasn’t even in the top ten when it came to games we played. (Late 80s, early 90s). Shadowrun. Mechwarrior/Battletech. Champions. Star Wars (West End). Etc. None of them based on a d20 mechanic.
So I put things away for a time and let him create his game. It kinda failed when he realized how linear things were and how much it required players to try to make shit up, only for him to smash their ideas back down because it didn’t fit his (unwritten) vision for the classes. He’s going to try again, with more rules and more class abilities. I have my doubts, but I’ll play.
More importantly, writer-brain connected Hoshiyama with the game engine in my head, and game me a central focus. It also lets me worldbuild and rulesbuild simultaneously. Plus, Ken Burnside who runs Squadron Strike at Ad Astra Games suggested a starship combat variant based on his system offering me some pointers and suggestions for how I could build things today to make it easier tomorrow.
So at present, I am building the ttrpg at the same time I am planning Book One, with a goal to drop both at the same time, and let people play in the world.
***Do I know any pencil artists willing to do some line drawing art for cheap, given the project of a lot of quick drawings, b/w, like you find inside RPG books? Pass the word and have them reach out. No AI artists entertained, and I’m not looking for any full color work. Pencil sketch grade stuff. A real artist gamer will know exactly what I’m talking about and those are the ones I want to talk to. ***
Getting close to finishing the third Shogun story and completing that trilogy. Next major project is the third and final book in Kincaide’s War, Ships of Heaven. Also writing shorter stuff on the phone, as I do. Gotta write on Mondays. SF short (Baja the Bounty Hunter) and erotica (Santiago Kirby) going right now. Plus whatever for the kickstarter.
Don’t forget the kickstarter.
Past that, chugging along. Swedish Death Cleaning the brain as much as the house. It’s nice, but everything keeps moving around and is a bit unsettled at present. Will get fixed.
Will continue writing. Will make a game or two to go with a military Space Opera epic series.
Will win. And really, that’s what matters at the end of the day.
shade and sweet water,
b
West of the Mountains, WA
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