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Tuesday.

Yeah.

Had an amazingly shitty week yesterday. Not looking forward to today. Might end up biting someone. Or lots of someones. Most of them got it coming.

Where to start?

Random. Buddy dumped a travel mug of cold coffee in my lap. Didn’t even make the top ten yesterday, but I kinda gotta leave most of them off the page because revenge is a dish best served over ice cream, and I really don’t want a couple of them to see it coming.

Apparently, I’ve been too nice to folks lately and they’ve decided to take advantage of looser boundaries on behavior. Expect some snap back. And maybe a few whomps upside heads.

Won’t say I’m going hunting, because they haven’t gone that far. Will say that running is probably just the best idea.

Nuff said.

Finished Belle #2. Like #1, a little darker than what I usually write. Like, way dark here. Darker than 1. Might be working some of my rage out on paper. Not enough, but some.

Also wrote something entirely into darkness last week that both surprised and pleased me. Action-thriller, with most of the romantic beats in place. Came in just under 17k and I got one of the elders I respect to do a first read on it. He came back with two fixes, neither of them large, that probably turn it into something amazing.

Another person hearing me talk about it made a suggestion that probably turns it into either a five-book series of action novels or a doorstop. Might even split the difference and do a trilogy. Shit only knows. If you like something that is as much about revenge on bad men as it is about romance, give a yell and I’ll let you First Reader it one I make those two fixes.

Started Emmett #2 (of 3). Modern Urban Fantasy with a cat burglar and an awakened Marxist goat. Because. Just getting into it now, but it’s lighter. Hopefully, I can shift lighter, though I might just have to lean into dark and angry today and start some other project.

I normally lean into noble bright in my writing. If I’m asking you to spend hours with these characters, you shouldn’t have to wade through things without a reward. They call it the Beer test, as in, would you invite this character into your living room to have a beer and ask them about the book. Even villains can pass that test, because they have interesting things to say.

Slogging through constant negativity isn’t for me. Probably isn’t for you, either.

When I go dark, there is a reason. And usually a happy-enough ending as a reward.

Maybe I should just start that Sutton trilogy and call it good. She’s angry, but has extremely valid reasons. Sees herself as Nemesis, the greek who handled punishments for a variety of crimes. And buddy, there are a lot of folks out there who think they have immunity.

Impunity.

Freedom, without costs or consequences.

A great many of them need to be taken down the hard way, simply because they have forgotten the unwritten rules. Maybe we’ll even write those rules down, possibly using a bit of force and pain.

But I’m in a really sour mood today and generally staying away from people so I don’t end up biting much.

Much.

And it’s Tuesday. Lukyan warned you.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

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