[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.]

Tuesdays traditionally were the days when TradPub released new books. Every author got a specific Tuesday assigned to them over the course of the year and that was the day their book would come out. I knew it unconsciously before I learned the details, because I just KNEW to walk into the bookstore in early April and I would find a new David Drake book.

These days, I always release on the 10^th. Today is the 10^th. I released a book.

Ollie 1 is finally out. Seeking The Gods, first in the Quest For The Ancients series. Xenoarchaeology and asking who built the ancient network of hypergates that connects the entire galaxy. More importantly, Ollie has never been able to locate the world where Humans come from, and that has irritated him for twenty years.

Then he discovers a clue. And shit will get way out of hand before we’re done, because I wanted to ask some big and chewy questions with this series.

It started out as a series of shorts, as you’ve seen me do several times since. Then I hit a “what the hell do I do now?” part and had to put one story aside for six months before the whole rest of everything came into focus and I wrote. And wrote.

Rufus has been one of my favoritest characters to write, because he’s alien. And does alien shit. Has alien observations and opinions, like how humans cannot commit science or read important books without touching them, regardless of not having eyes on their fingertips.

But the Troida made good evolutionary choices, which he will also remind you of regularly.

And Hawk, when you meet him, should have been played by a young John Astin. You’ll see it when you get there. I had too much fun.

It was a fun series. Dunno what I might write for Ollie in the future, or if I skip forward a generation to Ollie and Mani’s kid. Anything is possible, because I left a lot of open space on that map to play.

Red Branch 5 is getting a cover and a publication date. Doing edits on the back parts of both Heather and Ollie so those are ready in the summer and fall.

Deep into Kincaide’s War 3 at this point. Hit 70k of an expected 170k, and the last third came sharply into focus yesterday. USUALLY, I know how a book and series will end. Not here. Not until yesterday. I was just writing and trusting the unconscious parts of writer-brain to have it.

Granted, I have a whole series of questions that needed to be answered, left over from the first two books, so I knew many of those set pieces, but how they all came together wasn’t something I had consciously engaged.

Wow. Gonna be fun. Gonna be weird as hell, but fun. Just gotta get there.

Ollie today. Heather in a month. Rotating back and forth all summer and fall, then stuff at the end of the year that’s written and in the editing process.

I always knew that Kincaide 3 would be huge, in terms of time, because I expected it to take me 3+ months to write, given other projects and constraints. Shit happens, and this gets Kincaide off my plate for good. No longer hanging over my head to complete, so I can attack some of my other open projects, like Giles or Holden. Or Duff. Stuff to do. Fun to have.

Shit to write.

And more coffee this morning. Gotta have more coffee, as the bags under my eyes have zip codes.

Y’all find someone else to post bail instead.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published three weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

[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.]

Grumpy, crunchy, and a little rabid this morning.

Dojo work last night was all take downs and falls. On mats, but a lot of middle-aged dudes learning basics from the lock to the drop. At one point, as practice dummy, Sensei tweaked my bad shoulder just enough that I’m on some asprin and advil for the swelling this morning.

And the world sucks.

</Homer, backing slowly into the hedge>

Started a new short yesterday on the phone while in town. Boston’s latest adventures, for a future issue of Thrill Ride. Always trying to stay 2-3 issues ahead of everyone in my writing, in case I have to stop and write something at the last minute for one of my magazines to fill space. That’s usually a Sloane Webber story, if you see those.

And why I fired half of the BSQ Syndicate last fall and replaced them with folks who were actually happy to write and deliver stories on time. (…and a little rabid this morning.)

Kincaide 3 is somewhere around 50k. Major plot twist to outsiders, but something that has literally been telegraphed from almost page 1 of book 1. Just took a while to finally unfold, but I promise you you’ll go back and see it. I’m like that.

Got a bunch of other projects that I want to write when I finish Kincaide. And shorts I continue to write on the side, including Harri the Merchant, with two novellas done at present and ready for next year. Gonna write two more so I fill a nice block of stuff, since Kincaide is going to be a three month project, but I knew that, and I write on the phone.

You’ll get your Redlance story tonight. I was too fried and in pain last night to manage it, because I don’t remember where we are and need to write several more of those after Boston.

Crunchy. Getting better. Getting coffee in me to take some of the rusty edges off. Less likely to bite isn’t the same as unlikely, but it’s a Tuesday, and you know what that implies.

Cheers.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published three weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

[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.]

No Pants Day.

Saturday, Feb 24, 2018. My first day as a full-time writer, having walked away from the dayjob as a Database Architect in Business Intelligence on that Friday and not looked back. Got a calendar reminder. Technically, wearing jeans instead of the kilt, but had a couple of days of head cold and finally recovered, but not got a lot of excess spoons today.

Sat all day yesterday to write instead of standing like usual. Still got 5,000 words done on the fifth Brother Jon tale, the one for the special kickstarter edition coming soon. Since I promised not to share with anyone else, it might not come out for a while anywhere, but I enjoy Jon and will likely write more of them as a character collection.

Also working on Kincaide 3 (the end of the trilogy) but it is going slow. That’s intentional, because I have 170k words of story, and want it to flow at a slower and deeper pace, rather than a six-car accident on paper.

And have ideas for a weird new Urban Fantasy character, [very loosely] inspired by Fred Ward’s character from Cast A Deadly Spell, which is one of my favorite movies. It combines Hard Boiled Detective Noir with Cthulhu Mythos, and also includes Clancy Brown, Julianne Moore, and David Warner. Everyone understood the assignment and channeled Hammett and Chandler

It will be a little weird, warning you up front. And you might see it here at some point. YE HAFF BEEN WARNED!!!

Heh.

Celebrating eight years as a full-time writer. I got very lucky, but I have also worked my ass off to take advantage of those openings when they appeared. And keep working my ass off.

Being an Indie writer is to be a small business owner. Got a couple of friends who really want to handle the writing and publishing side, but don’t want to have to deal with business overhead, so trying to find them a publishing house to take them in. I could do it, but it would be a little work today and a lot of work next year when they both got their feet under them and wanted to get a little crazy. Or a lot.

If you know any small houses interested in inheriting a couple of pros, reach out.

Past that, recovered from the trip for the most part. Been home long enough to acclimate to sea level and humidity again. Life is good.

Not a lot to say. Still puttering along today, but writing this, then hopping back over to more Brother Jon in a few minutes. Might finish that story today. Might wait until tomorrow.

Gonna be fun, because Jon has some strong opinions and a willingness to share them with me.

Hope your Tuesday doesn’t suck.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published three weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

[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 again.

Good news, I’m home. Bad news, I came about as close as you can to getting my nose broken as you can last night. Didn’t don’t think, but close.

BACKGROUND: Dojo Night. Sensei M* is a 5^th degree Black Belt in Isshinryu, learning GoJu, which in our case is closely related. She knows about half of the material, and is adapting the other half.

Last night was Bo Kumite. Ten-step drill, offset five, so one person attacks from 1 and the other blocks from 6, and the two flow together perfectly. Sambrata (Pinay originally, I think, but don’t quote me) done with tanbo, or a stick about 24 inches long. We both know that form. Last night, Sensei hands me a bo and has her working on her bo form as well as her sai form. All three work, but work a little different.

At one point, I snap block her stick down, and when she recovers, she accidentally brought it straight up into the underside of my nose perfectly, not touching chin or mouth. BONK, though, because of all those nerve endings.

Plus, just back from Colorado, so dry air and altitude and my nose has been bleeding off and on for two weeks, so I’m blind and worried that I’m going to bleed all over the floor here. Didn’t but man, that stings.

Bruised this morning, so pain killers after vitamins. Feel like a naughty pinocchio right now.

Writing is a little sideways, but that’s fine. Far enough ahead on short fiction that I can finish off the second Harri The Trader novella (about 17.5k of 24 at the moment) this week, then get back to Kincaide. Planning three of these up front as palate cleansers between other projects, and have the third in mind. Will drop them in 2027 at some point. Semi-military space adventure, about a guy who kinda gets blackmailed into commanding the ship when he’d rather not, but then shit happens.

As it does.

Having fun with them.

In the process of fulfilling the kickstarter ebooks this week. Getting addresses from everyone for the books, and as surveys finish rolling in I can start paper and postcard delivery.

Still going to do an AMA at some point. Probably April, but not certain at the moment.

Mostly, a return to normalcy around here.

No, I’m lying. Also have nine pounds of duck breast in the fridge defrosting to make pepperoni for a friend. He went hunting with a group, but nobody else wanted the meat. The guide cleaned everything and took the skin and fat, but my buddy has breasts. I offered to grind and mix for him and he’s giving me half, which is a hell of a deal because I love duck. Gonna roll in some pork for the missing fat, then smoke it all for him. Gonna be yummy.

But yeah, what is normal?

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published three weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

[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.]

Wednesday. Got home late last night from the Superstars Writing Conference and am currently FRIED beyond brain. Met lots of wonderful people and have been sending emails to catch up with them all morning. Most of those have even made sense.

Drive: Seattle to Burly ID on first day, then Colorado Springs on Second. On the reverse trip, flip those. Spend a week at stupid elevation and single-digit humidity. Gonna need some time to recover.

Kickstarter got turned off this morning and I am starting the fulfillment process. Surveys going out shortly, then rewards after folks respond.

Words. (ahahahahahahahahahahahaha)

Did have an idea for a slightly wacky Urban Fantasy character/setting you might meet at some point.

Sitting down today with lots of coffee and little brain, but slowly working my way back to coherence and typing, so this is not going to be a lot of words.

We’ll return to the regularly scheduled programming with some extra fun new with the Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef news in a bit. If you aren’t following, that’s your loss.

🙂

Cheers

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published three weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

[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.]

Really short bit of news today, because I’m currently out of town. We drive from Seattle to Colorado Springs M/T and are at Superstars Writing Conference (https://superstars2026.sched.com/mysessions). Gonna be a little crazy, but a lot of fun and looking forward to teaching this week and meeting people.

We’ll return to the regularly scheduled programming with some extra fun new with the Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef news in a week. If you aren’t following, that’s your loss.

🙂

Cheers

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published three weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

[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.]

Congrats, no more Kickstarter news, because it wraps up in a few hours. Made it. Will build a Volume 6 for backers, who will get six other stories plus I will write a fifth Brother Jon for Harry.

Date TBD, because busy.

A little fried this morning. Didn’t sleep well because could never unwind from yesterday sufficiently.

Normal Monday, I go have breakfast at The Corner. Then down to the coffee shop and I write on the spare phone. Started a new novella there yesterday, after finishing two other stories over the weekend, not realizing how close either was to done.

Middle of coffee, the GM texts everyone that he has woken up with a migraine, and is crashing. Good.

I wander down to the bookstore when it opens and sit to write, but end up talking with a fellow I only kinda knew before yesterday. Regular in the shop, and his daughter is in our writing group.

Turns out he completed his PhD in Physics at Berkeley in the 70s. WAY freaking smart. Really nice. We talked for more than two hours because he’s retired and I didn’t have game.

Then wandered over to the library to do duolingo because outdoor benches somewhat isolated. Wander back, and GM and sweetie were headed to bookstore for coffee while doing errands, so sit with them for a while chatting. Head over to the bar across the street from the dojo and write there for a while with a glass of root beer. (They have excellent root beer this time.)

Sensei wanders in around 4, as usual, and we end up doing a DEEP dive on dojo principles. GoJu Karate, but he’s got a particular throwback to Miyagi Sensei in his approach, and is working on formulating forty+ years of martial arts into a coherent legacy. And doing a fantastic job of boiling it down, often using me as a sounding board.

Then dojo, where he sends me off to work up a sweat doing kata while he works with the junior students still learning kata #2 (Seisan). Grind. Sweat. Work.

More work.

Eventually, I realize that my wife is sitting in the audience. And that he had on his red belt, which he only wears for belt tests.

Mine.

Green to Brown. (White/Green/Brown/Black)

After everything is done, a group of us go back over to the pub for a pint. He points out, “You realize that all those extra credit things I had you do were actually what the black belt test contains, right?”

Oh, yeah. I felt that. LOTS of extra credit tests. And I still have a lot of polish work ahead of me, but I have the basics of kata, forms, partner drills, and principles down.

Refine. You can learn Sanchin in an hour, then spend a lifetime discovering more and more little facets of it. Seisan and Sanseru and Yama No Sai are all the same.

But I left it all on the dojo floor last night, and I’m not sure there exists enough coffee today. I did order a brown belt and it will arrive shortly. (He doesn’t provide belts. You get your own, but he has threatened to make an exception when I reach black, as I will likely be his first black belt student in the new curriculum when I get there in another year or whenever.)

Sigh.

Also started Kincaide’s War #3 this last week. Ships of Heaven. Will be 170k long when I get there. Only about 20k now. Gonna be a while. Got a lot of other things in the can to pub. And the erotica penname woke up and wanted to write things, so more is coming over there soon. Got one to come out shortly. Got another finished and needing polish and editing.

February however, will be insane, as I’ll be teaching at Superstars in Colorado and still have things to finish for the trip.

But other than exhaustion, not doing much today but trying to write and maybe recover. Baking for the trip. Slide decks to finalize. Sample story to finalize.

Crash, and own a brown belt.

And celebrate, when I stop and remember the journey I’ve been on.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published three weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

[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 might 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, but I don’t know what day I turn off late pledges.

Tuesday. In the last sets of chapters for Kohahu 3. Might finish it today. Tomorrow at the latest. Then we’re on to Kincaide 3 and the end of that epic trilogy with Ships of Heaven. Only twelve years in the planning and eight in the writing.

Some of you might also remember the Analog Man story from December. Action-Thriller Vigilante stuff. Sent it off to an expert on the topic and he thought that it could be edited to fix a few places and turned into one of those things where I go after major reviews and shit before publication. Possibly even see about an agent or something. Shit, I don’t know. But it’s good that he thinks I’ve nailed the genre. Means I can keep doing those and get that kind of fan reading my work.

Also sat in the bookstore yesterday and wrote a lot of erotica on the phone. (Mondays are spent in town without the computer, so ‘other’ stories from the main. Got several open.)

As I was leaving, the two younger women that work there asked what I had been writing. Mean person me told them, because that’s a very conservative town, slowly being gentrified by money but still redcap country. One of the ladies tends to put Jesus radio on headbanger volumes when she’s alone. The other one once explained to me (without prompting) that COVID was a Democratic hoax. (And burned any chance that I EVER hired her as an editor, which we had literally been in the middle of discussing.)

And both of them wanted to know the erotica penname, so I told them. (https://www.colebraddock.com/ btw) Be REALLY interesting to see what comments I get, next time I run into them. Kinda vanilla stuff compared to what’s out there, but it might open their eyes. Or ruin their lives. Or they might secretly both or either be freaks. Who knows?

Doing my part to afflict the comfortable, ya know?

Past that, gotta go blow up one last villain, then set up the HEA.

I intentionally set out to do this trilogy in the style of old school planetary romances. What they once called Sword-and-Planet Adventures. There is a lantern-jawed hero, exploring a new planet, and a princess who must be rescued from her virginity (and other things).

A LOT lighter in tone than the Heather books, which was intentional on my part. Phil was lighter, compared to Jessica. Veronika will be kinda darker again, but not entirely bad, until you realize that I plan two Veronika series, and the second one will challenge the St. Legier/Winterhome duology for dark and heavy. I know, because I’ve already started planning, though those books are out five or so after the first block, and several years in the future of my writing, because I am that far ahead of everyone.

Colder’n’snot here this morning, so coffee and words. Hope your morning stays within bounds.

And don’t forget the kickstarter.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published three weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

[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

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published three weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

[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.]

Later today

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.

And then the silly bug bit me. No other way to describe it. Brain went WAY sideways and dug up an old Star Wars West End d6 ttrpg campaign from the early 90s where every character was a doctor of some sort. (Intentionally once we got on a roll.) Doctor Who. Dr. Doolittle. Doc Savage. Etc.

And Doc The Jawa Bounty Hunter. Only hunted assassin droids. Only weapons employed DEMP (Directed Electro-Magnetic Pulse) like the blue gun on Tattooine. I had WAY too much fun with Doc. Just sorry that some tweaker broke into my truck a decade ago and stole my posse box, probably expecting money or something instead of all my old character sheets and dice. I even looked in random, nearby trashcans, just in case, but never found it. Do remember bits and pieces because Doc was utterly silly.

Working on filing off a lot of serial numbers. And gender-swapped her when one of my alien random name generators threw up “Baja” as a option. Spanish word for short, more or less. Fit. Ran with it.

Gave her a wallaby sidekick. Except that Marseilles corrected me that she was technically a “hop-kick” by doing that to a punk in a bar. Again, silly bug. Way silly.

Third piece of the RAN/Shogun trilogy is coming along nicely. 13K of an expected 55, so right on pace. Also working on a project for the erotica penname, just so I can keep adding product over there and possibly get discovered. (You people would be rather put out of that name turned into the zeitgeist and I had to spend most of my time and energy over there, but it would be funny.)

Not much past that. Trying to have a relatively normal week now that the holidays are done. Monday was mostly normal. Didn’t get as much done as I hoped, but good distractions.

Hope you survived the holidays nicely and don’t forget the kickstarter.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

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