Category Archives: publishing

20250218

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[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.]

Snow’s finally melting. Gone, for the most part. Temps in the 40sF. Not spring, but not ice everywhere, which is a vast improvement.

The Crazy that was January appears mostly over. Now into February’s but it’s a step down. Got Issue 009 of Thrill Ride mostly done. It will go up for preorder this week and folks will be sending me their stories for Fast Cars/010. Boundary Shock Quarterly will be April 1, so I’m successfully off-schedule there and that was a lot of January stress for me.

Always fun, guessing how many stories I will get from my writers. This coming issue of BSQ was “short” (only around 50k stories when I usually want closer to 70k). that was why I created the new Brother Jon arc and universe, and will be feeding more into that as I go.

Need to pivot this week and write some shorts, so maybe tomorrow, depending. My usual Wednesday Mastermind call canceled this week, so I’ll talk to her in March and will spend the afternoon grinding offal. Got beef heart and liver, pork liver and fat, and chicken innards (everything you pull of rough frames when you get them from the butcher) running around 8# of mass. Probably take about 2 hours, which is usually how long I’m on the phone with each of my calls.

And needs doing, because the Babe makes pate out of it and has a little every morning with her homemade bone broth. Way healthier and better for you than what you had for breakfast today. You should anti-stodgy yourself and get healthy. I plan to outlive all of you or die trying.

Heh.

Words: about 36k into the next Holden and Reilly. This one is done in chapters and introduces a couple of new POV characters.

I think the most fun so far as been that I don’t really have a plot. I have a series ending planned, but I literally started with that and I doubt that most people will see how it shapes until we get right down to the end.

But I had no conception of what might happen along the way, which was why book 1 ended where it did. How it did.

And why I needed a break before attacking 2. However, the ending of 1 promised something of a plot-coupon/scavenger hunt story. So I did. Am doing. Worse, as I threw in a small assassination attempt, the universe jumped outward another whole step. 3 is likely ANOTHER scavenger hunt, the dark mirror of 2 when the answers the gang find just lead them off after more questions.

Got notes. Got LOTS of notes. GRAND EPIC SHIT, because my goal with this series has always been to include every possible Epic Fantasy and Space Opera trope I could manage to sledgehammer in. And more ideas keep popping in.

Figure it will run like 7, give or take. 1 sets it up. 2-3 for the background of the epic conclusion. 4-6 for wars and double-cross and dark prophesies and shit. Then bring it all home with something along the scale of killing a god.

I mean, how exactly do you kill a god? What is a god? (That’s a question Zafar asks all the sorcerers at one point.) What makes one a god? And how do you keep someone else from unmaking you?

So yeah, just leaning in on all of it and laughing my fool head off, because why the hell not? This is a story about found family, ethics in governance, and revenge. Magic never gets explained in rpg-level rules, save that folks use up most of their power doing crazy shit, then have to sit down and rest.

That’s part of the reason most fantasy series never entertain me. Not counting the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ who does those things, most writers just handwave things and the character can do whatever they need, without having to pay any great cost. Never get their hair messed up or break a nail. Meanwhile, after our Shadowdark game yesterday, we had to bribe the innkeeper extra for spare clothes and silence after we stumbled in covered in blood from fighting a horde of ratman lycanthropes in the sewer while hiding from the law.

But I’m all about all the old tropes here. Just planning to invert and subvert them, like usual.

Book one came in around 90k. That means that I’m about a third of the way through 2, give or take. And hell, it’s a crazy amount of fun, all of these people having opinions about things.

Hope your Tuesday isn’t something that Lukyan recognizes.

Y’all stay loose. Drink some water. Breathe.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

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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.

20240916

20240916

[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.]

Floor’s in, in Tiny Greathall. Last piece was intentionally a jigsaw piece, so that it would lock four others in place when I screwed it down. Got two yards of gravel underneath, so hopefully less trouble with critters, but I’ll also have out bait stations to keep them at bay.

Then I did an inventory of all the leftover wood. More than I’ll need or use, but Tom and Kyle are both interested in removing leftovers. Bought a door in town last week, but the next part involves tiling before I put it in. Will mark everything so I know where tiles will start. Got four different colors and sizes to work with, plus leftovers from the bathroom project last year that are painted. Gonna be pretty.

Wiring is about half done. Got a lot of panels that I can use to make walls, plus on roll of insulation leftover from something. Maybe the pumphouse rebuild several years ago. Still on track for Oct 14.

Paused in the middle of Maddox 2 and wrote a weird excursion inspired partly by ‘The Sentinel’ by Arthur C Clarke, plus 2001 (the novelization) and the original StarGate movie, which isn’t that different at the end of the day. Less horror, maybe. Something. Came in around 15k and sets up a series of novelettes instead of anything longer. Will see what you folks think in a few months when you see it after we finish Holden for a time.

Back to Maddox 2 yesterday. Just over 36k there, on a target of 45-50, so right on track. Setting up the last confrontational bits, then on to resolving them.

Today is going to be fruit. Harvested all the aronia, but left it in the fridge. Gonna make shrub and then juice it. Then look at the grapes on the vine. Then get around to the apples.

Planning to dehydrate apples. And make cider. And harden in. And distill some. Might pick up some pears and make peary and such as well, depending. Got a lot going on, but everything is at least making progress, and that’s all that really matters right now.

Doing research for the next two Red Branch novels. I’ll be going to Author-Nation in November in Vegas, so planning to drop #1 then and the others early next year. First part of the con is for writers, but starting thursday night and all friday it is for readers. Kevin Smith will be giving a talk. There will be panels.

I volunteered to do a panel on research. Getting all those details right, especially for historical fiction. SF lets me make up anything I want. Fantasy is the same way. Action-Thriller, however, is set in our world, and requires accuracy. Especially in Late Tang Dynasty China. Or Early Cold War South America.

You want to engage and entertain your readers. And give the experts the little things that make them nod, instead of hiring ninjas to come after you for stupid mistakes. The latter is way easier to do.

Hopefully, I’ll see a few of you in Vegas at the con. Gonna be fun. And they are setting up next year already, having learned a lot and I’m hopefully going to be able to help out there. Not really interested in turning into Famous Author™, but more sales would be nice. And more fans.

I’m giving a (Ted) Talk on “Breaking Discoverability” and how there are no more gatekeepers. Both good and bad. Gonna be fun.

Not a lot past that. Keep writing. Keep reading. Keep having fun.

Hope you’re doing the same.

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.

20240902

[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.]

Stupid freaking bear. Keeps getting into the wife’s birdfeeders and destroying them. Turned out she’d moved away from using the cayenne suet. Birds don’t care. Squirrels and other critters won’t eat.

Had a bear twice now in a week. Transient male I assume, presumably fattening up for winter, and I’m on a wildlife corridor so everybody wanders through at one time or another. Cost of doing business out here.

Got the walls of the barn interior sanded. The inner wall is covered over with 5mm plywood from ceiling to about five feet up. Haven’t gone lower because I need to build a floor once I get the gravel (waiting to hear from him on delivery), then go up with a 4×8 sheet of plywood as the lower level all the way around.

Hit the hardware stores over the weekend and picked up a light fixture and what we needed to run wiring and such. Probably have power partially installed by Friday. Getting there. Not close to done, but closer. A lot of fiddly bits to do, wrapped around a couple of big things. Still hoping to have it done in six weeks. Or at least soft open. Y’all are invited to visit and see.

Writing: wrote the B4B last week. It’ll drop in October, I think. Then a short for BSQ and another short for TRM. Will write some more shorts soon, but Scattered Tribes will keep you busy a bit longer.

Started the second A’Zedi Survey Corp novel yesterday. This is the series where everyone is tuckerized (like 20+ people). And writer-brain handed me a plot for the next Marrakesh novel, so that might be coming. Marrakesh I can just tack on the end, as it is an ongoing series built that way deliberately. Same with Survey Corps, but I have to write 3+ of those before I start dropping them, so I don’t get yelled at.

Heard back from one of my First Readers on Red Branch, and he’s really enjoying that series, so it gives me hope to move forward with those as we go. First part of the year utterly sucked for writing, but I managed to hold pace. Planning to push a little this fall as things [hopefully] settle some.

Made some drastic changes, but none of them were more than extending existing themes out to more logical conclusions. And most of them reduce my stress, which is better.

Got a Monday ahead. Drizzly (good) but humidly muggy (ick). Gonna go write, then work on technical stuff for Author Nation and such. Will send out your story later today or tomorrow, depending. Coming down close to the end of Book One, and still not sure how to do book two yet, so your thoughts are welcome.

Y’all enjoy.

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.

24240826

[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.]

Ow.

The barn remodel is coming along nicely, but ow. Up and down ladders. Impact hammer to drive 3” screws into old wood that has dried and hardened to something like concrete. Chop saw. Table saw. Jig saw.

Ow.

I did buy and install a pair of windows. One a transom over the front door, about 8 feet up. The other taking up the back where a horse would come and go. That latter had been covered by a green tarp for as long as I’ve owned the property. (Michael died in late 2006 and I bought the place in 2010. Probably 25 years old at this point.)

Sometime in the next week or two, got a friend hauling a couple yards of gravel as part of a much larger load that he’ll drop here and I’ll put it under the floor to keep critters out. Then build up a floor.

Not sure on the artistic side of things. After emptying out the bay initially, and collecting some stuff from Middle Step Daughter, I have a good deal of hardwood flooring in three different colors, widths, and thicknesses. And woods. Seven long tiles (9”x38” in some metric value I haven’t converted.) Seventy-some 1sqft white tiles.

Next stage is finishing off the Inside Wall™. Inside (touching bay 2), Outside, Front, Back. Inside is made up of raw cut 2x14s that are 12 feet long, stacked against a structural 4×4 and running up. Gaps at the top I’m filling in and then covering this week.

We wandered around the hardware store yesterday, looking at wood, tile, and lights, mostly because wiring and then lights are coming up soon. (Inside wall pretty, then floor, then power, I think.)

At some point, I’ll blackmail my artist friends. Inside wall is probably an art project with leftover hardwood flooring. Other three walls might need art. And I’ll need a hanging sign outside for the whole pub thing.

Still rude to replace an Irish Bar with an English Pub, so we alternatively have called it a Cidery, a Meadery, and a Longhall (9×12’ is long enough for my needs.)

Going to have apples soon, so planning to make cider. Then make hard cider. Then probably applejack, because why the hell not? Same with some mead.

If you wanna contribute art or labor and live close enough, gimme a yell. Battle of Hastings was 14 October, so I’m hoping to at least soft open by then. 6-7 weeks, give or take, so I ought to have most of it done.

I am, however, out of shape, and this will get me back. But ow.

Doesn’t help that I started studying Goju-ryu karate in my spare time. It is also using new muscles and my legs hurt, but I’m enjoying it and moving forward slowly. The goal is always to be able to move and do kata when I’m 90, still flexible in body and mind.

Because once you settle, you’ll start to decompose.

Writing: Wrote most of the B4B draft last week. Got a few holes. Got a few places where the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ is going to write chunks because she’s the expert there. Got too much material, but this will be the basis for a talk I’m supposed to give at Author-Nation in November in Vegas on Breaking Discoverability. 30 minutes plus Q&A. I’m figuring the final manuscript comes up at 30-35k words. Way too much, but space to cover a lot of ground.

After I post this blog, I’ll figure out which of 4-5 short stories I need to write next. Got open slots for BSQ, TRM, and Patreon, so always have something to write. Just in a little pain today and distracted.

Some of you might remember Nissa and the Minefield. That’s going to be extended at some point. Might be next. Would go into BSQ in a year or so. (I forget how far ahead I am right now and am too lazy to go look it up as I type.)

Got two Boston stories done. Figure on two more for Thrill Ride. Maybe more. Maybe Chace.

Got other stuff. Editing Corsac Fox #5 (Lost Tribe) right now. March 2025 release. Then I might write #7 shortly and close off block one.

It’s a Monday, and I don’t have to have all the answers. How’s yours going?

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.

20240722

[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.]

Monday. It rained yesterday. Not a lot, but actual water falling from the sky. And mid-70s instead of mid-90s around here. Yay.

Today, the marine layer is still heavy at 11am, and the forecast calls for partial sun after it burns off, but only about 72F up in the mountains. I’ll take it.

I’m finally done with all the damned steroids. And physically recovering. I have zero stamina right now, having found the edges of it a few times.

Emotionally, I’m kinda a mess as well. HOWEVER, I have a reminder in my phone that tells me every August 1st to beware of rage and depression issues. I have a few theories as to why it hits when it does.

Today, (August 22) is the anniversary of when Donna died in 2008. Sixteen years. We were married for just over three weeks, because for the first 9 years we were together, she told me in no uncertain terms that if I suggested marriage, she’d toss my ass to the curb.

When she turned that around after she got sick (breast cancer, Stage 4, untreatable, Make your peace with God sort of thing), you could have knocked me over with a feather. We got married in late June. She died July 22.

Yeah.

That was a Tuesday. We did not have the wake that Saturday, because that’s a granddaughter’s birthday, so we did it a week later, which would have been Aug 2.

Hitting that reminder every year (as I’ve been processing things this summer) is probably part of it. This summer has been a trial.

I think I hit bottom last Thursday. Told the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ that August had come early, and she understood. Also told her not to let me make any important decisions.

Not because I would do things I regret. More because I would be painting in molotov cocktails when I did.

PROBABLY not the best idea. Probably.

Then a friend of mine who is an amazing baker handed me a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread, still warm from the oven last night. Just had a slice five minutes ago. Gonna ask him at some point to teach me how, because I have never made yeast bread. Quick breads, sure. Nothing that involves rising and punching, so I’ll need adult supervision.

Plus, his looks like a hydra coil of thin ropes, all twisted together. And yes, let me taunt you with how amazing it turned out. But baking is his love language.

Writing: Crossed 35k on Heather #3 this morning. Target 65k, so past halfway and setting up a series of small battles and intrigues that will culminate in something almost apocalyptic in scale.

Still expecting 5 novels in “Warlord of Yaumgan” but I could be wrong either way by one. Depends, because I’m letting this one unfold organically. Jessica was 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2 in organization, plus 2 side stories and the CS-405 trilogy. Kosnett was designed as six novels, sequentially touching each of six cultures and exploring them. Warlord is really the second part of what happened at The Passage at Loong at the end of Kosnett 6, when the Zerzan Unification decides that they cannot live in peace with the Monarchists.

Additionally, I’m doing research for the next two Red Branch novels. If you or anyone you know are experts (or knowledgeable dilettantes) on early Jet Aviation (Second Generation stuff, really, from an advanced and experimental de Havilland Venom through the never-built Lockheed XF-90) and would like to First Reader for technical issues, lemme know. I’ve done a LOT of research, and started accumulating a fun library of stuff (see attached image) for story ideas.

In Indie Publishing, EVERY time you hit publish, you might be struck by lightning, and that book becomes your entire career, so publish something you’d be okay with, if you had to write 10-20 more in that series/universe. I have no idea how folks will react to Red Branch, but I’m having way too much fun reading history and technology of the early Cold War Era. Stuff that kinda gets mentioned in passing, because most history books end in 1945 with the war. From there, they MIGHT mention a war in Korea, before everyone spending volumes on Vietnam or more recent events.

So I’ve had to rabbit-hole my library’s ebook collection in order to find stuff. Yesterday, I walked individually through all 1750 titles in the military section, because they have no filters worth a shit to let me leave off anything ancient, or anything Vietnam, or the US Occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Got about a dozen titles queued up, and currently reading about what happened to everyone at Bletchly Park, after they moved GCHQ back to London in 1947.

Hope your Mondays are getting better. I’m off for a burger in a while, just because.

OH, AND: REMINDER: The pre-order for Warlord of the Spinward Reaches got nuked by Amazon. If you didn’t get your copy, this is your reminder to go find it.

Amazon

Knotted Road Press

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.

20240701

[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.]

And the steroids worked for a time, but failed and my arms are covered with rash. Trying to identify whatever I might be suddenly allergic to, and making some hefty changes in diet, just in case. At least it doesn’t itch too much. Can control. And going to the doctor again in a bit to see what they say.

Writing continues, but things have been difficult. Crossed 26k in the novel this morning. Past halfway, but not really sure where. This one might run short, but that’s fine, as it sets up the next one by exploring the why behind the actions of the various players. And where they go from here, as the scope of the Red Branch’s battles with the Werewolf Legion grow global in scale.

Plus, I have several other story ideas written down to expand into at a later date.

Hoping to finish Silver Eagle sometime next week. Then on to some space opera, but not sure which/what just yet. Got ideas for Javier. And Uly. And Heather. All of which I need to write.

Having options lets me explore instead of locking me into a spot. Sometimes you need that, especially when shit’s just not firing on all cylinders.

Like today.

Think I’ve said enough. Catch you next week.

And the next Scattered Tribes story will be going out Tuesday or Wednesday. Watch your inbox.

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.

20240422

[As usual, two 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.]

Got up and been running all over creation for the last several hours. Breakfast. Bank (which is a haul because the closest branch to deposit a check is in Kent now), post office (voted), grocery store, gas.

Busy busy busy. But good. Gonna go north and study some weapon forms with Sensei Johnson tonight. Learning new things. Anti-Stodgy. Hopefully, you are doing the same.

Gotta keep the brain as flexible as the body. Listen to new music. Learn new things. Eat new foods.

Took a quick jaunt down to Portland to see my sweetie last week. She’s taking care of the niece (doing much better) but stressed. Couple days of me around helped. Will go back in another week or so. She’ll hopefully be home after that for the long haul.

Always knew that Jan 1 to about June 1 was going to be stressful. Mostly got past it. Didn’t bite a single person so far, which I will count as a win, all things considered. Writing is coming along, just much slower than normal. At 45k for the month, or about 25k behind my usual pace. Might make it to Pulp 1 (84k). Might not. Shit happens.

Mostly, it will show up in 2025, when I don’t necessarily have a full calendar of novels to deliver. Not sure what I will do instead, but I have several months to write more and maybe fill in gaps.

I have the product in the can, but it’s choppy. Two Giles. Two Heather. Two Shrike. A whole bunch of Book Ones that demand series behind them. At the same time, I have existing series I could extend. A few people have asked about more Last Stand. Ideas for more Marrakesh (it only pauses at 5. It doesn’t stop.) More Corsac Fox. Etc.

But next year might be messy. We’ll see. My job is to keep writing and keep my humor. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, as it were.

Corsac 6 is coming along nicely. Will pick it up as soon as I post this. Sitting at 23k. Target 80k. Plus this is the sixth of seven in Block One, and I am slipping in foreshadowing of how 6 and 7 will flow, then come to a resting point. Got major plans, but there will be a gap of several years in between (years for Uly and Dan, not you).

Dunno what I write after that. Been researching early jet aircraft again, so there might be the next Red Branch on deck. Those are fun because 1949 was a year of ferment, when everyone was inventing the technology of the future, and jets went from toys to war machines. And there are so many cool designs to work with, because nobody really understood the best way to do things, so they were trying lots of things to see which worked best. Faster, higher, farther, except for the part where some idiot decided that the best way for two jets to dogfight involved getting a running start at one another, and performing a jousting pass with unguided rockets. HIGHLY inaccurate, unguided rockets. 1% hit ratio style rockets.

Guided missiles would change everything, but not for another decade or two. There’s a line in the original Top Gun where the instructor discusses the shitty kill ratios in Vietnam, and the need to train pilots better. The problem was the FFAR and the AIM-4, both of which were shit. And those lovely designers removed guns from the planes. All guns.

Even today, there are guns, because you might need to dogfight. I expect that drones will end the manned combat aircraft in another 5-10 years, and I have no idea if the next generation of UAV will just be intelligent missiles, survey platforms, or flying guns. Probably one of each, plus two dozen other things as needs evolve. Ukraine is a tipping point in weapons technology, much like World War II was.

So I’m thinking about fast planes. Because why the hell not? If any of you are knowledgeable about early jets or aviation in general and want to read Red Branch 1, please yell. I know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be an expert. And I’m likely to start #2 soon.

But for now, more Uly and Dan.

Y’all have a lovely Monday.

shade and sweet water,

blaze

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 two 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.

20240415

[As usual, two 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.]

Okay, slight break. Took some time off. Recovering.

Realized that, dating back to about July of last year, I have been the emotional rock upon which a number of my people had clung when their own lives got turned upside down. Best friend’s wife suddenly divorced him and I spent six months keeping him moving forward as he figured out how to rebuild his life. Fabulous Publisher Babe™ got cataract surgery last year, but fell into the 10% who needed follow-on work. Niece suffered a traumatic brain injury several years ago and never got it treated properly until it got BAD.

Niece had brain surgery on Wed the 3rd. Opened her head up with a can opener and dremeled off skull, then pulled the sheet tight and stapled it back in place. She was out of the hospital on Sunday and home. Recovering well.

Fabulous Publisher Babe™ got her other eye done on the 4th (three weeks after the first) and is in great shape. Down in Portland with the niece, basically sitting on her because stubborn doesn’t run in that family at all.

Had breakfast with my buddy this morning, and talked history and culture of martial arts over coffee. He likes to tell me that he doesn’t know anything, until you get him going and he starts deep-diving into the history of Okinawan Karate. And I mean DEEP.

Last week, I finally came home on Monday. My bucket was empty. I joked with a couple of people that I’d hit the fork in the road where my options were Depression, Exhaustion, and Xenocide. I picked exhaustion. Had nothing left to give. Canceled various things and just sat on the couch and read, because even writing took more brain that I had available.

Better today. Almost normal. Looking at when I might squeeze in a trip down to Portland, between some of the busy things I’ve got on my calendar as I try to put my life back together.

In 2022, I wrote 1.4 million words. In 2023, I intentionally slowed that down to 1.0, because I had other things I wanted to do and had to create space for them.

Right now, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to hit 750,000 words this year. Sounds like a lot, until you realize that it’s half of what I was doing, and I still write at my normal pace. It’s having time to sit at the keyboard writing. Less of that this year. Makes me a little grumpy, but these are all things that needed to be done, and nobody else could hold the line while folks were dealing with issues.

Just a matter of identifying things that don’t get done this year. Maybe pushed off. Maybe removed from whatever list. At some point, I’m likely to break my publishing streak of having a novella or more monthly dating back to late 2017. Simply won’t have enough material in hand to do. Might write some shorter stuff instead. Or simply have a year of doing something every other month so I can catch up. Dunno. Don’t really care, because I keep publishing. Keep writing. Keep having fun.

Finished Science Officer #14 in there. Exile, following the Season Two scheme of letters. (You were paying attention and caught that, right? Alien, Buried, Captain, Dragoon, Exile…) H will be Homecoming, and finish off Season Two. And Exile starts an interior trilogy Zakhar describes as the War of the Pirate Clans, Volume Two. Hoping to be able to write F and G later this year, and maybe publish two next year.

Currently about 10k into Corsac Fox #6. #3 and #4 coming this summer (June and July and up for preorder now). Would like to write #6 and #7 and drop those three sequentially at some point to bring Uly and Dan to the end of Block One. Still planning Block Four, which will end when Uly is in his mid-60s. Probably about 30 novels all told, but I don’t really know. Four big blocks of emotion and lifespan, assuming people keep enjoying it.

Not every series works. I have fun writing them, or I wouldn’t, but the amount of personal abuse I suffered for writing Last Stand means that it will be a while before I circle back and touch that realm again. Plus, while it had it’s fans, not many. (Sales were pretty shitty across that series, which was a shame because…)

But it’s Monday. Been writing. Got this blog. Will throw out a newsletter later. Back on track. Chipmunks make lousy ninjas, but they’re in spring training right now. Horse poop here and there. Cherries and plums flowering. Everything else waking up.

We’ll get there.

shade and sweet water,

blaze

West of the Mountains, WA

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

If you’re reading the free version (which is published two 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.

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[As usual, two 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 weird when I’m standing at my desk writing and see a deer walk by out the window behind the monitor. Just hanging out. Chilling. Moved over to the side yard and parked his butt under a tree for a few hours. Two of them, when I looked closer. Ignored me when I went out to do yard work. Ignored the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ when she went back and forth.

Chill.

Obviously, utterly terrified of us. Later, we had to go run errands, and one of the dorks was grazing in the yard. I came around the corner and said hi. He bolted all of about ten meters, then went back to eating.

Seriously.

Things getting more or less back to comfortable for now. Still in the middle of a six-month stretch where things are utterly unsettled, but most of that energy isn’t mine, and my job continues to be hanging cool like those deer.

I am, however, reminded of one of my favorite lines from “The Long Run” by Daniel Keys Moran.

“If you can keep your calm while everyone around you is losing theirs, perhaps you have misunderstood the situation.” (roughly. Don’t want to flip through the book to locate it at this moment.)

Hoping I have not misunderstood. Being the rock against which storms break and tides are thwarted. It’s a living.

Mentioned that I was writing the next Science Officer. #14. Exile. Having fun. Crossed 20k this morning, with only a vague guess how long it is. Should probably go look at previous novels. (Don’t go anywhere.) Okay, somewhere between 55 and 65k, so I am likely around a third of the way done. Writer-brain understood that, because that’s about where I am at this moment in terms of story.

Will keep pounding away at that. Then circle back to Ollie 3 at some point. And get back to work on Ivette (needed to pause because I realized that I was missing critical component of plot and characters and needed to have those before I proceeded. Writer-brain, again.)

Reminder that Boundary Shock Quarterly has a shop now, where you can buy individual issues, as well as sign up for a subscription so you don’t ever miss one. Plus, subscriptions work out to $4 per instead of $5.

I have written six Beckett Fernsby stories so far, ranging from 25-32 only skipping 029 (First Contact) because I wrote the first Wardog Charlie story there. And will write more Charlie stories, because I have a pets issue coming up in a few years (I tend to run 2-3 years out in coming up with themes, then trying to write that far ahead).

Also working on Holden and Reilly some more. Need to keep pushing that out a ways to keep folks entertained. And possibly turn that into Vol 1 at some point, but I have a lot of ground to cover first. Sitting right about 90k, which feels like maybe 2/3-3/4 mark of the opening. Crazy big, but folks backing the Patreon at the $5 mark have been reading their adventures. Hope y’all been enjoying it.

Not a lot past that. Quiet week around here if I’m lucky. Spring, so a lot of yard work to do as things wake up. Still figuring I’ll end up selling the place in another 5-8 years and moving into the city someplace, where the walk score is at least 88. Start saving your nickles if the old farmstead appeals to you.

Chat more later.

shade and sweet water,

blaze

West of the Mountains, WA

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

If you’re reading the free version (which is published two 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.

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[As usual, two 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.]

Don’t wanna say it’s cold out here, but I’m pretty sure I just saw a moose migrating south for the winter.

Saturday, it was 9F and 50mph. FUCK.

Sunday was calm.

This morning was 22F and windy again.

Had a live tree come down across my neighbor’s driveway. Since it is an easement across my property, and she’s close to 90 these days, I was just about to go out Sunday morning after breakfast to chop it up when her son arrived. The Fabulous Publisher Babe™ had put my car at the bottom of the driveway, and I’d blocked it at the top, so he came up my side, wondering if someone had abandoned a car. Since he had his chainsaw (as usual) we chopped the tree up pretty quick, loaded the good wood in his truck to dry, and he spent the day up at the top of the hill fixing her well pump.

I spent the day goofing off.

Got a busy day today, but the words are flowing well, so we’re good. Holiday in the states, but the restaurant wasn’t crowded until I left. Clear roads, just cold and blustery.

Writing side is good. I’m not sure how close I am to finishing Maddox, but we’re at 34k right now and the first of two finishing movements is starting. Having read Trial By Leviathan, you finally know who Maddox Nevin is. He’s the star of the new A’Zedi Survey Corps series, along with a cast of fun new folks.

And I have more Marrakesh books planned. Plus more Survey Corps. This is the one where I asked if anyone wanted to be Tuckerized, and got a LOT of responses, so a goodly portion of the crew will recognize themselves when the book comes out. And if you wanted to, and didn’t send me back the form, you aren’t in. But you still could be. Gotta have your signature on the form first, because this one is so many people.

Nuff said?

Not sure what next project is. Probably some shorts, because I need to keep up there. More Holden. More Beckett. More Harper. More fun.

Got several series partially completed, so my goal in 2024 is to get those all wrapped up so they can come out in 2025+. Heather. Giles. Ollie. Peter Najjar. Flight Officer Brannon. Whoever else.

I’m likely to be writing less in 2024, having already slowed down from 2023. She wants to travel, and that will involve not taking computers a few places. And driving long distances, so there will be days or even weeks I don’t write. That will show up later when I don’t have as much to publish. Or end up writing serialized shorts as monthly things. Dunno. I think that’s 2026 at this point, so I have time to sort it out.

If you live somewhere other than Seattle, let me know, because we’ve got long trips planned to various places. Vegas, Mexico, and Minneapolis already, with more options as we think of things.

Past that, never mind the moose.

shade and sweet water,

blaze

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 two 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.