(Editor’s Note: There is a lag here, obviously)

I’m writing this from Lincoln City, Oregon, on a Sunday morning instead of the usual Monday. Will post it tomorrow while I’m driving home. Been meeting with some folks down here to talk about stuff.

Nothing formal. Mostly getting together with some folks I haven’t seen since before the world ended and catching up. They just all happen to be writers.
And, as happens, we talked business and other things. Mostly sharing what worked recently and what didn’t. What they’d tried and how that had worked out for them.
One of the things I heard about was how one friend was writing an essay on Patreon that they immediately shared on Substack, then launched out on their main blog two weeks later. They write more essays and less about the “peek behind the curtain” than I do but the idea resonated with me and I intend to implement it going forward. This will post on 9/19. Then it will show up over on the bw blog on 10/3. With that in mind, I plan to “adjust” my focus on the Patreon blog a bit.
In the past, I talked about the nuts and bolts. I also have too many newsletters that I keep up with. Publishing news. Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef. Cole Braddock for those folks. Milestone Indie Publishing for a different group. Boundary Shock Quarterly every three months.
The main BW blog has suffered, and I needed to do something about that. So more interaction on both, and less separation.
That was the other part of usefulness from spending a couple of days hanging out with old friends. Rejuvenation of the creative side of things. As writers, we often work without people around. Stay home and write, a bit oblivious to the outside world.
Then a pandemic hit and not a lot changed for most of us, even though everybody else had their lives upended. Everyone was at home. We need to get out and see folks more. Talk. Something.
Something that someone else mentioned was how much the next generations are less about having to jump onto media trends because of an artificial scarcity model. In the old days, you saw the book on the shelf and had to immediately buy it, because you might never see it again unless it was a mega-seller. It went onto the TBR pile, and you’d get to it.
Same thing happened with television for us oldsters. It was on and you watched it, or you missed it and hoped to get it on reruns or syndication. VCRs were okay, but remembering to program them was the issue. DVRs kind of helped, but then the world changed and people got into primitive streaming (Netflix dvds in the mail) or actual streaming (all the services you pay for each month, in order to watch your various shows).
For a time, folks would binge, because all of a whole season would drop at once, and folks would consume it. The problem was that the show disappeared from the public dialogue about three weeks later.
Nowadays, the media conglomerates drop 1-3 episodes at once, then feed the rest through on a weekly basis to create that artificial scarcity that you have to think about it and wait for it, instead of consuming when you want it.
But that won’t work.
Another friend ignores those shows until they complete a season run dropped, then binges them, but she’s off-schedule with folks that are tracking it weekly.
Others might wait until a show is complete (because most only run 1-2 seasons anyway these days) then catch all of it, but only if the cultural decision is good. (If you didn’t watch Game of Thrones when it was on, would you really start it from scratch today, knowing how badly they ended it?)
Fans do not have to consume something now. They can time-shift it how they want. Artists (us) have to take that into account. For writers, we put things up on all the major distributors (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, D2D, etc.).
Some folks will read it immediately. Captain Daring #3 has been out for 9 days and has 30 ratings on Amazon at this moment when I checked. I’m seeing a surge in sails of book one (of a trilogy) now that all three are done, because folks wanted to binge on them, instead of reading them once per month.
Friday, somebody bought all seven Lazarus books in paper at the same time. The complete set. It’s been out for a while. I don’t know if they sampled and said “YES!” or read them in ebook format originally then decided that they wanted them on their shelf. Something
Doesn’t matter. Fan get to decide when they want to consume media. And as creatives, it is our responsibility to serve that need. That means Catalog instead of Back-list. It means interacting whenever we can, regardless of how introverted some of us are. There are fan expectations to be met.
For now, that means trying new things to see if A) I like doing it, and B) it might move the needle in terms of new fans.
So I have a question for you folks, as I’m driving home.
I’ve thought about doing basic videos of me reading short stories and samples of longer pieces. Put them up on YouTube or Tiktok. (Or wherever.) And I’m not talking audio books with a lot of professional editing and polish. I’m talking about me, turning on the camera, sitting in my blue chair, and reading something, so all the errors, all the profanities (I tend to swear like a sailor) and all the everything you’d get from me doing a live, public reading.
Short stuff is probably a five minute video. Or a good chunk of some fun chapter, like the one I just did this week as part of Corsac Fox #2. I was giggling as I reread it, because a fairly minor character got his moment to shine and was complaining about how Tuesday his week had gone.
It was great.
Dunno your general ages, those of you reading this, so I don’t know if you are a representative sample. But is that something you might enjoy? No offense, but I don’t my fan base to grow old and die on me, like happens to some writers. I want to bring in a lot of younger folks who will enjoy my take on things and keep me in kittie kibble for a long time.
So you, yes you, hit reply and say yay or nay to watching me commit audios of some of the short fiction I have that even you haven’t read (or heard). And then go ask your kids or grandkids who are into SF what they think.
At the end of the day, the phrase I heard that best sums all this up is “Fan-funded-fiction” and I want to make sure that you’re happy. And happy to keep funding me to create new things.
—————————-
And 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.

Did a Publisher Meeting this morning for breakfast. That’s where I get to take Fabulous Publisher Babe™ out and we talk business. Because that what we do. Talk business.

We started the weird part of the conversation talking about how one might handle passports and mail in an interstellar/galactic setting. Either you end up sending database updates of a passport system to every planet in the nation (with all the weakest-link risks to your data chain), or you end up reverting to mere paper credentials and trying to maintain local/planetary passports. Not sure.

But that inspired another Last Stand story while we were chatting. I have seven of those done right now, all novellas, with the longest (origin) running 31,000 words and the shortest at 17,000. The rest all come in around 22,000+/-, because that’s my target length for story and I’m generally pretty good at hitting length now that I have the groove.

AND THEN: as we were driving home she asked if we would be in a position to publish twelve Last Stand novellas next year. Jan-Dec. Then, as a secondary step, dropping something else every month.

I have not looked yet, but I am reasonably certain that I could, just with what’s in the can right now. (You will see me think on paper shortly.)

After all, in 2019, I intentionally wrote twenty novels. And then sixteen in 2020 and fifteen in 2021. I’ll actually come in under twelve (novels) in 2022, unless I push towards the end of the year, but that’s me writing a BUNCH of novellas (Last Stand, the Commander Machesky erotica novels under Cole Braddock, etc. Somewhere around a dozen already, and still going.) I’m pretty much on pace for the year, though I did take half of August off (and needed it).

Corsac Fox #1 will be part of my first-ever kickstart in December. I just started #2 this week. I have a pair of Marrakesh (military space adventure/opera) novels done, with plans for what the third will look like. The second monster in Kincaid’s war (160,000 words again) is done. On the Action/Adventure side, I have two Pacific Force novels done, plus an unrelated novella. On the “urban” fantasy side, I have two Derlyth novels done, plus Dan & Stewie.

That’s eleven, without even digging. If asked, that twelfth will be another Science Officer, because I know what the next one will be. And I might write two of those for next year. And maybe pull some more of the SF out of the trunk and focus the rest of this year on extending/finishing some of my current series.

(For example, most of you have never read Scour, because I only sent that novel out to my patreon backers and it might be for sale in the shop. I’d have to look to be sure and haven’t. Similarly, I have the first two of the five Giles/Taft Station novels done, and need to circle back. Plus a handful of short story collections that each form their own Novel One in a different series: Peter Najjar, Ollie, Yasmin, and Flight Officer Brannon. Seriously.)

So in 2023, y’all can expect me to drop TWO major projects every month, if all goes well. A wide selection of things. A lot of fun. I’ve been threatening it for a while, but the boss is the one that decides these things, and she has decided to move ahead on this as a project.

And mind you, I’m not even talking about five collections of short fiction I’ve put together, each about 60-70,000 words and assembling all the stuff I’ve been writing for my patreon or other projects over the last several years. Unless you are on my patreon, you haven’t read three-quarters of them. Don’t call yourself a completist without. 😉

And, today is September 4. I’ll write a second 80k Corsac Fox novel this month, plus two more shorts for side projects. That leaves me three more months to do stuff before January 1. I am not worried.

Instead, I plan to sit down with the boss this week and plot out an actual publishing schedule. Then write five more Last Stand books (I have seven in the can now, plus notes in twenty more) to make up a Season One Omnibus (1-12) for 2023. And map out what projects she wants to publish of the twenty things I could drop in to fill twelve slots behind Last Stand.

Y’all get in and hang on. 2023 is going to be a wild ride.

Okay, that was a ball. And a really busy con (see image below). (#CVG2022)

If I count it right, I had 17 panels over 4 days, out of 22 possible slots. (Didn’t let them schedule me past my 830-930pm slots. I needed my beauty sleep.) That’s amazingly busy, but it worked. I didn’t have any time slots where I had the space to wind down for very long, so I just stayed on for the four days.

It worked better for me that way, because I could plan to stay on.

There is a place on 14^th street, a couple of blocks from the con hotel, called Eggy’s. Diner in a gentrified neighborhood, so a mix of classics with some hipster touches. We ate there twice.

First meal, I had the poutine breakfast, because she assured me that I was close enough to Canada that they would get it right. (They did.) Second time, I had an omelet with cheese, spinach, and chorizo. However, it being Minneapolis, it wasn’t very chorizo. Still good, though.

Other breakfast was Nicollet Diner, attached to a drag cabaret. I ordered the Seriously French Toast (croissants) but got the Fabulous French Toast (see image). Confused the guy by ordering blueberries with it, I think, but it was good and not worth sending back when it arrived.

Not as good as Eggy’s. Still good food. Eggy’s was constantly having people show up for take-out or delivery. I mean constantly while we ate. And they were full up on tables both times, with a half-dozen folks running around madly to serve everyone.

That’s usually a good sign of the food. It was worth it.

Had my first “real” signing as a pro at the con. One person showed up with books for me. Others had no idea who I was, but got suckered into taking pictures of my covers with signatures on them when I wasn’t charging anything. I am not a Big Name Author, so I wasn’t concerned that I was invisible. The staff were great and the fans were friendly.

Also had my first ever reading. Gave them the first three printed pages of Captain Daring. In the radio voice. Fans later asked why I didn’t do audio books. Don’t got time. Hell of a compliment, though.

Went well, and I think they will have the video on their website at some point, with me #2 of 4 guys reading on Sunday. Think I did pretty well. Folks showed up and nobody threw anything rotten at me.

Panels were awesome. Had one small one (4 fans, three panelists) but several were standing room only. (Topic, not me, but nice to be up there.) And one panelist sent me a note on Monday thanking me for how I moderated things, which was extra good. I always say that I give good panel. Nice to be recognized for it.

Only a handful of COVID positives notified, and each of those folks were able to be traced. One was at one of my panels, but I never took my mask off inside the building for four days, and only rarely outside. Still feeling well.

Plus, you had to show proof up up-to-date vaccinations to get your ticket in, and only one asshole walked around without his mask on half the time, but he was exactly the sort of putz you would expect, if I told you obnoxiously privileged old white libertarian guy.

Best part of the con for me was how young it was. Sure, old farts, but LOTS of youngsters. Not a lot of little ones, but teenagers and young adults, frequently in rotating cosplay outfits with style. Good questions, sharp on things.

Engaged.

Totally hoping they invite me back next year. Not a lot of writers on the track, so folks who are writers and want to make the trek to Minneapolis in early July 2023 ought to be able to get on panels. The Con-Comm are sharp, professional, and friendly as hell.

Everyone was friendly. Hands down the best group I’ve ever gotten to work with, as a working pro in attendance somewhere. Would like to make this my home con in the future. That’s how good it was.

Still recovering from the crazy, so a little light on details, but connected with some old friends, made some new ones, and had a ball.

See you next year!

b

I’m in Minnesota, counting down to CONvergence, which promises to be an utterly charming and awesome event. And I will not open myself up to so much work next year, assuming that they invite me back. (Seventeen things over four days, when I had honestly been expecting 6. That’s normal for a con, at least for me historically.)

I am an introvert. (Big surprise there, for anyone who knows me.)

At the same time, I am a player on a stage, and I have a lot of experience with that sort of thing, going back a long time of needing to assume masks for a variety of reasons. Most of them were unpleasant reasons, at that, but this is a con, and I simply need to be charming and massively extroverted for a few days.

Last time I did this was at Rose City Comic Con in 2018 (I think). Several of us had a single booth, with a lot of books for sale, organized by genre. The others with me did not have the ability to activate extrovert mode, so I took it on as a persona I call Carnival Barker.

Literally, standing at the corner and making eye contact with folks, then adding banter and charm to get them to step into the booth and look around. Exactly what a Carnival Barker does, without the freak show behind him. (No comments on my books, thank you. Heh.)

I did that for several days. To do it, I had to turn off the writer for that same period. Different mask. Different person.

Guess what, I’m back. We came into Minnesota a week early, which would have allowed us to see a lot of Fabulous Publisher Babe™’s family, except that COVID rippled through those families, so they isolated and we’ve stayed away.

I have managed to meet up with a few folks, having lunch with a fellow writer local I’ve never met IRL on Monday, and dinner with an old co-worker from Seattle last night. One of my online GMs lives not far away, and we’ll be doing lunch today.

With any luck, the guy who was the inspiration behind Pizzafarmer will be available later today for a beer. (Story #1 was in Nuns with Guns. Story #4 will be in Boundary Shock Quarterly 021 in the winter. I’ll publish 1-3 at the same time.) He lives around here somewhere (I don’t know MN geography all that well) and we’ve been emailing back and forth.

But I woke up this morning bouncy. That’s the extrovert coming to life. Getting ready to be ON for several days. Did manage to write some more on the second Marrakesh novel (Military Space Adventure along the lines of TOS or TNG, without the Epic Space Opera elements. More Mission-on-the-week sort of thing here) and hopefully will have words over the next day or so, before we move from the suburbs to downtown for the Con hotel.

Then I will be fully subsumed by the Barker, and off to the races.

I’ve warned everyone who would listen. And the Babe™ was at RCCC, so she saw it happen and understands me well enough to not be concerned that she’ll be sleeping with something of a stranger for a few days.

It happens. I am a creature of identity. Identities, plural, honestly.

I went into August understanding that I would be writing less. WAY less. Instead of my usual upper bound of 120,000 words, I have set it to 80,000 this month. And will stop cold if I actually manage to get there, what with a full week gap in the month.

That is the streak-breaking number, where I’m not even to Pulp Speed One, which I have managed since May 2018. Intentionally.

I won’t call it a vacation, but I’m taking time away from words. And doing odd projects instead. Lyrics for the rock opera. Planning for the Corsac Fox kickstarter in the winter. Being someone else.

I’m bouncy this morning, and it’s not the (yucky) coffee kicking in. Less than I usually drink back home, as a matter of fact.

Hopefully, some of you will be at the con. I have a signing on Friday around lunch, so bring something that needs a signature. Then I have panels pretty much beginning to end, so I will have almost no free time to just hang out.

Next year, with luck and they bring me back, folks will understand that my schedule is not under my control. And hopefully I’ll be doing less.

This year, I need to make them look good. And me.

And have fun.

But I gotta extrovert pretty damned hard for a week to do it.

Y’all ready for the ride?

Wow. I’m in a Humblebundle with Brandon Sanderson, Frank Herbert(!), Alan Dean Foster, and Kevin J. Anderson. (And WAY more…)

Seriously.

It’s called the Stars of SciFi and it was put on by Draft2Digital to mark their new efforts in moving more directly into publishing, having largely been more of a middleman up until now. (They’re the folks that get my books into libraries. Have you checked out any of my stuff from your local library yet? You should.)

The Frank Herbert book, High-Opp, was apparently a lost novel, never before published and recently discovered by his son. I gotta get that one.

There is a metric crap-ton of stuff here, folks. Thirty-five possible titles, and only eleven of them look like single novels to a real quick eyeball. Instead, you have collections of novels or omnibus editions of things.

For me, the first Science Officer Omnibus, but I’m long past assuming that you’re read that if you’re here on my blog.

Fabulous Publisher Babe™ put out a new Darius Linard collection, the first time all of these stories have been put out in a single spine. Get it here!

Brandon Sanderson has the Shadows Beneath anthology.

Lindsay Buroker’s first three Fallen Empire books.

Two complete Alan Dean Foster collections plus the novel Oshenearth.

FRANK HERBERT NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED!!! (sorry)

Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Robert J Sawyer. Kevin J. Anderson. Dean Wesley Smith. Tao Wong. My bud G.S. Jennsen. Tami Veldura and Robert Jeschonek from the Boundary Shock Quarterly Syndicate.

Are you people listening here?????

Millions of words. $308 listed value, that you can get for as little as $25 (more would be nice because we’re supporting the Book First Charity:

First Book is a nonprofit social enterprise that provides new books and educational resources to programs and schools serving children in need. By making new, high-quality books and resources available on an ongoing basis, First Book is transforming the lives of children in need and elevating the quality of education. For more information, visit www.firstbook.org.

Over 30 million American kids live in poverty. First Book wants to see every single one of them read, learn and succeed. A nonprofit social enterprise, First Book makes new, high-quality books available to schools and programs serving children from low-income families. More than 120,000 educators and program leaders have joined First Book to access outstanding educational resources for free or deeply reduced prices. Together we can reach every child, every classroom and every community. Learn more about how you can support kids in need at www.firstbook.org.

So this is where I ask you to kick in some cash and get one hell of an amazing library of books you’ve never read, while doing something amazing to help more kids like you turn into avid readers of science fiction.

Limited time offer, as all Humblebundles are. Runs until the 24^th, but you’ll want to jump on this now, and blow it through the roof.

And tell all your friends.

The Stars of Science Fiction Humble Bundle (and me)

Writers, you are a brand. You get that, right? When a reader sees your name on a cover, they will hopefully have a good idea what sort of story to expect. We’re beyond good art, good font, and good blurb here. Your name.

Your brand.

So what are you selling them?

This came up for me recently because I’m generally known for space opera kinds of actiony science fiction. At the same time, I write other stuff. Most of it falls into SF, but I also have the occasional sword and sorcery fantasy piece, some from the early days and some from ongoing efforts when the muse bites me on the ass.

But in 2022, I’m planning on dropping some books that fall into the Action/Adventure category. No magic or paranormal. Hardly any science fiction at all (less than any given James Bond movie, for comparison, with the sorts of technology you might have the Tuesday After Next).

I hope that my usual SF fans will come with me on a new adventure. Science fiction fans tend to be the most forgiving, by the way, when an author branches out. Mystery readers, on the other hand, tend to not come out of mystery as a rule. There will be exceptions, and most of those are brand related, when they love a particular author that much. Or the author happens to drift into a new category that is also one they like.

Buchman and I have been masterminding for a few years now. Trying to figure out how to glimpse the future and see where publishing is going over the next several years. Not all of those insights will help us make money, but more than a few of them have saved us time and effort. Opportunity costs.

Science fiction is going through one of those regular cycles where sales boom for a while, then slide down the waveform. In the last twenty-five years, we’ve seen YA Magic Academies become a major publishing event. Then YA Post-apocalyptic SF. Sparkly vampires, which was not quite horror like previous generations. Mostly Paranormal Romance, if you had to categorize it, but it resists being limited for a variety of reasons.

For each genre, there are expectations. When you build up a fan slowly, you will first do it by hitting enough of those expectations (not all of them) and providing entertainment value. Over time, they will come to know and like your brand. To form expectations about what your next book will be. To preorder your next book sight-unseen.

This is where cover art and font treatment come into play, because they form unconscious opinions about the story based purely on the art, in that first tenth of a second the (potential) reader see it. And those expectations shape everything, so if you are wrong, you lead them astray.

Blurbs help refine, but the cover art draws them in far enough to look at the blurb. Before then, they look for the author name.

Do they know you? Do the like you? Are they fans? Or do they have bad experiences because you maybe burned them in the past?

Lots to unpack here, but I’m going to focus on the brand part.

You know you are in a Blaze Ward story where someone is sticking it to the Man. Where you will have some manner of found family forming and enduring. I don’t do grand family arcs, because my personal history does not lend itself well to that sort of thing. Suffice it to say that there’s a reason I live in Seattle, which was about as far away as I could get from certain elements of family without crossing oceans or national borders.

My brand in SF is fast-paced, lean prose leaning heavily into my past as a poet. Stories that draw you in and hold you until you read the entire thing in one sitting if I’ve done it right. Smart characters. Competent women who are not defined by the man in their lives. Real people solving real problems, without any gods or deus ex machina involved. No Chosen One. No ancient prophesy.

I’ve talked in other places about why I will put such a (Chosen One) book down immediately. I don’t care what twist you’ve put on it or how cute you think it is. Not interested. Worse, if you’ve gotten me as far as reading a sample of your book when I find it is Chosen One, you can pretty much rest assured that I have now formed an opinion of your brand and marked you off of people I will have any interest in reading in the future.

But that’s neither here nor there.

What is your brand? What ten, individual words could you write down the left margin of a page that summed up your writing style for someone that had never picked up one of your books before?

Who are you?

If you don’t know, that means that you have never considered yourself from the standpoint of the readers you want to entice into giving you money. They will have opinions. Probably already do. What will they think?

If you aren’t selling well, is it because someone picking up any of your books has no idea what to expect? What genre it might be, based on cover art and title font?

What are you selling?

Any one book is a product in and of itself. But when you have a catalog, you are selling something bigger. A brand.

What is your brand? What should it be, if we were to ask you and ten fans? How do you reconcile if those opinions are radically different?

I am a commercial artist. That’s a fancy way of saying that I care about the business side of things. Because this is a business. I am publishing books because I want folks to buy them and read them. To support me in a lifestyle that no longer involves pants.

To do that, I have to take into account commercial considerations. That does not involve writing to market, because I write in genres and sub-genres with large fan bases. I love SF, and can make money in it, because my first mission when I start a new piece is to entertain my fans.

All the politics and ax-grinding is secondary, and largely hidden away inside the prose where you might absorb it without conscious thought. That’s also part of my brand.

I regularly hear about writers who just want to write. Who just want to put a story down on paper and have people fall in love with it. None of that icky, commercial crap. Lovely thought. Any story will have fans, but the weirder and more niche it is, the smaller that potential fan base.

What do you do when you’ve sold your book to all twelve fans of a sub-sub-sub-sub-slipstream-genre?

If you don’t want to work the commercial side of things, then I presume you are busy querying agents for a book deal. Best of luck, because those are rarer than hen’s teeth and pay hardly anything at all. But you don’t have to worry about anything except finding a home for your book, because the publisher will be on the hook for everything, which includes cover art, title font, and blurb. Maybe they’ll find a winning combination. Maybe not.

Either way, they will be forming your brand for you.

Read that again.

You have given up control of your brand, meaning that someone else gets to decide how the world of readers perceive you.

What are they going to see?

And is it worth it?

Because there is now way in hell to discuss the year in general and not offend your delicate sensibilities with my profanity. So we’ll stick with writing productivity.

For the year, I wrote fifteen novels. Five of those are the back of the First Centurion Kosnett books, of which Encounter at Vilahana and Consensus at Aditi are now out. Hegemony at Dalou and Princes at Ewin will come out in the spring, with Empire at Gloran and Domain at Yaumgan in the fall. This will generally wrap up the Republic of Aquitaine Navy books for a while, though I have notes on the next couple of sets that I want to write when I get back to it.

Two Hunter Bureau books: The Pleasure Model and Inhuman are Feb and March 2022. Bigger, badder, darker. Open-ended, so I can write more when the mood strikes.

The Fifth Handsome Rob Gig: Kinetic Solutions in May. I had WAY too much fun with this one, but this is me inverting most of the tropes of the secret agent action hero literature to do something more like what my research has suggested real spies do. Again, there will be more, because each of these is self-contained structurally.

Summer is a semi-cyberpunk trilogy called Captain Daring. I say semi-cyberpunk because they are not all that dark and gloomy. Mostly I rolled the world forward to 2104 and guestimated what things would look like. And presumed that not a lot of politics would really change.

My personal genesis for Captain Daring was reading Gail Carriger’s book on The Heroine’s Journey and working my way through a plot structure. If you split the difference between Carriger and the Harlequin movie, you’ve about got it.

Finally, the eleventh Science Officer: Buried Among The Stars. Thank you to everyone for the comments and the sales. I had a nice December and when all that money comes in around March I’ll get to do a little happy dance.

In addition to the fifteen novels, I wrote thirty-five other projects, for an accidental round fifty for the year.

Part of that is spinning up a new penname for the erotica. Cole Braddock, if you want to go enjoy some. I wrote the first half of the first Dirk Thruster series in 2020 and the remaining six this year. Additionally, the first eight Maddox stories, which will come out in the spring. Plus two Commander Machesky novellas.

Machesky and Dirk are both space opera erotica. You could pull out all the sex and still have a story. You could pull out all the plot and still have a pleasant interlude. Maddox is straight historical.

I’m having fun, and will continue to publish them.

Most of the short fiction went to my patreon folks. I say $5 will get you a short story every month, but more than once they’ve gotten two. Occasionally an unpublished novel. I actually had to write a new cyberpunkish short this week because I looked at all the unpublished fiction I have and realized that I only had three short pieces in all that they hadn’t seen. Might have to write more for January, just to get ahead.

My rule on Patreon is that any of those stories don’t come out for at least six months after they get it. Sometimes more than a year. Figure I should reward folks for supporting my crazy ventures.

So they got to meet Trevor and Night Butterfly. Roland. Quill. Otter Space. Nissa. Emily. Oleg. Senior Flight Officer Brannon. Wilson. And Harper. All of those are new universes, some of which will turn into novels and series at some point (Oleg, Brannon, and probably Wilson first).

This is your reminder that skipping a starbucks each month can get you some fun and imaginative fiction years before anybody else sees them. As a case in point, I’ll probably drop four collections of science fiction shorts this year, each about 65,000 words, give or take. You haven’t read at least half of it, and would have had to read every issue of Boundary Shock Quarterly, Blaze Ward Presents, and a couple of other places where I submitted stories, in order to be caught up.

See what you’re missing?

Boundary Shock Quarterly continues apace. I will be publishing Issue 017 in a week or so. Dieselpunk.

In 2021, we came out with Solarpunk, Space Marines, Cargo Wars, and Wandering Monsters.

2022 titles are Dieselpunk, Veterans, Sea Stories, and New Worlds, New Civilizations. That’s Year Five (Issues 017-020) so we’re still plugging along.

Blaze Ward Presents has gone from twice a year to annually, just because of the amount of work. This year we did “Crime And…” where the submitted story had to be a mystery with a one word title that finished the phrase. I got some fun and interesting stories, because BWP is always about letting writers swing for the fences. Far too often, editors put down multi-page specs about all the themes that they don’t want, then turn around and complain when all the stories that they get are identical. (I’ve actually sat in a coffee shop and listened to that exact bitch from somebody who should have known better.)

So now BWP is annual. Every year, I open the call on April 1. Close it April 30. Publish as close to June 1 as I can hit. Helps that most of the people involved are pros who give me quality stories and hit deadlines. (Plus a few of them I will tell the next theme well in advance, just so they can fit it into busy writing schedules. If you are a pro who can hit theme and want to play, hit me up via email.)

End of 2021-wise, I finished the year with 1,409,687 words. For much of the year, I was aiming to write about 5000 words per day, with Saturdays taken entirely off because I had started doing Tai Chi in the Park in Enumclaw, WA. Will get back to that.

Traditionally, 4,000/day means that I can take off a few days at the end of the month and just coast. 117,000 words for the month (or a little more) and done. This year, that mostly worked, except that August and September went sideways, and I struggled to hit 100,000 each of those months. Managed it, barely, but things were busy and I’m hoping that 2022 relaxes on that front.

I continue to be healthy. Vaxxed and Boosted and fuck all those people who refuse. Personally, the faster they can die off the sooner the civilized portions of humanity can get back to something like a normal life. I gave them two years of sympathy and empathy, but they can just die now and make the world a better place for the rest of us.

If you aren’t vaxxed and DON’T HAVE A MEDICAL reason (I have friends who nearly died from getting their first dose, so they are at risk and can’t get it), then I don’t want to know you. Period. Go away. Die in the underbrush and maybe feed the feral cats or something.

Yeah, lost too many people these last two years to listen to your whining.

I plan to live to be 100. Plan to die at my keyboard with a stack of novels for my great-great-great-whatevers to publish when I’m gone. I can’t do that if you people keep mutating new diseases because you have to stick it to the libs. I’m one of those libs. (Actually, a really hard pink these days, as the overton window slides off a fucking cliff.) I’m done with you. Whoever you are.

Nuff said? Clear?

Good.

Hope for the rest of you that your 2021 didn’t do more damage to your life than you can handle, and that ’22 is better. I’d like to see my friends in person again, instead of Zoom, Discord, or phone calls. I miss (a very compact number of) people. We can do this, but everyone has to act like a grownup.

I want to keep writing. Got a lot more stories to tell, and only forty-some years to get there.

Be safe and take care.

And smile.

Shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA