[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.]

Week’s a little inside out, so instead of D&D game on Monday, it happened today. Just got home to the reminder that it’s Tuesday. Also just saw that one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th Century died. Dolly Parton was 80 and when you read the obit, they mention all the things she accomplished. And it’s a lot.

Her and Chuck Tingle have generally set the bar on how a famous creative should behave in public. She was always quiet and gracious, and let her money make the world a better place. Dr. Tingle always has something uplifting to say.

Lessons for people.

Writing: Belle #2 is begun. Working my way into an opening trilogy, but it will be an ongoing series, I think. Dunno. Don’t have to know. Need three of them in order to publish, because fans expect three books in a series before they’ll touch it. Can’t say I blame them, either.

Also writing some Mick on the side, for those of you on the list. Really exploring some of the darker elements of sci fi with him and Andi. Not sure where it goes.

Also started an assassin story. And literally picked a name and started running. Originally, it looked like a flash piece right around 2,000 words, but then writer brain helpfully dropped a romantic subplot on me so it’s going longer. Since I’m planning to explore more rom-com SF at some point (Albert and Jane), it’s worth writing short pieces. Especially if I can mix Thriller and Romance (romantic, basically, with a lot of energy and tension at cross purposes.) If anybody is into that sort of thing, give a yell and you can do a first read pass on it when I get done. Doesn’t FEEL like a novel, but might run into novella land. I am literally writing this one into darkness, stopping occasionally to figure out what happens next, rather than even having an end point in mind.

Romantic shapes things. Action-Thriller shapes things. Figure I can intersect those two and it will work out well enough. The joy of what I do is that I can write something and publish it and if it doesn’t resonate, I keep going. It’s not like I am dedicating an entire year to one project that makes or breaks my career.

Honestly, the worst thing that might happen is that it explodes into the cultural zeitgeist (Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, etc.) and suddenly the world demands that I write a lot more into that weird niche category. At the speed I write, that’s not mind-breaking. Just means less of other things.

And if there is that much money on the table, I’m willing to whore myself out. We all cash that paycheck, after all.

So I never publish anything that I wouldn’t be happy expanding into more. Same goes for all the erotica, as I have started pulling that stuff out of the trunk and publishing it (ask if you don’t know that penname. Not a secret, so much as a solid divide between him and Blaze so folks don’t get confused and angry when they run into adults consentually adulting at one another enthusiastically.)

Past that, finishing up both Ollie and Heather over the next six weeks. Lovely series. Had lots of fun with them. But I finished them a while ago and am kinda ready for them to be off my radar for a while. More Maddox and Doctor Kay, then the Kohahu Trilogy (Daughter of the Shogun), followed by Harri the Merchant. Planning a kickstarter in the spring for Corsac Fox 8, then dropping it in July of next year, give or take. Belle or Scattered Tribes after that, depending.

With that, y’all enjoy your Tuesday and I’m looking forward to September turning things a little more normalish around here.

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.]

The system no longer pings at 8am, so it’s 1030 and I have written a lot of words already. Scattered Tribes 4 (Holden and the gang) is at 72k. Probably 78k give or take. Need to wrap up some things and need space to do that.

Last couple of days have been a little sour, so in addition to doing laundry and dishes this morning, I made cinnamon rolls. Third time with this recipe, trying to figure out why previous iterations were good, but not great. And painful to make, requiring a lot of fuss in the middle to freelance things.

Think I got it, finally. And, because, I laminated the dough this time, though not with butter or spice. Just rolled it out and triple folded it inward to shape it and layer things when it bakes. Doing a third rise in the pan, and that’s working, so the stall issue had been addressed nicely. Hope they work out. Also gonna glaze these instead of the butter/brown sugar/molasses thing my MIL’s original recipe called for. But that’s me, and I don’t have the same taste of childhood as the Fabulous Publisher Babe™.

Working on the side on several Red Branch Shorts for future collection. Finished #3 yesterday. Gonna work on the cookbook next, so I have a novel-length something to do as a kickstarter add-on next spring. Or whenever. Whatever. Something.

Also got other projects in various stages of half-done, like Derlyth 4, which needs finishing. Soon as I finish Scattered Tribes 4, moving on to Belle 2, I think. Get some of that stuff done and see how quickly I can nail down having my 2027 publishing in the can. Currently, I could stop writing and fill 2028, I think, but that’s bits and pieces and series I need to finish/extend so that I can publish book ones I have on the can.

And starting to get back to dropping multiple things a month, but that’s getting all the short fiction collected up. Eva and Nik in August. Laima and Brother Jon coming this fall. (You preordered?)

August. Doldrums, but not the depression I’ve had to deal with in previous years. Mostly just too much to do and a little overwhelmed, but too stubborn to quit. Too mean to die, as the old saying goes. It’s gotten me this far.

What’s a Russian/Ukrainian/Soviet recipe you inherited from a grandma that I should be including in the official Red Branch cookbook?

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.]

Barbecue was awesome. About 40 folks showed up and we were busy all day. Probably walked 7-8 miles just roaming and hosting. Haven’t gotten a lot of writing done over the last several days, but that was going to get the tables and chairs, setup, and returning (Sat, Sun, Mon) and I’m only now starting to fully recover the brain. Body’s fine. Soul was kinda empty.

But it was awesome. Lots of folks got to meet new friends and talk business across wide ranges of things, which is the whole point of the barbecue.

Writing some obscure stuff right now. As part of a team kickstarter project this fall, in addition to Red Branch 1 and book 1s from several other folks, Matt wants us to include new short stories, preferably set in universe. As I am researching what will be Book Seven, I had to get a little creative with the first one. Conversation between Woody (Brigadier General Lockwood Carlyle) and Eloise Cutter (Aeronautical Engineer designer based on my MIL. BA, AeroEng, Purdue, 1948. Freaking genius woman).

Highly technical, but a good taste of the kinds of research behind the books. I showed an early draft to a fan who is LITERALLY the guy who wrote the book on airplane design. (I have never been able to find a copy of his book, even used, for less than about $90, so I ask him questions and Tuckerize his CIA spy pilot dad as bribery.) And I have ideas for two other shorts, staring Banshee and Beau respectively. Also planning on a “Red Branch Taste Of Home Cookbook” with several fun Ukrainian and Russian recipes, and I will have an entire spin-off book that I can drop next summer when Red Branch 6 (Iron Curtain) comes out.

The fun only stops when you do. Keep that in mind.

About halfway through Scattered Tribes 4. Holden and the gang getting serious about overthrowing the empire and killing yet more dark gods in the quest to make the galaxy a safer place. Lots of short fiction interspersed there, so hoping to write Giles 3 and move it forward, though Belle 2 & 3 might be necessary to push my publishing schedule out a ways. Dunno.

I’d ask you folks, but you’d laugh at me and shrug, having no clue what’s in the can at the moment.

But more coming. Finish off Heather and Ollie. More Maddox. Kohahu. Harri. More Corsac Fox. Belle. Holden. Giles. Whatever.

See you in the funny pages.

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.

About 26k into Scattered Tribes 4. Brain wanted to reread Giles 1 and 2 so we could circle back and finish that series (5 planned) at some point, just to get them out of the can and earning rent. Figure 3 next or in September.

Got a barbecue planned this weekend, so busy cleaning, prepping, and cooking meat. Turned a pork butt into 5 pounds of kielbasa and 6 pounds of italian sausage. Those got cooked yesterday and will be reheated as dogs and charcuterie. Brisket defrosted today to cook. Hamburger to defrost and turn into burgers. Cheese to slice, because I bought a foot-tall cylinder at the restaurant store. Pork was already cooked over the weekend and will be warmed up and lovely.

Even made a gallon of plum wine. Dunno if I distill it Saturday or not. Still got the blueberry rum.

Kinda percolating along at the moment. No great things, save the annual bbq, so everything kinda mellow and level. Books to write. To edit. To plan. To read for research. Nobody ever buys the Red Branch books, but I enjoy writing them and the amount of research I have to do keeps the brain deeply engaged, which is what you need to keep from losing it as you age.

What are you doing as you age in order to stay in shape: emotionally, intellectually, and physically?

Entropy is a bitch. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Fabulous Publisher Babe™ hired a British artist to do the cover branding and design for Season Two of Corsac Fox, since #8 is done and going to kickstarter next spring for summer release. Got a lot of those, but needed to finish off a bunch of things before I dive back into Uly and Dan. Holden. Harri. Giles. Belle. Sasha. That’s just the first layer, mind you. The immediate tasks.

I have a number of book ones in series that I need to write the rest of. Or more of. Giles. Scour. Cloning Blues. Flight Officer Brannon.

Because of stuffff, I had to update a list of all the books I had published. The original doc ran through 2017. I might have been a bit busy since then.

Running into 2027, the list is around 250 titles, not counting any of the anthologies, which I still need to document. Been busy. Hopefully, can keep busy.

At this point, I am unemployable as anything but a stocker in the grocery, more or less. Don’t wanna be people facing. Wanna write.

Don’t have anything pithy at this point. Hope your week is doing well enough.

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.]

So I mentioned last week that I was reading Walter Jon Williams’ Dread Empire’s Fall series. Ended up DNF at exactly the 50% mark of book two, when it turned into Pride and Prejudice. (Not a compliment, by the way.) FMC discovers YET ANOTHER REASON WE CAN NEVER BE TOGETHER and runs. MMC flounces off an is engaged to someone else in three pages.

Now, given 1.5 books, we know that MMC and FMC will eventually find a way to get back together, but only after another round of angst that frankly was verging over onto TSTL. Aristocracy is a bad idea and I’m of the opinion that most of those folks should be turned out of their palaces to starve. After all, if they were that genetically superior, being dropped with $5 in their pockets in the favelas of Rio means that they will be kings of Brazil in less than a year, right? That’s what they’ve been telling me for all these years.

TSTL, but really, 20k+ words of FALSE TENSION because we know they will “Find A Way To Overcome” this next setback. But now the author has promised me that he’ll do it again. After all, it’s a trilogy, so of course they will AGAIN be separated by family and aristocratic privilege, before True Love™ finally overcomes.

Pardon me as I get my stomach to stop turning over. The Will They/Won’t They? got desperately overplayed and turned into not a problem to be solved but histrionics to be listened to as the two characters throw childish tantrums.

DNF. And unlikely to pick up another WJW book because of that. Pity, but you’ve burned me as a reader.

Writing: Finished Belle 1 last week. Right at 40k. New series, new universe, new fun. I consciously chose to write it because I want to create more entry points into my catalog. After all, RAN Stormhawk (Dec 2026) is book 26 in the overall RAN universe. Copy editor demanded an Author Note on the front for folks picking it up and a little lost as we’re 28 years forward from the beginning of Auberon and the Jessica Keller Chronicles.

Can do.

Sent Red Branch 6 off to copy editor over the weekend. Sometime in the spring. Researching what will turn into Book 7, and planning to join a “Team Kickstarter” project with several other thriller writers, where Red Branch 1 is part of it.

And started Scattered Tribes 4 yesterday, for those of you who have met Holden and the gang. Gonna run 5, each around 90k, and planning to drop them in the fall/winter next year. Then eventually expand that universe by writing the series my friend Tom’s wife asked for, where she wanted “Harry Potter Meets Star Fleet Academy” (this before they announced the reboot of the former and the series of that name). Got plans.

Swords, Sorcery, and Starships.

Just gotta resolve everything to save the galaxy from ancient dark gods manipulating people for their own reasons. (Boredom is always a threat, if you intend to live forever, after all).

More Belle, because I want three of those before I publish. Maybe a fourth Harri, because I have a plot in mind. More Red Branch. More A’Zedi Survey Corps, because book 3 sets up some interesting follow-ons (you’ll see in November)

And more Mick, because having fun exploring some darker topics there.

Hope y’all are staying cool on this nasty hot Tuesday in the PWN. Staying in the AC myself and doing stufffff.

For those of you who have been around long enough, what’s the series (novel or short) that you would most like to see me extend? Always looking for how I might provide better fanservice for you weirdos.

🙂

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.]

Surfaced this morning (after shower, stretching, grumbling) and unlocked the back door so Fabulous Publisher Babe™ can come over later. (She has her own house, as you might not recall.)

A general reminder: Chipmunks make lousy ninjas. Don’t believe them when they try to argue the point, either. Got one adult and one youngling that like to run around and pretend to be invisible. Usually on her porch, (I think they live under the barn), but over the weekend, one wandered onto my back porch to see what was up. Sometimes, he’ll climb up the patio steps, stand up on his hind legs, and peek in the slider.

Caught him early this time. Middle of the bricks.

Opened the door and he scampered madly under the steps. So I put a broom down on one side, just to get his attention.

He takes off for the FAR side of the property, and I learned a whole new slew of chipmunk profanities. Not a wasted day, then.

Still waking up.

Finished Harri 3. Like how it ended. Still have 4 in mind, but other projects I need to pursue. Started that one inspired loosely by Blake’s 7 (and I mean WAY loosely, given last week’s conversation) and already 22k into it. Feels like it will come in right around 40+/-, which is fine. I like the shortest novels, because that becomes a challenge to tell an entire story and not have any places where it slows down. Series tentatively called Belle’s Fortune at the moment, so Belle 1.

Film at 11.

Happy Bastille Day, y’all. You know what to do to celebrate it.

Occasionally, I have attempted to read SF fiction lately, mostly to overcome the natural tendency to read critically. Lots of the old SF was plagued by the problem that Hugo and a few others liked to publish stories based on a really cool idea, with the actual craft of the story being a distant ninth in consideration. Things like Setting, Voice, and Characterization were haphazard at best.

I remember a major media tie-in from the 80s (a novelization based on Star Trek, but not any of the movies), where I was about two-thirds of the way through the book when the author casually mentioned that the woman scientist in charge was black. I could not remember that coming up at all, so I started over, looking for the thing I had missed. Wasn’t there.

Granted, useful to just assume things, but at no point had the author included ANY descriptions of characters beyond gendering them.

And Arthur C. Clarke is also NOTORIOUS for this. Grand ideas. No physical details about cast. Little about setting, which is usually “character opinion of sensory data.”

So reading the old stuff is dull, because even a mid writer these days has better craft than those old books. Maybe not better ideas, but more engaging, and that’s what keeps the reader reading.

Shaggy dog story short, I stumbled across Walter Jon Williams’ Dread Empire’s Fall series. First one generally worked for me. Into the second one now, which is kinda amazing, considering how little fiction I read these days. Different ways of looking at things, and he centers the story on two characters who are both outsiders sticking it to the man, which is honestly why I was able to read it. And he puts a lot of emphasis on the people as people, rather than cardboard archetypes delivering polemics for the Author™.

More coffee as soon as I post this. Need it. Then back to the word mines, because we are about to steal a warship out of harbor, having bamboozled the base commander with bullshit stories of secret missions and impending wars.

Bureaucracy can be defeated by defeating the minds behind it. Or playing to the vanity of the decision makers. Y’all keep that in mind when you finally meet Belle.

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.]

Mostly recovered from the trip. And June. And spring. Not gonna claim coherence, but you people should know better anyway.

Home. Mowing again briefly, as it will get hot and dry soon and the grass with generally die off until September, so my exercise mowing it drops. Also time to start watering the fruit directly, which is a July thing. Gonna be heavy on apples this year, and no cherries. Grapes and Aronia both mature enough to gimme wine and juice. Need to check the blueberries and lingonberries.

Mama and both Zoomies still around, though the boy keeps getting his sister in trouble by wandering around during the day, grazing my yard and the hillside. Everyone looks healthy, so win there. Haven’t seen the bunpersons much, but I have hawks and coyotes around here, so they might be hiding. And might have gotten got.

Or, knowing some of my rabbits, might be sitting on a throne of skulls and celebrating. (We had one around here we called switchblade for a reason, after all.)

Summer proceeds. Finished Corsac Fox 8. Working on finishing Harri 3 (and had an idea that might lead me directly into Harri 4 shortly). Still poking away at Derlyth and Mick, but went to town yesterday for a “normalish” Monday and started a new novel. Or something. Patreon folks will probably get it at some point, as it rounds into shape, so you might only get whatever I have done. Or I might romp through it and have a book one.

Got inspired by the old BBC SF show Blake’s 7 for certain elements of ST Cousteau and Mick. Then I discovered a novel written by Paul Darrow about his character Ker Avon from the show, telling a whole backstory that ended just as he was put on the ship that saw him introduced for S1E2. Haven’t read it. Only available out of print at eye-watering prices for someone who is not a fanatic about the show.

But Darrow also tried to get the show relaunched later, with Avon initially in exile somewhere like Napoleon, when a new generation of rebels breaks him out and starts a whole new series. That already matched some weird notes I had from the long drive, which included the phrase “Blake is dead, Avon.” in them.

So yesterday, I did that thing I have been enjoying this year, where I pull out the bones after stripping off the skin and muscle, and use that to tell a new story that you have to look really close to see. And not B7, because I never watched the show as a kid. My PBS had Tom Baker and later Peter Davison. Occasionally Space: 1999, but again, I grew up on Tom Baker primarily and only encountered B7 as an adult. And haven’t watched them all, but have done the research.

And I want to tell my own stories, but I’m happy to steal ideas from a variety of places to use as 2x4s to frame things.

Will finish Harri 3 this week. Just over 18k, and they have run 24k so far. Mostly, trying to get back to 18 months ahead of my publishing schedule with books in the can so I can get them adequately first readered and edited by professionals, which wasn’t entirely possible for a stretch there where my original main copyeditor ghosted me hard off and on, slowing down more and more until I had to fire her. (That’s when she came clean about all those things she hadn’t wanted to tell me. Got several replacements these days that are all working out well.)

Hoping to dive back into Last Stand, Scattered Tribes, or something along those lines in August. Again, build up a lead so I can work. Corsac Fox 8 kickstarter in the spring. Probably Kincaide 3 KS in the fall of 2027. Could publish things, but want to get three in any series before I do, as much as possible. Have an A’Zedi Survey Corps coming in November (#3) and ideas for a #4, so add that to the list.

Wanna stay ahead of you, so I have time to explore crazy shit and write more Action-Thriller, too. Kincaide ate my winter. Glad it’s written, but still a lot of work to finish. And heavy, so I’m writing a lot of shorter things to break out of that rut.

Hope you still have all your fingers and toes. And have a lovely week.

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.]

This time yesterday, I was in Montana somewhere. I was in Montana for a while, as we drove the North Dakota route Monday (Minneapolis, Fargo, Bismark, Montana) and stayed in Billings.

Tuesday, got up and got gone early (again) and stopped at an old market in Alberton, MT to visit the Montana Valley Book Store, promising over 100,000 used books. They were not kidding. People on the spectrum should not visit, because you will be screaming at the disorganization. Better, maybe a bunch of you can pool cash and buy the place, then spend a month organizing everything, labeling it properly into the database, and getting the contents online. Some prizes, but I was a blind squirrel finding acorns to get to them. Cute place. PACKED with books. You could spend a weekend (not that far from Missoula and modern hotels) treasure hunting. Probably worth it. Might go back sometime.

Didn’t do much writing this week. Two 13 hour days driving each way. Three busy days seeing family and a few old friends who live in the Twin Cities. And a mariachi band.

Did finish Corsac 8. Sailing Into Darkness, which is what I promised you at the end of 7. Currently planning a kickstarter campaign for the spring. Have a reminder to myself that we need to get the dust jacket hardcover editions caught up through 7 by then.

Not sure what we’ll do for stretch goals and support tiers. Probably the walk-on character and major-character options again, as this series is not done. Ebook, Paper, Hardcover. Catch up (all 8 ebooks) option, but not paper, because that’s a pain in my ass and you can order them now.

Also making notes on finishing Scattered Tribes. Holden, for those of you who have met him and the gang. Hoping to finish those this summer and fall, and have them as a big kickstarter event in Fall of 2027. Five books. Maybe all of them early, then monthly drops into 2028. Character art. Alien art. Crazy shit. Something. Those of you who have read book one here, I welcome your suggestions for what you’d like to see, understanding that Scattered Tribes was always intended as the entry point to a whole new universe of swords, sorcery, and starships.

Already know what the next series in that universe is, because that was the original idea, before I realized I had to write Scattered Tribes to set everyone and everything up first. Grand epic space fantasy opera craziness.

New Boundary Shock just dropped and I haven’t even updated the website yet, but this issue contains #13 in the Last Stand books. I’ll put it out individually next year, so this is your chance to start Season Two early. And see where I’m going, because I got something enormous planned.

Currently writing catch up. This. Newsletter shortly. A new Chace Haig short for Thrill Ride. Still working on Derlyth 4 and Harri 3. And other things.

Mostly, mainlining caffeine this morning and hoping to wake up. Good exhausted is still exhausted and I have a lot to catch up on, so if you need something from me and haven’t heard back by Saturday, poke me again.

Past that, go buy a bookstore and drag it kicking and screaming into the 21^st Century. The world needs it.

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.

20260623

[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.]

Those of you reading this in three weeks, this is your sign from the heavens to gimme $1 a month on the patreon side of things(https://www.patreon.com/blazeward), so your news is a little more fresh.

Tomorrow, bright and (fucking) early, we’ll be headed out. Another epic road trip, this time to the Twin Cities. My birthday is Friday (57?!?) , plus my BIL and SIL celebrating 25 year anniversary with a mariachi band saturday, and several other birthdays all falling around this weekend. Most of the clan will be gathering, and we decided to make the trip. Flying or train were both about twice the cost of driving, plus I love a good road trip. Will wave at you from SD as we zoom by. Some of you already know and we’ve made arrangements for this weekend, but if you suddenly went boop, email me or text between now and Saturday and I can get you details. We’re only going to be in town until Monday morning, then driving home. But I haven’t gotten to see the grand-niblings since 2019, and some of them are taller than me now.

Gonna be awesome.

Writing: finished the sixth Mick story. Having fun turning that into a novel of darkness and mental health. Working on Derlyth 4 slowly. Harri 3. And close to finishing Corsac Fox 8, so probably another week there. (A week after I get back. Taking the writing phone but not the computer, and I won’t write much between now and July after today.)

Saw Mama Deer and her two zoomies several times this last week. She’s bedding them down on the hillside below the septic field or over the ridge behind the barn, but brings them out. We all had breakfast together Sunday, as she was feeding them while the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ and I fixed bacon and eggs. Squirrel and chipmunk babies are running around being dorks without adult supervision, so that’s been entertaining. Feeders have been emptied daily, and the gang is going to leave a 1-star yelp review when we’re gone for a week, but they do have the potential to eat other things. Even if the goofball Stellar Jays have learned from the Flickers how to eat from a suet feeder. (Always funny, because they don’t normally, so I’m introducing new evolutionary pressures around here. Heh.)

Past that, training continues apace. I’m probably in better shape today than I have been since I left Los Angeles in 1995, if that tells you anything. Test still likely sometime around the end of the year, if all goes well. I’m over 30k on a series of essays and articles currently (temporarily) entitled ‘My Blackbelt Journey.’ Sometime next year, I’ll sit down and organize it more into a descriptive text as a workbook to help training, by covering my interpretation of all the things that the curriculum contains.

Last night, learned (rough) the first half of a new kata. Seunchin (sp?). Core curriculum is Sanchin, Seisan, and Sanseru. To that, after black belt he adds Tencho, Seunchin, and Suparempe, plus one sai and one bo kata for one of three secondary fields of study (kata, weapons, and/or grappling). I also know Saifa and Gekisai-dai-ich, but those are just for knowledge and never going to be on any test, as far as I know.

And swinging heavy weights, plus carrying them. As I said, the goal is better shape at sixty than thirty, because I’d like to still be doing this at ninety. Got the genes for it. All four grandparents were in their seventies when they died, and all smoked, drank, and ate crap. Mom made it to eighty. Dad is still full of piss and vinegar at eighty-six. I can do this. And that’s thirty more years of writing, so the heirs will inherit one hell of a catalog, and hopefully it makes a difference in their lives, both for money and showing them that they can be successful artists, because that side of the family are all into art.

Past that, on the road this time tomorrow. See you in the Twin Cities. Or not.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

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running a little late today, but that’s getting sidetracked first thing and the reminder just popped up. Usually, I see the 8am email go out, but I have a new phone and still getting things sorted out. Like alarms and reminders.

So anyway, hotter than snot these last few days. Like almost 90 in town yesterday, but I’d worn my kilt to prepare. And gotten up early to work out with Sensei, down on the river doing kata then back at his home dojo, before he cooked everyone breakfast and we played Shadowdark at his kitchen table instead of the book store. Just ‘cause.

I’m lacking adult supervision for a few days, with the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ out of town visiting her niece. Then, next week, another epic road trip, this time to Twin Cities for a major joint celebration. My 57^th birthday. BIL and SIL celebrating 25^th anniversary and they throw in their birthdays. Another friend turning 60. And the whole clan coming into town so I get to see folks for the first time since 2019 (last Xmas before Covid, and we’ve all gotten a little feral since then.

And I saw Mama Deer with two little zoomies bipping across the back yard this morning right under my writing window, so I’ve been smiling. Always enjoy when we get more deer. They live on property (I have 6 acres, mostly trees) so they have space. And Mama bedded them down on the hillside, so I’m staying away from that part of the property today. Expect to see her curled up for some Me-Time this evening, after she feeds them later. That’s normal with them. And got the big septic field with a lot of lines of sight and escape, so they feel comfortable.

And, as you know, they are utterly terrified of us. Utterly. More than once, they’ve looked up and kinda shrugged at me walking by. At least I won’t get mugged by them, unlike the rabbits.

And chipmunks, as you know, make lousy ninjas.

Writing: Corsac Fox 8 is past 50k, target 80. Rolling nicely along. Also working on more Mick Fitzpatrick, as I just finished story #5 and am starting to shape a novel with them. Also working on Derlyth 4 this morning. Only about a quarter done there, but that’s rolling slow because of his vocabulary and voice.

Am also on hold for the last whenever because they have an annoying system that pops up every ten seconds to tell me that I can have them call me back and then they start the exact same hillbilly guitar solo again. Heard fifteen seconds or so of it for half an hour. Annoying as fuck.

Which just makes me less and less likely to be nice to whoever I get on the other side, because while this is a store I like, they can make the sorts of decisions that make me shop anywhere else. Modern capitalism forgets that part. Or rather, they think that I have to accept their enshitification.

I do not. Am also grumpy at those fuckers. And building up to a good savage verbal mauling, because their enshitification has annoyed the fuck out of me before I had to call them to complain about something.

Hope your Tuesday is less aggravating than mine has been, but hey, I got trees, breeze, and zoomie fawns running around, so it ain’t all bad.

Also, just realized that I missed the reminder about Anti-Stodgy Newsletter, because new phone. Working on that next.

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.