[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 Lords of the Endless Plains came out last night. Hope you stayed up way too late to read it. And a reminder that ebooks are usually available on the first instead of the tenth, if you need your fix early. That’s #3. #4 comes out in July. 5 and 6 are done, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise by telling you the titles. Need to write 7 and then take a break and move the plot forward several years.

Kinda brainless this morning. Did Physical Therapy massage and just got home. Messed up my right shoulder last summer and she’s slowly fixing it. Did something to my right foot (strained pretty good) over the last week and hobbling in a lot of pain, so she worked on that.

Got little brain left and most of it wants to dribble out of my ears.

Still working on Scour 2. Coming up on the halfway point. Having fun going deep into the world and setting, drawing parallels and contrasts for folks. Not sure when these come out as I’d like to have three of them for next year.

Not sure what’s the next novel. Need to write more Scattered Tribes, so I can bring book one to an end. Assuming I don’t just keep banging out shorts and let someone else find the natural break points. Hope y’ll be enjoying things up to this point.

Boundary Shock Quarterly will be coming July 1. Third Beckett Fernsby story (of 6 so far) and need to write more of those.

Been doing a lot of research on early jet aviation. Got a series that starts in 1948 and will be in ’49 for book two. Aviation mercenary company. We’ve talked about the Blackhawk comic as inspiration, but you know me and I went a little crazy with it, as I do. Trying to at least keep the technology roughly accurate, even as I play with politics and such. And history books are a pain in the ass, because the Korean war “just happened” one day. The whole background to the war usually involves a couple of paragraphs on page 1, when it really is a LOT more messy.

But getting there.

Also looking at the next A’Zedi Survey Corps book, so I have stuff for 2025. The slower writing this year will catch up with me next, but shit happens.

Got my foot elevated and it wants to fall asleep, so I’m gonna post this and go lay on the couch.

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.]

Ended up starting the next Scour novel after all. 10K in. Starting to think about what will be the next story after that. Brain seems to want to cycle back around to some Action-Adventure, so I’m not sure Chace or Red Branch. (No idea when I’ll pic Gator up again, or where I’ll go with that team.)

There will be a short story out later today. Weekend kinda got away from me. In a good enough way. Saturday, Kung Fu all morning, then drove into Kent to a street fair to see a friend who had a table. Used to be in Kent a lot, but now hardly ever. The world changes.

Sunday, did the usual bacon and eggs, then hydroponics. Then ended up on the phone with the Piper for 2.5 hours, talking about gaming stuff. We’ve moved past D&D 5e and started playing Shadowdark. Combination of 1^st ed and 5^th ed that plays fast and doesn’t have a lot of bloat. Only problem is that it is currently stripped down to minimal rules. And utterly linear, to the point that every fighter looks exactly like every other fighter, with only weapon and color scheme to identify them.

We came up with some variations to use as House Rules that let folks better flavor their characters, without significantly affecting power curve, which is low and smooth. Probably start testing them out this week with the group. If I ever get back to the other rpg I was working on last year before the world fell apart, I have some interesting new concepts to mine/steal/use, so that’s a benefit.

All the shrub we made a week ago turned out awesome. Took a can of cut pineapple (basically one ring) and shrubbed it. Used a half-gallon of chopped, previously-frozen rhubarb for the other. I didn’t grow up on rhubarb like she did, so it’s not a hankering. Plus, anything in the “add enough sugar to make it palatable” category ain’t for me.

However, shrubbing it flattens the taste out significantly (enough sugar and vinegar) and both the shrub and the candied leftovers have been yummy. Healthy, too. Useful.

And I got to introduce her to Mod Pizza last night. Chain. Functionally Subway sandwiches, but pizza, so fast and easily custom, which she needs with her allergies. Didn’t react last night or this morning, which is excellent. Adding it to the occasional out list for that reason.

Think I mentioned a few times that I’m working with the guys at Written Well (https://writtenwell.com). Been putting things over there (paywall, but a lot of material from three of us who are all professional writers, so I think worth your time if you are an artist. Or want to know how the sausage is made.

Got articles, forums, and details y’all probably find useful. It certainly helps me frame things when I have to explain it. Gotta know its right in my head before opening my mouth.

Similarly, First Tuesdays Indie Publishing in Enumclaw, where I’ve been trying to get a group of folks together to talk books. Been slowly growing, which is good. Hopefully it continues, though summer is often a down time.

Who knows?

I’m here. I’m enjoying myself. That’s most of what matters.

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 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.

[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.]

They say hurt dogs howl. Nice phrase for someone blindly lashing out when confronted on their bad behavior. Had a couple of folks surprise me by biting recently.

World of difference between “No, thank you,” and “Hey, fuck you, I don’t need anything from you!” when the question was “Need any help?”

Might be a bit grumpy. Might just be almost June. Anyone who’s been around here for a while should remember that I tend to reinventory things around June 1 and throw out things. Old trash. Bad ideas. Good ideas that never rose to claim any mindspace.

Something.

Kinda that week.

Changes, but that’s normal. Always learning means always looking at old things and either adapting them to new circumstances or chucking them onto the burn pile.

Monday.

Finished Felix. Wrote another Boston short story as the start of an arc of several such tales for next year’s Thrill Ride magazine.

One of May’s changes was me (quietly) taking over as owner and Publisher of Thrill Ride, starting with Issue 009 next year. Lots of prep work. Recruited a new editor to handle those duties for me. Recruiting a new syndicate to close submissions and make things work better. Probably have that done by mid-June, as I’ve been talking to the first tranche of folks and gotten a solid core to build on.

Short fiction for Swordmistress Zhen about halfway done this morning before I start. Traveler From The West (01) is out. Jade Tiger (02) is in Sisters In Arms (Thrill Ride 5). Writing a third story now, but not sure if I’ll put out individuals or collect them all up later. Don’t have to have answers today.

Not sure what’s “next” after Wan-Xian. Planning to write the second Scour novel soon. Some of you got #1 as a monthly a while back. Returning to the land of Duff, Red, and Lefty, because I have a lot of story there to tell. A whole long arc of post-apocalyptic railroad blues.

If you have any short fiction needs (some character I haven’t touched in a while), don’t hesitate to hit reply and let me know. I have a ton of open universes there to work with.

Or new stuff. Writer brain helpfully threw an idea at me yesterday that had a really interesting character backstory, if I wanted to pursue it. Might. Could be really any genre, though the idea itself was all set for modern action.

Simply don’t have the hours in the day to write them all, unless I have about another dozen folks knock on the front door and demand that they could handle editing/first reader chores. Fabulous Publisher Babe™ needs time off to do her things.

Not a lot past that. Next time we talk will be June, and things will have started changing. Got a lot of summer plans that come into focus. Farm work. Mind work. Future work.

That first pebble has started down the hillside.

🙂

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 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.

[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.]

A good Monday. The Fabulous Publisher Babe™ got home Friday. Utterly exhausted on all axes of motion, but recovering. Met some writers for lunch Saturday so she could see everyone. Stayed home but for random trips into town (grocery, hardware, etc.). Breakfast this morning at OPH instead of Krain because we both woke up early. Home to write.

Cloning Blues/Felix is approaching 40k. Feels close to 50, so I’ll finish it this week. Already reread Scour, Book One because writer brain wanted to work on it next and I left that story open for a series. Will start it by next week, I figure. Book one came in at 60k, so I’ll finish it in June sometime.

Got to looking at my spreadsheet this morning. Felix is novel #105. That doesn’t count anything less than 40k projects, so the first half of Science Officer or all of Last Stand are left off that count, as are other things. It matters because I originally targeted catching my friend Steve Perry for novels. He was writing in another era, where you couldn’t go zoom. And wrote for Hollywood for a chunk. Busy career, and generally “retired” these days, though still working on a few projects with folks like Dan Moran.

Reason that matters is that he had 65 novels to his credit at the time. Kinda blown by that, but knew that, so I’d looked at my next writing goal.

Joseph Haydn is credited generally with 106 symphonies. (The numbers get squishy, depending on who you ask and how things get classified, but 106 is the main number most folks agree on.)

Next project I start (Scour, Book Two) will be #106. Kinda nifty.

With that in mind, I have talked in the past about throwing a party to celebrate when I hit that mark. Because I slowed down I 2023+, it didn’t happen in January, as we once expected. Shit happens, and many of you know what my last 10 months or so have been like.

My birthday is coming up in June. Sounds like a good reason to combine the two, and have 106 on a birthday cake, just to mess with whoever makes it. Because why the hell not?

And with any luck, June 1 marks the beginning of an arc where things settle down some from the abject craziness of the last year, because I’m freaking exhausted and working hard not to bite anyone some days.

Gonna make some changes, but I do that every June 1, going back at least to 1985 as I pause to consider it. Maybe longer. That’s when I do it, on average, and the averages work in my favor this year.

Expect some changes. Mostly for the good, but I gotta sort some shit out.

Hopefully, y’all are along for the ride.

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 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.

[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.]

Almost sort of maybe recovered this week. Had a quiet weekend, after all the crazy. And still shoveling horse shit, but that just means that Jimmy is healthy, bored, and generally smart enough not to go beyond my yard in the middle of the night.

One of these days, dipshit might wander all the way to the bottom of the hill. Dunno if he’d get himself lost, but he might. I’m a quarter mile up the way, around a long curve, with ponds and streams on the north side, his home on the west, crazy drunk hillbilly on the south, and space east where he might go if he felt the need.

At least he’s not as stubborn as a goat. Always wonder if he’ll run off with one of the elk herds that come through.

Writing is going nice. Finished the sixth Corsac Fox last week. Need to write #7 and then Block One will be done.

Those of you who have been around long enough might remember a story set in a universe I was calling Cloning Blues. Notes say I wrote Kin in 2021. Think I sent it out to y’all at some point, but can’t honestly remember. (If I didn’t, someone remind me and I’ll insert it into the queue at some point.)

Anyway, picked it up and started to finally turn it into a novel series. Originally, I had intended to start in media res in a different place, but realized that I could simply tweak the end as written and start the rest there. So I did. Original story was right at 10k, so I’m just counting up from there.

Had a stupendous amount of world-building done. Got sidetracked on other projects, as usual. But writer-brain insisted that I dig it up, reread and polish it, then extend it finally. I’m not one to argue.

In this case, I think it was something a little more raw and rough than the Space Adventure/Opera I have been writing. And not military, which I’ve had a lot of lately as well.

Operatic in tone, I think, but a really twisted take on family. (IYKYK) And weird places I can go in a Roger Corman/SF kind of low-budget-feeling Setting.

Saw that Roger had died over the weekend. 98, so one hell of a run. And made some stupidly fun movies in his time. Battle Beyond The Stars didn’t inspire the Cloning Blues, but I will have it in the back of my head going forward. In a good way. Sort of.

Maybe.

I’m only a few days from getting the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ finally home. Went this morning and got groceries to last me the week, and have things for her to pick from when she arrives and collapses after six weeks away. Also bought beer, for the same reason.

I’m hoping that I can say, this time next week, that the crazy shit of the last year or so is finally over. I might be lying, but all the pieces appear to be coming to closure, so I can start a whole other realm of stupid, as it were. But new stupid, as opposed to ongoing drama (none of it our fault).

Summer coming. What grand plans do you have to celebrate?

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 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.

[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.]

Still working Uly and Dan. Just over 50k of an expected 80k, so that’s good. About to start the long set-piece that the front half telegraphed, which them splits the story into two big parts (Uly and Dan separated by ten thousand light-years, sort of thing), leading into book 7. Hadn’t really expected to do 6 & 7 as a duology, but what the hell do I know? Writer-brain doesn’t always tell me things ahead of time.

Then, as I’m falling asleep last night, a whole new story slams into my head. Big. Not huge, but something entirely new. Fun. Funky, but one of my first decision points is whether I want to write it as straight SF or roll it sideways into the erotica SF. (If anybody actually read the erotica I’d put out, it might be a most obvious point, but both of you don’t count, so I intend to leave it open for a bit.)

Whole damned book one. Possibly the overarching plot to a long Book One or a trilogy, with the back end open to all manner of follow-on stories, once I get the two main characters resolved.

Not Romance™, but assuredly following many of those same plot arc elements, which is extra weird for me. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl exchange fish out of water adventure sequences. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back. HEA. Or something.

Now add a hundred thousand words of hijinks or something in the middle, and Bob’s yer uncle.

Or something like that. Writer-brain obviously wants some sort of break from the stuff I’ve been writing. And I’m ALMOST back to perhaps something approaching normal. Whatever that is.

Going down to see Fabulous Publisher Babe™ again this week. She comes home on the 17^th of May, and will be utterly exhausted. Niece is doing well, but the Babe is doing 100% caregiving, and her niece is as stubborn as she is.

Also working on what will be the third Swordmistress Zhen story, with #1 out and #2 currently available in Thrill Ride Magazine 05, Sisters In Arms. I’ll get the rights back this summer, so I’d like to be able to extend the series. Folks have responded well to Swordmistress Zhen and Archer Zhen. I had fun with them.

Should finish Corsac 6 in a couple of weeks. Then, obviously, on to something new. Not Science Officer 15 or Corsac 7, but maybe these new things. Got time to think. Busy taking notes on the new one, but no idea if it starts as a short story, or I just drop into novel mode and run with it.

I’m just looking forward to life somehow getting back to some sort of less stressful normal. If possible. I always knew 2024 was going to suck. Gotta keep grinding to get to 25 and hopefully we survive as a civilization. Because, unfortunately, that seems to be where we are, when one group has decided to burn it all to the ground if they can’t be in charge. And yes, I’m a little salty this morning. Comes of not enough sleep and being without my sweetie for several weeks.

More news when I know.

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.

[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.]

Slightly better Monday, but still kinda yuck. Ended up dropping $2,000 on the car last week fixing various ills. Thank you to everyone who bought books. Keeps me off the streets.

Headed down to Portland tomorrow for a few days. Niece is having major surgery, and I’m one of her favorite people, so I’ll be at the hospital with her while she’s in ICU and then recovering. Will have access to the interwebs, but my brain’s in kinda a bad place right now.

Mostly, got a list of things to do, and been knocking them off because forward brain progress isn’t really easy today. But I got a checklist. Working it.

Remember how I told you that I was going to end up dropping from 1,000,000 to 750,000 words this year, because things were likely to intrude? This was one of them. The big one, because I got no clue how it will all work out and how long her recovery will take. Me and the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ will be swapping off trips down to see her and help as she gets better. I’m still kinda less than optimal.

Good news, I’m really close to finishing Science Officer 14. Exile. Start of the War Of The Pirate Clans, Volume Two, as it were. Messy space battles and snipe hunts in a forest. Depending on how everything else goes, I might finish it this week. Dunno. Beyond my control.

From there, I’ll be sending out your Patreon Stories tomorrow night. And working on some short fiction. Not sure how many stories I’ll end up with for the next Boundary Shock Quarterly, so I might write a second one myself. Always a risk with variable themes and the cast of weirdoes I currently have. Today is Due Date, and I have five stories in hand, and threats of at least three more coming in no sooner than tomorrow. (Professionals ask their editor when they need an extension, and can usually get it because they asked and will deliver fast enough for my needs. It’s the ghosts that piss me off and don’t get to come in late.)

By the weekend, I’ll know. And we’ll go from there. Again, kinda grumpy today. Not your fault. Not my fault. It is what it is.

Hoping to start Corsac Fox #6 next, possibly after some short fiction to fill in future gaps and let the brain ramble around. TBD. Watch this space.

Not a lot of news past that. Been working on the Tai Chi and Kung Fu. My Sifu literally just sent out a proposed path to Black Belt, and three years of study has me currently less than a quarter of the way there. And that’s ShoDan. 1^st. Given his logic, I might expect that I could possibly reach that level somewhere around ten years of dedicated study and a background where I was a blackbelt in an unrelated art.

Of course, part of his list includes a number of fingertip pushups to demonstrate, which my shoulder can’t do, so it is entirely possible that I’ll end up having to go study somewhere else if I wanted to actually get a black belt, while learning what he knows. He knows a TREMENDOUS amount, but can’t sort it into a single school, so if I were to somehow be awarded a black belt, I would show mastery in at least five other schools. Like, five times over Shodan.

I’m not sure I have that level of patience. And today is not the day to pursue it, because I’m a little bitey right now.

More news when I know. No update next Monday. I’ll be driving home if all goes well, so maybe Tuesday. Maybe not.

Dunno.

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.

[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.]

Grumble. Spent the whole morning at the car dealership, where I managed to get out for only $1500. (Everything they want to fix would run me about $7500 at their prices. Feel free to buy more books and tell all of your friends to buy some, because it’s been an expensive Monday, and only going to get worse.) I’m not emotionally fragile as most people would recognize it. Or rather, barely containing the snarls, instead of the sobs that many people get to when it gets overwhelming.

I just gotta get to June 1 mostly intact. Mostly. Something. Not a lot of words here today, because I got too many other things to do and didn’t sleep well last night, before getting up at 5am to get down there to spend too much money.

I need a real patron. A German Prince or something who wants to sponsor me on an annual basis to just commit art. If you know any, send them my way? Imagine what the world could be like if money wasn’t the defining characteristic of things?

Grumble.

Working on Science Officer #14. About 40k now, target 60k-ish. Working on rolling hard into Act III. Better, writer-brain helpfully explained how 14 leads into both 15 and 16. I already knew what 17 covered, because that was intended to be the end of Season Two (#9 as an interim, plus 8 more novels) and I have started building up those stories. So I should be able to roll into 15 at some point easy enough. I’d like to maybe publish two of them next year, instead of just the one I’ve been doing lately, but I’ve been busy doing other things and publishing other fiction.

Not a lot past that, because my day is kinda yuck and I’m going to go sit on the couch and veg for a while instead of thinking.

Reminder that Marrakesh 4 and 5 are April and May, with Corsac Fox 3 and 4 in June and July (all four are up for preorder.)

Cheers.

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.

[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.]

So I’m back. Two weeks in Mexico City and Oaxaca. Fantastic trip, filled with adventures.

Stayed in a hotel just south of Izazaga Boulevard off Calle de Simon Bolivar, in Mexico City’s Centro district. And walked a lot. Like, 22-25,000 steps a day. (9-10 miles). Drank a lot of horchata (Mexican riced milk drink). Might be addicted to the stuff, as I have a batch in process now that I will finish this afternoon.

In Oaxaca, we stayed at an old house that had been converted to a kind of B&B. Ten rooms around a central courtyard, with a terrace up top. About two blocks from the main police station in town. About a block from the Ice Cream center of town. (Seriously, 9 stores around a market square, all doing ice cream and nothing else.) Oaxaquenos love their sweets. And the town is a major MEXICAN tourist destination. (Less so for westerners.)

Both places, lots of walking. And we started a bingo card for ways to eat. Actual restaurant. Cafeteria. Sit down stand on a sidewalk. Dude cooking meat in the park. Never once did I eat at any place “American” (lots of American fast food joints. Carl’s Jr is EVERYWHERE.) Also skipped Chinese, Sushi, etc. Kinda ruins the experience to travel 5,000 miles and not have an adventure.

In Mexico City, we also rode the subway everywhere. $5Mx (conversion about $17Mx to $1US) and something like Seattle’s Orca Card. (One Regional Card for All, except that it didn’t work in Mexico City and I feel like filing a (very extremely sarcastic) complaint with them over it.)

The thing I was not prepared for was Human size. I’m short for a white guy at 5’10, though exactly Human Male average for the species. In a lot of places, I was about 90^th percentile for height, when I was around Mexican folks.

That much I expected. What surprised me was the sheer number of folks I encountered who didn’t come up to my collar bone. Fully grown human adults, under 4’9. But, after talking with Fabulous Publisher Babe™, she assured me that the Pre-Conquest natives tended to be that size, with someone my size being an absolute giant.

Generally friendly folks. And willing to be patient with the silly Norte who only speaks a little Spanish, but was trying and trying to be polite about it. They understand tourists, and we were likely far more respectful and polite than most.

I had a lot of fun. And learned a bunch of new things that I intend to start filtering into future writing projects. The Babe hitchhiked through the Yucatan just after 9/11, riding in the back of pick-up trucks with migrant farm workers. She was doing research for The Jaguar And The Wolf. And knows a LOT of Mayan history. I just like learning, and picked up a pretty damned useful general history of the region and people.

Hoping to return next year. Yucatan next time, as they have a new train that loops the peninsula. We considered taking a bus from Oaxaca to Palenque this time, because it and Chichen Itza have two of the best sets of Mayan ruins currently available for tourists. Next year, we might fly into Cancun and take a chicken bus across, but being able to train that distance will be even better. Details later in the year as we sort things out.

Writing. Sure. Something.

I think I have mentioned that 2024 is another slowdown year. Wrote 1.4m in 2022, but consciously dropped that to 1.0m in 2023 for reasons we don’t need to go over again here. In 2024, due to outside issues, I honestly don’t expect to get much past 750,000 words. If that. Nothing currently on my chart, but I’ll be support staff for a variety of folks all having medical and other issues this year, so there will be days and maybe weeks where I don’t write.

Brighter side, I took my phone with me and got pretty good at writing on it. Added several chapters to the Ivette Salinas/Widowmaker project that I started. I also need to finish off Ollie #3, but I had to put it aside while I got ready for Mexico, and will have to almost start from scratch this week to figure out where I was going.

Again, travel that interrupts the brain. Back now, and have a list of shit that came up while I was gone and need to address. Slowly grinding it down, but the disruption will take a week or so to settle out. And I have given myself permission to not feel guilty if I don’t write.

Brighter yet news, I was laying in the hotel room in Mexico City when the overall plot and title of the next Science Office popped up. If you’ve been paying attention, Season Two is alphabetical. Alien Seas. Buried Among The Stars. Captain Navarre. Dragoon’s Honor.

Book 14 (Season Two, #5) will be Eutrupio. Heh. That asshole Valko Slavkov finally trying to get his revenge for the Land Leviathan and Nidavellir. And he brought with him a lot of friends this time. Like I said, rough notes on plot and pacing.

Not sure how quickly I will write it. Been trying to publish a new Science Officer novel every December. Might manage this year. Might “have to” publish Corsac Fox 5 instead. Dunno. All depends on how word count and sales go this year. Last thing I want is to have to go get a real job again, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility, given how poorly sales have been over the last year and a half. And not just for me, but everyone. Tell your friends about me, so they buy my books. I got a lot of stories coming. Some ambitious new space opera, filled with “gods” and epic space battles. Want to share them all with you.

Past that, catching up. Grinding down my list. Getting back to writing.

And having a lot of fun.

Reminder that the four (so far) Hunter Bureau books are on sale on the KRP shop, if you haven’t read them. Or want to sic me on some friends of yours and have them read about an alien assassin trapped in the body of the cop chasing him.

This month only. Not sure what next month is, so it is in your interest to get on my Patreon mailing list ($1/month to see this blog in real time, plus the monthly Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef newsletter) so you don’t miss things with the delay.

Question for those of you who have read Grayson. Would you like to see Book Five stay on Earth, or hit the stars? (The ending of book four sets up both options, but I haven’t circled back around to see which story I want to tell next.)

Until next week.

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.

[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.]

Going to be out of town next week, traveling low to the ground, so there won’t be a blog post. Just saying.

Have been planning the trip for a while, and excited to be traveling some, after staying home a little too long. Got some adventures planned this year, which is part of why I’m writing less, starting today. Basically, this is the only thing I’m writing today, and won’t start up again until March (need recovery time). Plus working with my niece on her issues, which is most of March and April, but shouldn’t stop me from the word mines.

Have been working my way into Ollie 3. Crossed over 50k words, but hit one of those major inflection points and had to put it to one side, because I was kinda already traveling in my head, and wasn’t going to finish it before I left. Instead, I pivoted some to the new project (Ivette Salinas) and got a few thousand words done there. Mostly the opening, as I start winding shit up kinda silly.

Epicly huge stuff, and I need to spend some time this week working out mythologies and histories of two other cultures. Functionally, two generations of gods, if you will, like you might get from Uranus to Cronus to Zeus. And about that scale of crazy. Maybe bigger.

Fabulous Publisher Babe™ joined me for breakfast to help with a lot of leading questions, so I could work things out.

I normally write about people. That’s why I don’t write much in the true scale of Epic Fantasy, because those are stories about kings and emperors and gods. Even Jessica was merely a warlord/demigod by comparison.

Stories about people let me keep things tighter in focus. Here, though, I need to remember to push the boundaries. I have Ivette and her (sororal) twin sister Kemena. At the same time, I need to make sure that I have gods floating around.

Been researching Cthulhu and HP Lovecraft. His gods were really just extremely powerful aliens. And there was no Good and Evil involved. (Derleth did that later by introducing “Good Gods” to protect us from “Evil Gods” but Lovecraft would have punched him in the mouth had he still been alive, I suspect.) Cosmicism, is the opposite of meaning. They aren’t evil. They just don’t care. And can’t understand us because we come across to them as insects. A bug to be squished because it is annoying them.

So, I’ve been thinking about gods. And rereading some Daniel Keys Moran, because he likes to get REALLY BIG (start with Emerald Eyes, then The Long Run, and The Last Dancer. Most recently, he’s back after a long hiatus, and telling some of the future stories of The Continuing Time).

Not doing time travel here. And limiting my gods somewhat, at least in the planning stages, to keep them from overwhelming things. Mostly, a clash of cultures. So I need to work out cultures.

And think about what a civilization might be like once you have mastered genetic engineering. I think it was Dan who made the observation that a congress of gorillas, assembled to design the perfect gorilla, wouldn’t have come up with humans.

But what would you introduce? We’re a visual species, so better eyes would be useful (deeper into IR and higher into UV, but not that far. Better range, etc.). An immune system that worked better and was less likely to be hijacked. Aging is more and more being seen as a disease that can be treated and presumably defeated, so living FAR longer lifespans. (At the same time, if you achieve true immortality, I think your culture plateaus and eventually collapses in on itself).

Faster, stronger, smarter. Etc.

Eventually, you create a new species. That’s when the trouble starts. Dan addresses it quite well in Emerald Eyes. Star Trek: TOS did it with Khan.

At what point does a new species become either competition, threat, or see itself as your natural rulers and decide to subjugate the “lessers?” (Dan calls them the Leftbehind for a reason.)

Humans being Humans, I would presume that any significant advances generate a war. Haves versus Have-Nots. If you can do it slowly, and widely, you could advance an entire species enough to not create those pressures.

How many of you think that’s likely to happen?

And, being SF, I get to ask “What if…?” on these topics, then figure out how they would shape things in the future. And what the implications are. Especially if you have technology so advanced that it is indistinguishable from magic. At least to us primitive screw heads on Earth.

Quick poll, mostly to see if any of you are actually awake and reading this: What single modification to basestock Human would you prioritize first, if you were making a “perfect being?”

I’ll catch up with you in a few weeks and see your thoughts.

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.