[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.]

Final Monday of the “Going to Grandma’s Sale” over on KRP. You know the trip will be long and dull, whether driving or flying. You’re gonna need books. (And you should lean on a couple of my first readers who are deep into some old stuff that’s never been published, so that you have Christmas books to read. Hint hint.)

Monday. Colder than that.

Because I live just past the first ridgeline of the Cascades, I get weird weather. Going north, I can paint a line in the pavement where it will be snowing on one side and dry on the other. Going south, there are seven distinct climate zones to get to Enumclaw (up on the plateau, as they call it).

Crossed five of them this morning. Wowsers.

38F when I left the house, and mostly calm. Zone 5 going south cuts across from Veazie to Krain (E/W) and was 24F when I got there. Black ice, and I have to go over a hill and a curve. It was an adventure.

Wind came up after that, but it’s coming off the mountains this morning, so likely clear and cold as fuck today and for several. Gonna stay indoors. Friday, we went for a walk at 0630 and 27F. Yuck. Did it Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon with silks on. Much better. Still too damned cold. I need a mall somewhere close.

Writing: Corsac Fox is over 55k. Likely finish it next week. Already planning what to write after that and got several ideas. Always have ideas. Never have enough bandwidth to just write them all, because I’d have to at least double my writing pace and that’s bloody unlikely, unless I get struck by the magic sales fairy soon. (You out there?)

Also, I’ll put this here because I put it up on Facebook.

I’m planning a spinoff series from Marrakesh (Coming Jan-May) that takes one of the side characters off into their own series. I foolishly asked the universe if anyone wanted to be Tuckerized into the new series. The ship is based on the USCG Legend Class. Crew 14 officers and 82 enlisted. Plus associated stuff at base, off base, pirates, prospectors, and whoever else.

I got 35 responses. So far.

Well, shit.

Okay, so I created a Tuckerization Release form. With that many, I need to actually make it a little more formal, so I mailed those out.

If you want to be Tuckerized into the A’Zedi Survey Corps books, email me and I’ll send you one as well. Won’t start that series until January or later, so there’s time. Got a lot of stuff planned for it, so it will run a while, assuming I enjoy writing them.

Not much past that. Thinking thinky thoughts. Trying to stay above water. Having time with friends. Getting ready for the holidays.

Hope you’re having fun.

And remember, Going to Grandma’s Sale

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.]

Second Monday of the “Going to Grandma’s Sale” over on KRP. You know the trip will be long and dull, whether driving or flying. You’re gonna need books. (And you should lean on a couple of my first readers who are deep into some old stuff that’s never been published, so that you have Christmas books to read. Hint hint.)

Monday. Colder than previous. Had to melt the windows to go out this morning, but not quite scrape them. 0C/32F. Rained so frost. Monday.

Also, getting down to the end of the year. Had our Annual Corporate Meeting last week and looked at what we’d done in 2023 and what we aim for in 2024.

Planning the following:

• Jan-May: Marrakesh 1-5
• Jun-Jul: Corsac Fox 3-4
• Aug-Nov: Air Pirates of Cyrenaica
• Dec: Science Officer

Additionally, one Kickstarter for Air Pirates, probably in March for April delivery. All four books with special editions. TBD

Mistaken Identity and The Coven are both out and getting good ratings. Thank you.

Also, I’ve been having fun with all that research on early jet aviation (Soviet, British, and US) and decided to work yesterday instead of taking the weekend off. Sifu is out of town, so no Saturday classes this last weekend or holiday. Instead, we’re both going to do some marathon writing. Got words done Saturday. And Sunday. And will continue through the end of the month.

At the moment, I have 32k done on Corsac Fox 5 (out of about 75k). And the opening 3k of the new historic action thriller book one. Red Branch is the working series title for now, while I work it out. Kinda planning to write both novels simultaneously, just because they are so different and I’m having fun with both. Thus, the marathon.

If I know any technical aviation experts of the period 1947-1954 who want to be first readers, lemme know. I’m pretty sure I have those details close enough, and I built in wiggle room for the rest. Still, want to be close enough to right.

From there, writing this week. Turkey is in the fridge defrosting. Leg of lamb is going on the grill shortly to roast today. Need to make italian sausage tonight to go into the stuffing Thursday. She homemade a cranberry orange dressing using her grandma’s recipe. I bought a can. Got crescents and cinnamon rolls.

Gonna be a lovely holiday around here. Hope yours is calm and wonderful, unlike mine when I was a kid.

And remember, Going to Grandma’s Sale

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.]

Ya know what? Still bouncy. Which is way better than morose. Got a new project I’m deep diving research on. Anybody know any experts on jet aircraft from the era 1945-1950? Figured I’d ask. Also equipment and style, but I am doing pretty good there.

It will turn into a new series at some point. Historic Action Thriller with jets, secret agents, Nazis, and trouble. I’m cackling as I research.

More news later.

It is also the first Monday of the “Going to Grandma’s Sale” over on KRP.

We try to do this every year. A sale starting a week and a half out from American Thanksgiving and running through Cyber Monday. The logic is that a lot of folks will take off next week entirely and get a nine-day vacation. Long drives or time spent in airports, you need books.

I mean, you always need books, but especially now. Plus, lots of us aren’t sportsball fans, and would rather sit quietly and read than sportsball. (Me, I’d write.)

Anyway. Twelve box sets for folks to get cheap for the next two weeks. Similarly, we’re looking at doing some sort of big Christmas sale but I don’t have the details yet. It won’t start until Dec 1 anyway, so we’ve got time. And you can always buy a boxed set for a friend as an early Christmas present, then forward them the download code to break up their turkey travels.

On the writing front, I finished another Reilly story (#6) last week. The Scattered Tribes Chronicle is sitting at about 80,000 words right now, and feels like maybe 1/3 to 2/5 done. LOTS of story yet to go, and lots of novels to follow it, so you won’t be bored, I hope.

Mistaken Identity and The Coven are both out and getting good ratings. Except for that one guy who would have given Mistaken Identity five stars but he didn’t like me telling him what his politics should be. That Uly suggesting that Capitalism™ wasn’t the highest possible form of civilization was a sin. Especially when Uly preferred Socialism. (Buddy, you’ve never lived under capitalism, although the modern Robber Baron TechBros would REALLY like to get back to that era.) Mostly, the Khet are using a form of 1950s US Industrialism, but I doubt that most folks have read wide enough and deep enough to appreciate the subtleties there.

And seriously, have you read ANY of my books, pal? I’m not saying I’m a Red, but I’m also not denying a deep, abiding fuchsia, either. I think he prefers the wild west of interstellar rape and piracy of Lacium, which really tells the rest of us WAY more about him that he probably is comfortable explaining. Or maybe he’ll tell everyone over Thanksgiving dinner, because he’s THAT UNCLE.

(I’m the weird Uncle who bought my nieces non-standard toys. The oldest girl loved her firetruck when she was two, by the way, and she turned out to be an amazing lady and badass Nurse these days. So there.)

After that, I spun back to Corsac Fox #5. Esko, you’re gonna love this one. We’re going deep into your ideas.

BACKGROUND: The two Kickstarters offered up “Be a character” or “Be a Major Character” and two of my friends went all in. One appears in both 3 and 4 as one of the Lords of the Endless Plains (you now know who they are), while the other will be a major player starting in 5, and he wanted to contribute an entire new species to what Uly and the gang are up to.

I’m about 10k in at the moment. While I’d love to give you more details, there are two major novels in the way, so you’ll just have to trust me that I’m cackling about where we’re going. And what we’re finding.

And how much I enjoyed taking The Iliad and The Odyssey with me to the Soviet Union in 1991. (I was in Moscow the day Yeltsin was originally elected President. We took off for Leningrad and landed in Petrograd when they voted to undo the name change.)

The Odyssey is a flavor of book four and five. You’ve got about six months to digest both books (I recommend the Fagles translation of the Iliad and the Fitzgerald Odyssey, by the way. Those were the ones I carried.)

Past that, cackling, bouncing, and writing. Probably in that order. Having WAY too much fun for my own good, but that just means I’m on projects I really enjoy and plan to get big and crazy with.

Y’all are hopefully along for the ride at this point. If not, I might have to take hostages. Heh.

Have a lovely Monday, even though it won’t be as good as mine.

Going to Grandma’s Sale

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.]

Okay, slightly bouncy. Rainy season is upon us.

WHAT? I moved to Seattle for the rain. Gonna be a slightly wetter and warmer winter, if El Nino is correct. That’s the kind of gray days I like.

Finished Heather #2 last week. And a short story about Wardog Charlie that you’ll see in a future issue of Boundary Shock Quarterly. I’m about a year ahead on those on purpose. And trying to push more out.

Last couple of days have been more Reilly. #15 of the Scattered Tribes. Just looked and I’m at about 75k words on that one. And MAYBE halfway for book one. Gonna be HUGE. Having fun.

Out of nowhere, the ancient roleplaying game Villains and Vigilantes came up on my radar over the weekend. Used to play with several groups in the late 80s, then early 90s. Not sure I’ve played in 30 years, looking back, but that’s me moving from LA to Wichita briefly to Seattle.

A 3^rd Edition came out in 2017, after Jack and Jeff got the rights back following a major lawsuit in 2010-13. Ordered a paperback edition that will be here in a week. Then dug out my old rules from 1982 and my notebook of characters from those days.

On the one hand, looking for some players in the South Seattle area to get a game going, because my main group INSISTS on fantasy. (Yawn.) On the other, I reread some of Gunderson and realized that I have four more stories totally 46k, so Volume Two at some point soonish. And some superhero stories in a slightly spun-off world that starts in 1920 and will culminate in something huge, ugly, and a lot of fun around 2000CE. Need to write more stories in the middle. More craziness. More fun.

That’s where V&V comes in. I have the Modern Gods world, but it’s off on its own and won’t intersect this one except for some weird multiverse/Amalgam crossover at some point. And I have a lot of names and themes for heroes and villains, but never really built out anybody except Eclipse and Bellerophon. Obviously, Captain Sapphire needs some, as well as a bunch of other folks. Better, I have 80 years into which to set prep stories, knowing that Gunderson will anchor a set of them in 1955. Because Gunderson.

So there will be some more spandex at some point. Just gotta, and need to do various things as palate cleansers and mind refreshers. Heather is Dark. Holden is sarcastic and mean. Reilly is young. Uly and Dan have a ‘Greater Mission.’ Etc. I need to play from time to time, and superhero generally falls under a subheading of Contemporary Fantasy, regardless of the style.

Past that, I have a spin-off from Marrakesh to write at some point. Only a few folks have read #5/Crossroads to understand what’s up with Maddox Nevin. The rest of you have never met the man. It will be fun. It will be an adventure.

Sixth Marrakesh at some point. First Survey Corps. Fifth Corsac Fox. Etc.

The fun never ends, and I’m going to throw in some more four-color heroes with lantern jaws, strong rights, and a good catchphrase.

Hope your Monday is even remotely as fun as mine is.

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.]

I think I have mentioned that I messed up my right shoulder. Went to a professional sports therapy masseuse that the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ sees weekly and she took a look. Good news, I didn’t tear anything. According to Suzy, knots on top of knots, from elbow to lats.

She worked on me for an hour. I’ll go back in two weeks and have her do it again, after everything has a chance to loosen up and start getting back to normal.

Took a while to get here. Will take time to heal. But I know that. And am no longer too stubborn for my own good on some things. (you there, stop laughing.)

Mostly took last week and spent some time recovering emotionally from the summer. Some of you know the details. I thought I’d be in better shape by Oct 1, but we’re likely to be most of the autumn, and I just have to be okay with that.

Still got a lot of good things going on. Went for BBQ Friday night with the Babe and the Piper. The folks we met had won the ribs portion of the recent “BBQ, Beer, and Brats” event in Enumclaw. Those ribs were amazing. The brisket was damned good. The Pulled Pork pretty good.

Might go see them again this Friday, as they’ll be back at Headworks Brewing and Pursuit Distillery (same parking lot).

After meat, we pub-crawled. Drank more than I usually do (which is generally one), but we hit three bars. It was good.

Took the weekend off. Recovered. Let the brain kind of ferment and settle.

On the writing front, the second Heather Lau novel crossed 40k this morning. Target is about 70k, give or take, on the way to four or maybe five novels.

Working with someone to be deeply tuckerized as a cat-people species in the next Corsac Fox book. I plan to start #5 in about a month, with various short stuff I need to complete first. Plus setting up the website to start selling my music directly, where I actually earn more than three cents per sale, which is about what I get. (and ONE SALE is better than three months of streaming. If you have music you like to stream, do the artist a favor and buy it so they can maybe make enough money to continue.)

Had another conversation last week with someone who suggested that I should do an “As Read By The Author, with all the profanities included” version of some of my short stuff. Not professional sound engineering. Me, in a quiet room, reading it in one take and then selling those on the website as well.

That someone you folks might be interested in hearing? Some will be things that have never been available for sale, but I plan to start out with The Mirror and The Desert Ring, just to see how hard the process might be. Not like I don’t have the hardware and software to do this.

Also need to record my vocals for Skye. Been lazy, but English Paul needs those in order to do his production work. Also working on cover art for it.

Little things. That’s kind of all I managed this weekend. A bunch of little things, all moved one space to the left. Eventually, they’ll add up, but you don’t always see that at the time.

Still, I’m making progress. What are you folks doing to keep a smile on your face?

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.]

Got up this morning and took Fabulous Publisher Babe™ into town for breakfast. And errands first thing. Raining and still recovering from whatever I did to injure my shoulder. It only hurts when I try to lift something heavy with an outward motion, like a bird flapping. And only some of the time.

I’ll get a spot about 2cm on a side, where someone is driving a 30-penny nail into the joint. Someone suggested that my shoulder is slightly out of joint, and suggested some changes.

Step one was to buy an external monitor for my laptop, and put it on a shelf so that instead of looking down at the table when I type (like the last 15 years) I am leaned slightly back and looking straight across.

Upper back and shoulder blades hurt today, so probably a good idea. Nothing like teaching yourself an entirely new way to stand.

Past that, I took the entire weekend kinda off. As in, didn’t turn on my computer except to configure the monitor. No social media. No nothing, except what I could handle via my phone.

Kung Fu for several hours Saturday morning. Then a shower and up north to watch Bubba Ho-tep with a group of friends that do a monthly movie and themed meal event.

Long day out. Then as we’re close to home, a good friend calls and is having a really bad day, so I dropped the Babe off and kept driving south to meet him for an unplanned dinner in Enumclaw.

Except that I didn’t realize that “Witch’s Night Out” was going on, so 16-50 year old witches everywhere. All the restaurants and bars were basically packed, which is a good thing for the town but lousy when I need some quiet to get him back on an even keel.

Eventually, we ate and drank, then walked around the various stalls selling crap, before I headed home. Slept on the couch, because utterly wound up, ate crap, and exhausted, so I needed to be upright. Painful way to sleep, but it let my wife actually sleep, and I knew ahead of time that Sunday would suck.

Brainless. But able to take some more of Pastor Mike’s books to a friend of his and invite the guy to maybe play with my group sometime if he’s interested. Mike had tried to get me with that group, but my Sunday afternoons tend to be the only recovery time I have, so I couldn’t add ONE MORE THING and stay sane.

Then I went by and got more stuff from his youngest daughter to sort out for recycling. And give her money from the most recent batch. My job is helping that household unpack from all the crap they had accumulated. (Mike was a pack rat in many ways. Gonna take a lot of trips, but needs doing and I’m about the only person in a position to do it right now. More emotional work, but I’ll survive.)

On the writing side, the second Heather Lau book is underway. #1 was “Warlord of Yaumgan.” #2 is tentatively called “Ground Control” for now. Already setting up 3 and 4. Probably run about 6 by the time it’s done.

At that point (Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise), I think I am done with the Republic of Aquitaine books as you would understand them. One of the main characters in Heather is the granddaughter of Tomas Provt. Veronika. I’m kinda interested in who she will be when she’s forty (23-25 now) and what Casey and Vo’s kids will be line grown up.

Got notes. And all the things Denis Jež has warned everybody about for a long time. (Hint: Auberon opens June 26, 392 and Heather #2 opens January 11, 417. Lot of time has passed.)

And, one of these days, I still want to write about Suvi and John Pierre Orfèvre, which will take place some 1500 years after Jessica dies.

Not like I’m going to run out of story. Plus, with the exception of Jessica (her story is complete), I’ll listen if enough people demand more stories about other characters, beyond what you’ve got coming.

And Monday. Got several other novels to write yet this year. Corsac Fox 5. Science Officer 14. Some thriller stuff for next summer. The usual.

What are you up to this week?

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.]

It’s a Monday. Hardly slept last night, but dealing with some physical issues that had ground me down. Took stock and realized that basically starting Memorial Day, so four months of hell. Gonna take some time to recover. Brain’s back. Body to follow.

Just really having a hard time winding it up this morning. On the brighter side, I finished Marrakesh #5 last week. Fabulous Publisher Babe™ has done five covers now and will be putting things up for pre-order in the near future.

Last Stand does not END at twelve, but Season One does. I have other stories I want to tell at some point, but as with The Science Officer, I needed to take a long emotional break first. And have a bunch of other stories I want to tell at some point. (Plus a list of open series you’ve never read because I want to write them all before putting them out.)

After Marrakesh, I wrote another Reilly episode of Scattered Tribes, and just finished another Holden episode this morning. (5 and 7 respectively, so 13 done at present.)

Taking a break to write this because I am not sure what comes next. Got lots, but maybe need more coffee after this.

Musically, I got the first backing tracks from English Paul for the next song. I’ve wanted to do a version of the Skye Boat song for a while.

Some background: In junior high, some forty years ago, I did the Skye Boat song as a vocal performance. Last year, about this time, the whole thing surfaced in my mind one morning.

For those of you who don’t know, my internal monologue usually has a soundtrack playing. Literally, some song going in the background while I work, think, do. That Monday, that was what was playing.

I did a lot of research and found all the versions folks have done, from the Baron who wrote the original poem in the 19^th Century, to Robert Louis Stevenson’s version. Much more recently, Outlander used a different version as their theme music.

At the time, Paul was packing furiously to move to Los Angeles when his missus got a great new job, so we worked on Time To Say Goodbye with the time we had, laying down my vocal tracks, then waiting while he moved, rebuilt his studio, then got his life more or less together.

I work in Musescore when composing. Write the lyrics, plink away at an electronic keyboard until I have the melody, then write it down on the computer. In this case, once I was generally happy, I recorded a set of demo vocals and sent everything to him, along with a list of instruments I wanted on the track.

He’s been at that off and on for a few months, but has stuff for me to work with. My job this week is to go through the music section by section and offer modifications. Then rerecord my vocals twelve or fifteen times so he has tapes to work from to mix and produce a final cut.

At the same time, I’m slowly teaching myself how to use Garageband for the mac to create a full demo myself, mostly to better understand instruments. The only musical instrument I ever really learned was the human voice, which doesn’t do chords. And my time with the bass guitar never really went that far.

Starting kinda cold, and I have to do everything, so progress is slow. On the other hand, I came across “That Old Flame” by Don Henley off the Cass County album and really liked the way the backbeat drives, so I’d working on doing something with some rock and roll. (Paul does not do rock and roll, regardless of what he might tell you.)

Past that, I’m creating maps and history for the fantasy rpg, after losing so much brain space over the summer. And watching the leaves in front of me turn yellow and brown as October progresses.

It brings me a certain peace. That and the other trees. I need some mental down time. I’ve been upholding everyone else for several months that I’m running on fumes a lot of the time. All in the name of a good cause. And good fiction.

Draining nonetheless.

Hopefully, everyone else is holding things together nicely and we can all progress along on our monday.

shade and sweet water,

blaze

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

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

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

[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.]

OCTOBER!

Newsletter went out this morning because I’m being a little lazy. Story will go out tomorrow, because I got a D&D game tonight and don’t feel like cramming it all in this afternoon.

I’m hoping that summer is officially over. From basically Memorial Day on I have been going like hell constantly. Grinding in a bad way. Plus a dry cough only slowly fading from that damned head cold. Been running on about 8 spoons per day, instead of my usual 10.

Yuck.

However…

Brain kinda woke up on the table-top rpg I’ve been working on, with a whole slew of new ideas, clarifications, etc. Feel like I’m getting close in my head to being able to explain it to someone and maybe start some rough engine testing to make sure it all works. I mean, the concepts are based on things I’ve done. Games I’ve played. Shit should work, but I have to get it all out of my head and onto paper then get someone else to read it.

Engine is solid. Context is Fantasy. Setting is a place I’m calling The Five Duchies. Working out a lot of history of an area. Maps. Monsters. Peoples.

I will go on record as saying I dislike level based games with a fire bordering on loathing. I understand and appreciate that they make it easy for new players to learn and understand, but they limit the ability to really create interesting concepts. There are only about 6-8 paths for each of ten or so classes, so you can actually build every possible combination. It’s like chess that way. Or go. I prefer wider-open table top games, like Warhammer 40k or Flames of War. You have a million times more possible combinations, because its about points.

This game will be about points. Spend them as you see fit to build the character you want to play. If you ever played the Hero/Champion system in the wayback, not that messy, but still open to your creativity.

So getting there.

On the writing side, I’ve gotten really close to finishing the fifth Marrakesh novel. Right at 37,000 this morning. Probably 42-45,000 when done. Maybe a bit more, depending, but done this week easily.

Reread the 11 Scattered Tribes stories I have written so far, and am getting ready to push forward with some more. I’ve got around 55k words here, and Book One feels like it should be around 150k, if I want to be in the realm of Epic [SPACE] Fantasy. Because swords, sorcery, and starships. Why the hell not?

And it gives me a lot of space to wander with, and new ways to tell story. Hopefully, you’ve been enjoying what you’ve seen so far. If you have questions, please ask, because you are the only people who have seen any of this to date.

After I write several more stories of Holden and Reilly, I’ll circle back maybe to some Beckett. Maybe Corsac Fox #5. Heather #2 also, but that will require a bit of planning, because again, huge, and I have to center it all in my head before picking that thread up.

Autumn is upon us. (I’d say the fall, but then I have to specify that I’m not talking about the end of human civilization as we know it. At least as yet.) Weather had turned cool drizzly this morning.

Fabulous Publisher Babe™ made a fantastic brisket yesterday. Just sliced it up a few minutes ago. She has a pork roast going today. Her diet has transitioned to 99% meat, so we’re using the new pellet grill to make big things, then munching on them for days at a time. I have more flexibility, so I keep frozen chimichangas, salad, and ramen handy to go beyond just MEAT! as a lifestyle.

Pushed publish yesterday on Boundary Shock Quarterly #24 (Science Fiction Holidays) and Blaze Ward Presents #7 (Every Tomorrow Worse?). I’ll update both websites as soon as the distributors get back to me with confirmations. Links next week.

Past that, more reading for BSQ 025 (Gulliver’s Other Travels) and more writing. More musical work. More rpg work. More Kung Fu. Keeps the body and mind sharp, and that’s really want I ask for as I get older.

Hope your Monday isn’t gnawing too badly on your leg.

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.]

So the head cold has mostly gone away, but I’m still hacking crap up out of my lungs a week later. Not bad, but just generally ick. The last two weeks haven’t helped.

Best friend’s divorce was finalized on Friday. He discovered he was getting divorced in early August.

Then Saturday, we held the service for Pastor Mike, another of my dear friends. When you meet Brother Cormac in a couple of months, you’ll meet Pastor Mike, because I wrote every word he said as though it came from Mike’s mouth. And Mike really was like that. Sorry for those of you who never got a chance to meet him.

Service went well. Two of his daughters were there, with the oldest and his son not. (Not that anyone was surprised.) Saw a couple of folks that I haven’t in years. Parts of various old and no longer functioning gaming groups, because those things evolve over time. Personalities clash. Priorities change. Life happens.

Afterwards, the current gaming group moved to a nearby restaurant and had our own semi-private wake. The old farts. Mike’s gaming group.

Both of his daughters went out of their ways to let me know how much I and the others had meant in his life. And my wife points out that we kept him mentally sharp, at a time when his health was in decline and it might have been easier to slide with it.

He was an amazing man, and I’ll miss him. September officially sucks.

August was supposed to be the low point. Fabulous Publisher Babe™ points out that Piper and I will both probably have our low points this last weekend, and aim for bouncing more or less back by October 1. Worthy goal. We’ll see when I get there.

About 35k on Gator’s story. Major firefight at the end going on. Full automatic and lots of explosions, so it’s going to be a bloody mess when I finish it. Lots of corpses, which is unlike what I normally write, but more appropriate for thriller, which this is. Will finish it this week and move on.

Next up is the fifth Marrakesh novel. Having fun with this one.

For the Cole Braddock “Commander Machesky” stories, I sat down with TOS and mined it for story ideas. For Marrakesh, I started off with Star Fleet Battles (the old table top tactical simulator) and then dug pretty deep into TNG. One thing that struck me was how much Star Trek is Space Fantasy, with magic, gods, time travel, and whatever other silliness comes up.

I try to write a more sober and less-fantasy space adventure. Marrakesh has no aliens, no gods, and no time travel. No Q-level beings wandering around like Gandalf handing out quests. No ancient evil prophesied to be defeated by whoever.

Just exploration and adventure.

But I sat down with the episode list of TNG’s middle seasons (once they had found their footing) and started looking for ideas that would be fun. Found several, but only writing one immediately. Maybe I’ll write several more as I go. Actually, I’m planning that, but everything slots into a writing schedule somewhere. More Corsac Fox. More Chace Haig. More Gator. More Beckett Fernsby.

Busy time. Good busy. Not depressed so much as mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted by it all and ready to move forward. 11 hours of sleep two nights in a row have helped. Fall slowly arriving around here (rained like hell last night) also improves things.

And I started fulfillment of the Kickstarter campaign for Corsac Fox #2: Mistaken Identity. Look in your bookfunnel library if you backed it. Postcards and paper going out soon, too.

Not much past that. Writing. Planning. Publishing. Will finish off Season One of Last Stand in December, along with Science Officer #13. Marrakesh will fill the first chunk of 2024, then more Corsac, then Air Pirates of Cyrenaica.

Hope your Monday is good. Mine is moving along nice enough.

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.]

Ugh. Had a headcold last week (presumably con crud, but only in the head). Sneezing Wednesday. Coughing it up Thursday. Basically just weak and listless on Friday. Then I gave it to Fabulous Publisher Babe™. She’s almost over it, but a couple days behind me.

Sitting to write the last few days. Not caught up, but kept up and chipped away a bit as I went. The Light Thriller is about 20k done. Got inspired by reading the first Gray Man novel. Not by the Gray Man himself, who is an unkillable ubermenshen death machine that makes Batman look like an emo teen by comparison.

Instead, at Bouchercon, Matt and I talked about the first group of profession ex-special-forces killers that the Gray Man annihilates. They were the guys in the transport aircraft.

Apparently, Exfiltration is one of the best kept secrets in SOCOM. And anywhere else.

But I got to thinking. Everybody is writing about that superguy assassin, who gets in and gets out. I wanted to create the team that you hire to get in there and rescue/evacuate the hero from the situation, when he’s being chased by a convoy of angry arabs with machine guns, or whoever your villains are this week.

Got a team built. Got a novel going. No idea what I’ll call either, but the main guy is called Gator, because he runs mostly submerged. And he was born Cajun, but raised in Los Angeles. Exotic cars. Lots of guns. An all-female sniper team. Gomez Addams emotional descendant.

I’ve tried to make this one rich with personalities. And fun. Much more violent than some of the things I write, but the genre measures blood by the bucket, and I have to appeal to those folks.

So gun porn. And aircraft porn. Both things I can do well, with a little research.

In the background, I’m also working on building a caper team. Somewhere between Parker and Dortmunder, two of my favorite characters, but it is utterly amazing how dated the books are.

We don’t take into account what cell phones, laptops, and the internet have done to fundamentally alter the shape of our civilization. In one of the Parker books, he robs a movie theater late on a Sunday night, when they will have the whole weekend’s box office in the safe.

Cash.

When was the last time you paid cash for a movie ticket? Or at a grocery store? Or most other places?

And everybody carried a camera and video camera with them at all times these days, too. You’ll notice how few UFO sightings there have been recently.

So, the world has changed. I wrote something in 1991 that included being able to simply travel to London and vanish, because calling England from the States in those days was a complete pain in the ass.

These days, you need their number and the right calling plan.

So Caper has to look different. Think different. And I don’t want to write the low-hanging fruit crap that I keep finding when doing research. And not the “Good Guys” like Leverage (my wife’s favorite tv show), where they are getting even with somebody and righting wrongs.

Nope, stealing shit. And generally getting away with it.

In my mind, kinda the perfect inverse of a private detective novel, where someone hires the detective to see justice done.

Here, you hire a guy to see crime done. And that might be the tag line, thinking about it.

Finally, planning on the fifth Marrakesh novel. Space Adventure. Mission of the Week like ST:TOS or TNG. Character development arcs, but not long story arcs.

Currently, thinking thoughts about Exoarchaeology. Archaeology in space, but not xeno- because no aliens. Instead, several generations of human civilizations that have come and gone, leaving traces on various worlds for our heroes to uncover as they search.

What I’m hoping to do is create some Space Cryptids for color. Think Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. But in a space setting where A’Zedi spans dozens of worlds and is currently at war with Wronlori. With a few others kinda involved on the sides.

Got any fun ideas for how you might do Space Vampires? Or intergalactic Plasma Space Dragons? No idea too silly, but many of the suggestions so far have been tame. (Yes, I am aware of the New Jersey Devil. Dream bigger.)

Let me know.

And have a lovely week. I’m dealing with some things at this end, but I’m dealing.

You make sure to take care of yourself.

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.