[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. Coffee warming in the microwave. Need caffeine. Idiot woodpecker wanted to share the word about his dread lord Woody at 545 this morning. Joys of living in the brush.

Brighter side, just had a tiny bunny hop past my window a minute ago. Haven’t had buns around here in a while (coyotes and hawks).

Summer has begun. This weekend, accompanying the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ to one of her in-person sales events in Kent (Nerd Fest) to help her sell books and generally hang out. I’m getting better about peopling, but lemme tell you, I’ve gotten a little feral these days.

Hard time for creative artists. Average people have fallen in love with how easy AI makes it to create art and books, without ever asking where those machines learned. The folks responsible stole everything and didn’t pay a cent for the copyright infringement. Imagine me walking into your house and emptying the refrigerator, then leaving. That’s that AI is to writers and artists.

Known several folks who have seen their sales tank bad enough that they’ve had to go back to work. I live in fear of it, but that doesn’t pay the bills. If you use AI, understand that I consider you among the lowest forms of thief. You should stop. Or walk away from being around me. Either or. I’ve walked away from folks who were excited to tell me how they used AI to “write” their book and publish it. Last person, I’ve stayed in touch with since 1987. Won’t be talking to him again. Possibly ever.

I write. That involved thinking words up and putting them down, then selling them to people. How much effort did you put in?

Yeah, grumpy.

Past the quarter mark on Corsac Fox 8. Writing this one kinda into darkness, by setting up a scenario, populating it with some interesting characters and ideas, then letting them take me places instead of having a plot. All I know at this point is length. And got lots of story to fill to get there,

Also started the fifth Mick story. You’re getting #1 tonight, some of you. The Warrior In The Garden. Been slowly worldbuilding this out as I go, and have some interestingly dark places to take Mick, because Corsac Fox tends to be lighter and I just finished the Urban Fantasy about a thief and his Marxist Awakened Goat sidekick. Not exactly sober and serious literature, as you can guess.

Not a lot of news past that. Summer has started and that’s a mental and emotional transition for most US-ians. Since I don’t have kids in school or dayjob, it tends to blur, save that I’m mowing a lot right now until the dry season arrives in a month.

Y’all have fun and remember to read Thrill Ride Magazine (Assassins and Vigilantes just dropped) and Boundary Shock Quarterly (Space Westerns coming July 1). Keeps me off the streets, ya know.

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.]

More Karate news, just ‘cause. Planted a makawara over the weekend. “Planted.”

Five gallon bucket. Upright 2×6. 60# bag of instant concrete. Assemble and add water. Let cure for a week.

Plant.

Training the fists involves punching things. Set in the ground, even a 100# anchor will give, and it is padded, so you practice without injury. Still raining and settling, so I won’t strike it for a few days, but it is there. Part of the black belt test, along with Hojo Undo (training with certain equipment. Hammers to swing. Jars to carry. Maces to crunch. Etc.)

But this is a lifetime sort of thing.

Writing: Finished the first Emmett McCall book. Urban Fantasy about a cat burglar and his partner, who happens to be a Marxist Goat. Yes, you heard me. First of a starting trilogy, right at 40k. Lots of fun and twists from what I usually write, but that was where writer-brain wanted to go.

After that, I sat down with Corsac Fox 6 & 7 and reread both. Then started 8, tentatively titled Sailing Into Darkness. What I promised at the end of 7, so making up new cultures and species as we explore Imperial Sector Thirty-Two, coreward from both 14 and 21.

Just started, so 7k in, but having fun. Got four Mick stories so far and sat down last night to actually start exploring where to take the longer arc. Gonna go dark, but that’s not a surprise.

I tend to bounce between emotional and genre extremes, as you have noted if you pay attention to these. Big, chewy space opera to little stories. Light to dark and back. Huge casts and small things.

Keeps me from writing the same story over and over again, which can happen to some writers if they aren’t forever stretching their minds. The ruts become channels of least resistance.

Ick.

Things like Marxist Goats. Or Zhyrgal Sulaymanov, all grown up now and doing things with Uly and Dan. Or Mick, dealing with his own skeletons while trying to uncover Andi’s. And why they both have ghosts. Got some ideas. Gonna be fun. Gonna be rude. Gonna be me.

Not a lot past that. Transition emotionally from Spring to Summer, but not a lot changes around here. Had a couple of strangers show up to the Writers Lunch.

Pardon. Couple of dork Robins running around below my window. Young adult male and possibly juvenile female following him around. Big brother little sister. Got lots of robins and I turned over an ant nest the other day to make a salad bar for them. HAPPY robins.

Back to story. And stuff.

Hope you survived the holiday mostly intact and not too badly hung over. Heavy drizzle here, so staying inside with coffee.

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.]

Following on from last week, Mick has a lot of opinions. Have four of these done in a week. Longer than a chapter, shorter than a story, I’m calling them serialized vignettes for now. And making up the world-building on the fly, even as I maintain the Urban Fantasy story I’m about halfway through. Weird emotional mix, but apparently what writer-brain needed after finishing Kincaide. Little over ten thousand words across four of them.

And dojo last night was an interesting and novel experience.

I broke a rock.

In karate, some folks break boards to show off hands that should be registered as deadly weapons. Whatever. Sensei knows the technique for breaking rocks. In his case, either with the knife edge of the palm (outer edge by the pinkie) or the fist. He did both last night.

And he has had three of us training our hands by striking door frames and other things that don’t move. After a month, he sat us down with rocks and explained the technique. It isn’t a trick, but there is physics involved.

More importantly, it was about understanding that you could break rocks. Could hit something that hard and not hurt yourself, because most training in a dojo runs soft and careful, save for occasional moments where you warn your training partner ahead of time that you are going to step up EXACTLY ONCE then bring it back down. That lets both of you see what feels like.

So, I broke a rock. Kinda kewl. Will break other rocks at some point. Right now, the black belt test has started, and will run until December. A good teacher makes sure that the student learns it, learns it well, learns it right, and grows. Some teachers have to make things all about themselves, making the student look back during the test, and really making themselves look bad instead.

Here, I will be dialing things in and demonstrating proficiency, competence, confidence, and whatever knowledge. When he thinks I have it all, he’ll stand me up in front of the room and we’ll do the big test, but that’s an hour at most. Do the kata. Do the drills. Dance with a training partner.

Then I will have achieved a level that says I am ready to actually start learning. Because that’s all a black belt indicates.

Story: Emmett McCall is at 25k. Feels like 45k, in something of a weird 2-Act piece, but that’s fine. New everything here. Urban Fantasy with an Awakened Goat who is a Hegelian Trotskyite with an oversized keyboard, because on the internet, nobody knows you are a goat.

Mick, as noted, 10k. Have a couple of other stories out there in open states to go after as I finish things up, but I’m a full year and change ahead of myself writing, so I can dabble and wander from time to time.

And let writer-brain get a little hinky.

—–

seriously?

Stupid hummingbird hovering in front of me, about two meters away outside the window.

Normally, that’s complaints about the feeder, so I need to go check.

Pixie T-Rexs, man…

More soon.

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.

20260512

[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.]

Occasionally, shit gets weird. And I mean by my standards. Coloring FAR outside the lines y’all folks are used to.

I am, however, both a professionally trained philosopher and a professional writer, so I have learned to roll with it.

Yesterday, the usual Monday morning DND game got canceled when the GM got held over at the fire station. (Usually, he gets off shift at 6am, but obviously someone called off sick and he was there until noon.) Had that message when I crawled out of bed at 7, but decided to keep my Monday as close to normal as possible anyway.

Went down and got breakfast as usual.

Went over for coffee and sat to write for an hour. As usual. Essay for an upcoming anthology where I got to guest-edit.

The usual would be to hit the bookstore when it opened and game. Instead, I had brought stuff with me to work on the tabletop game I’m designing, spreading my shit out all over the table and making notes here and there on a lot of papers.

Game is coming together nicely. Couple of playtests that revealed problems with the economic system. Changes yesterday made things flow faster (I think) and easier. Probably recruit a group and run a test at some point. Need to collect tokens and shit, but that’s easy enough.

But on the drive south, I had a nagging pain in my kidneys that turned out to be a new character poking me to get my attention.

You folks know me. I like playing (and writing) against type, because after 45 years of DND, I have played all the basic configurations of characters at least three times.

Same in the writing. Normal characters are boring, which is why so many writers invent Chosen Ones™ to have destiny thrust upon them with all of the Tolkien/Rowling bullshit thrown into the gumbo.

</Yawn>

But there was a meme I saved years ago about playing against type. Or casting against type. It was for Star Trek: Next Gen era. (Gotta be specific because the amount of time from Captain James T. Kirk (TOS, 2266 CE) to Captain Nahla Ake (Academy, 3195 CE) is only slightly shorter than the period between today and when William the Conqueror died in 1086.)

The Meme talked about playing against type. A Betazed Weapons Officer who was hungry to kick ass. A Klingon counselor who understood that mental health was just as much an honorable battle as anything in an arena. That sort of thing.

Driving, that little voice quoted the old saying, “It is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.” He’s not Klingon, but they would adopt the guy. Broken. Recovering from naval service (and I know a lot of veterans that came out broken and more than a little crazy) by working in his garden. Embodying the warrior in a garden ethos.

Then somebody shows up to ruin his day. And recruit him back to active duty, helping someone else that needs it. Someone who has been there, and can understand. Someone who has a personal connection that will make things both easier and harder.

Putting it into a space adventure setting, because that’s me. It could just as easily be private detective fiction or anything else, because it will be a story about relationships and recovery. Burnout that doesn’t kill you. It merely makes you shift to doing the job on paper and nothing more.

We’ve all worked there. You want to make a difference and make things better. Eventually, most institutions grind you down and you are just there for the paycheck. HR is not your friend. They work for the bosses as boot lickers protecting the corporation from being culpable for how they treat employees.

Eventually, you are just treading water and don’t give a fuck.

We’ve all worked there.

That’s the sign you need a new job. A new employer. A new career. A new industry.

Something.

I was lucky enough to skip across several industries in my computer days, from property management to paratransit to health to legal claims settlement.

Every corporation reaches a certain mass and metastasizes into a beast that consumes lives and spits out profit.

And you can’t quit the navy. Not really. You can serve out your time and get honorably discharged if you want benefits later. Or lose your mind and get tossed into the corner like a broken doll. Known a few folks who danced that line. And were broken civilians.

So I wrote a story yesterday. Out of the blue. New universe, new setting, new everything. Literally writing story, then switching files to record details as they emerged from the subconscious. It’s short. You’ll probably get it June 1. Might be more of them, because Mick has opinions and will give us a really different take on the classical (semi-)military space adventure.

You have been warned.

🙂

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.]

It’s misting almost heavy enough to be called drizzle.

I moved to Seattle for the rain, so this puts a smile on my face. Especially after my weekend.

Saturday night about 5pm, the alarm on the septic systems went off. Loud buzzing that took me a bit to sort out. Then outside and find the shutoff for the siren.

Then inside and onto the internet, researching why septic alarms go off. Lots of reasons, some benign, like the tank got too much water suddenly and couldn’t pump fast enough. Others involve failures of components.

Did what I could, waited until Sunday to see if a couple of them worked. Nothing.

Called my septic folks and left a vmail.

They open at 730 on weekdays. She called me at 740. Was actually headed to breakfast, so turned around and called her when I got home. She walked me through various checks, then determined that the pump might have died.

Lemme tell you, yuck.

Head back south, waiting for the estimate.

Fabulous Publisher Babe™ calls me a couple of hours later because the tanks are making strange noises.

At some point, as part of the phone call, I had left the pump on manual. After a delay long enough for me to get gone, it had run. And pumped the secondary tank DRY. Didn’t know that at the time.

Got the estimate, which included $1800 to pump that tank empty, plus $2200 for a new pump.

Yuck.

Cut my day off and headed to Home Depot and rented a pump, all set to save myself a shitton of cash. Got home with it and that’s when I realized the pump was working. Called the Septic folks and she walked me through a full visual inspection, taking notes for her guys. Still needs something, but not an expensive pump replacement, so I turn around and take the pump back, having had it for an hour and a half, with most of that being driving.

Guys arrived here at 735 this morning. Local, but damned local, if they set out at 730.

Quick inspection, since they have most of the notes already. Float had died, so they put in a new one and I’ll get a much smaller bill sometime after they write it up. Plus a formal inspection at some point this summer. Dunno about pumping the main tank. Gotta do that every once in a while as it fills with sludge.

The guys were gone by 805. Not on site thirty minutes to replace a float and go.

There is a reason I love my septic company. Cheerful and stone pros.

But yesterday took a lot of spoons out of me and today the rains are putting them slowly back.

I did finish Kincaide 3 over the weekend. 185k. Rougher than most, but that’s taking four months, so I am certain I have details wrong in places and need to fix. Putting it aside for a bit and will deal with it later.

May is probably short fiction month. Need more Zach and Redlance stories. Writing Beckett 9 now. Brain had a good start on Derlyth 4, which is novel. Charlotte 2 and 3. Couple of others.

No idea what the next of several possible major projects I’ll go after. If you have a need, give a yell and maybe inspire me. Or at least lean me.

Slow day. Possibly slow month. Unlikely to crack writing ten novel projects this year, and that’s fine. Maybe a bunch of novellas instead. Last Stand 13 is coming in July. Need to write more of those. And other things.

Right now, I just need rain.

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. Coffee on deck. Lots of coffee.

Had a bear Sunday night. (actually about 1am Monday morning, but, you know.) Trying to get into the compost bin and bashing it with a paw. Black bears around here. Either just woken up and hungry, or just kicked out on his own and looking for territory. And I’m surrounded by green immediately and rednecks beyond that, so they don’t stay.

But him, bashing on the drum. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Jump up, run to the other end of the house and smack on a window right over his head. Blur hauling ass for the far end of the yard as I get round to the door and turn on the outside light. Give him a ten count before opening the door to yell.

Get them every year. Either into the trash cans, the compost rollers, or my wife’s bird feeders. Got lucky here, because the rollers are 30” tubes and you have to slide the hatch sideways. Everything black, slider green. Always wondered if bears are color-blind green not to see that. Only ever had one actually open it.

Writing: Good news: Kincaide is at 168k this morning before I start. Bad News: It’s gonna be longer than expected. Probably 200, so not done this week as expected.

Shit happens. Also have several other stories in motion on the phone. Harri 3. Derlyth 4. Plus short stuff I’ve been banging out regularly.

And you’ll have to wait until the Anti-Stodgy news to hear about my night last night. It was a little weird, but perfectly in line with my life these days. And none of it was my fault. Always good to clarify.

Probably need to go make more coffee. One cup isn’t even cutting the gunk in my head at the moment. But things are really a lot better these days than they were. Did a martial arts seminar these last two Friday nights down in Tacoma. Khmer art called Bokatar. The Sensei was really expert and a good teacher. Learned a couple of excellent nuggets, but you reach a point where there are only so many ways to move a human body, so it comes down to who focuses on what. His was a couple of shifts over from what I do these days. Lots of the underlying mechanics were the same, just in different sequence.

But you always have to keep learning, because as soon as you stop going uphill, you start going downhill. Eventually you end up in a recliner watching TV and turning to mush. Not for me.

Past that, more Kincaide. Done as soon as he lets me go, but likely at least another week of his craziness. Then on to SOMETHING else. Dunno what yet. This has been the heavy emotional lifting all year, and I’m not looking beyond it until it’s done.

But it’s coming.

Yay.

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. Late April. Kincaide is sitting at 1533k at this point, that slow grind because I want this to read slow so I have to take my time writing it.

Meanwhile, other projects flow in the background. Third Harri is started. Fourth Derylth (No, I have no idea why) popped up over the weekend and I’m a good chunk into it on the phone.

Humor generally better, but largely ignoring the interwebs today. Too many people in foul moods swinging live cats around. (Dead cats don’t lead with claws out.)

Too many other people asking why we can’t just get along, when there are some hurtful, malicious folks out there, pretending to be ignorant.

I always tell folks that they can push me backwards off the table, but lots of ijits don’t grasp that. Until it’s too late, anyway.

I will argue with you in good faith, if I think I can convince you and get you to change your mind. At some point however, recalcitrance sets in and mules digs hooves. Start swinging live cats. Or edges weapons.

I won’t stay around if I expect you to slam a [metaphorical, usually] knife into my kidneys when I’m not looking. And hurt dogs howl, so I listen to the words that come out of folks mouths when they get angry.

In vino, veritas works just as well for rage. Folks forget which set of lies they’ve been speaking and the truth comes out.

The truth always comes out.

But I won’t fight you at that point. Won’t raise my voice.

Will walk. Won’t look back.

Couple of folks out there won’t even notice I left, but they don’t know me at all. Just happened to be folks I previously found interesting, until I happened to be in the room when they went off on a rampage. Racist. Sexist. Homophobic. Don’t really care why you decided to show your whole ass to the internet.

Am paying attention. Don’t have time for your bullshit or your swinging blades.

Because you are supposed to be an adult. So either you aren’t, or this is what you think is acceptable behavior.

No. But thank you for playing. And best of luck at whatever. I’ll be off enjoying myself someplace that doesn’t involved children like you throwing tantrums.

The rest of you might draw lessons from my experiences. Might remember folks that you haven’t seen in a while and suspect that they found your behavior questionable.

How are you working to make yourself a better person?

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.]

Yesterday was 413.

I keep certain folks in my phone with reminders of birthdays, even after I lose them. Yesterday would have been Perry’s 64^th birthday.

There was a 14-month stretch in 2008-9 where I lost three of my closest friends. Sean vanished entirely one day in late spring. Emails returned box full and phone disconnects. Dunno if he died, got vanished into a Mexican prison or something, or simply walked away from everyone and everything. Donna (first wife) died of breast cancer in June. (Original diagnosis in 2005 was Stage 4 ad six months, but she was stubborn and had things to do before she quit. Lasted almost exactly three years.)

Then Perry died.

He’d moved from Seattle back to Atlanta several years earlier, chasing a dream. It being the early email days, we stayed in touch, though long-distance bills were still a thing, as were charges for texting. Mostly email. For many years.

Winter 2007-08, Donna decided that she wanted to be married again (this after threatening to walk away immediately if I even mentioned the topic to her previously), and planned it for June. Small ceremony. Her kids, husbands, and grands. Only “outsiders” where her Maid of Honor, who she had known forever, and Perry, who I flew up special, then handed him the keys to my truck afterwards so he could spend a week seeing everyone he’d missed.

Then he went home and life settled into whatever the new normal would be, when I lost Donna in July, after 21 days of being married. Good friends kept me mostly sane. Got through the fall. Into the winter. Into 2009.

Then one day, I got a call.

(long pause. Heavy breaths.)

I’d been trying to get hold of Perry, but never got answers when I called (normal, if he was working) and he didn’t call back.

Two weeks pass, and he calls.

“Where the hell have you been?” I ask, seeing his number come up. (He occasionally had to vanish related to former government work and consulting, or so the story went).

“Is this Blaze?” she asked.

Well, fuck. Knew instantly.

He’d been at church on a Wednesday, cooking for the congregation, because he was a trained chef among all the other things he did. Hadn’t been feeling well, so he sat down, and died in his pastor’s arms of a massive, sudden heart attack.

Gone, just like that. At least I got to bring him back to Seattle for that one last trip. And to see him.

His sister made arrangements and flew out to Seattle in the fall, where we had a wake for him at our favorite restaurant. Only a few of the folks knew him, but they’d all heard me talk about Perry. And been with me through Sean disappearing on all of us, then me losing Donna.

It’s been 18 years. Still choke up, because three close friends all gone too soon, back to back to back. Remember to hug people. Lots.

Remember that this might be the last time you ever see them. And that you will miss them a lot, especially when their birthday reminder comes up. (Donna’s is in November)

Yesterday would have been his birthday. And I miss him.

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.]

Better this week. Granted, low bar considering last week, but better. Absolutely nobody got bit last week. Close doesn’t count.

Still crunchy this morning, but that’s Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today working in the yard and expanding one of the orchard boxes. Spent this morning on the phone with English Paul while finishing off the rabbit wire and such to keep the large ungulates at bay. They’re polite enough. Scared one while walking around because I wasn’t paying attention and she popped up from her nap about ten feet in front of me, ambling off.

But they eat things. Gotta box them off. Got space to plant a lot of new things that are currently in pots. But crunchy.

Last night at the dojo, we put on gloves and hammered each other. Best way to learn to take a punch is to take a punch. Got a small bruise on my cheek where Josh jabbed instead of hooking and got inside my guard, but otherwise good. Just ate lunch so I could take some advil. Gonna need that.

Talking to Paul while working, we covered Sebelius, Chopin, and Purcell. Because public domain music can be adapted and arranged, and we’re looking at how old revolutionary tunes (Finlandia, in one case) and be a call to arms in a new punk rock project. And how a rondo can turn into a walking bass line when tweaked. No idea if it will work, but I have a sound palate now and thoughts on revolutionary lyrics.

Some of you will remember Owen Castle, who has appeared in a couple of Boundary Shock Quarterly stories. Another one coming this fall. Those are all set in a bleak dystopian future where the world is running down and the revolution is coming. And going to be ugly, because if you stop things from naturally moving, the pressures build up until they erupt instead of oozing.

Owen looks around at his friends and suggests that, “It’s almost midnight, Cinderella.” as a way of summing things up. That’s where I’m writing parts of what could technically be classified as a rock opera. Technically correct is best correct, after all.

Dunno. The music works different parts of my brain, and I can actually arrange things a little these days, though I am still shit at any instrument besides voice. That’s what I got him for, because he plays everything. And bought himself first a clarinet and then an alto sax in the last couple of months, after teaching himself violin last year.

He can probably play it, but we have a deal that I won’t play anything live unless its ‘Top of the Pops’ calling and I have to throw together a live band on short notice. Fortunately, he and I know a couple of orchestras worth of rock’n’rollers who’d come out to play.

Working on other projects on the side. Headed to NorWesCon this weekend, so I started a new Business For Breakfast book on designing and building your Stock Light Freighter for space adventure stories. All the tech and aesthetics you need to think about, so that your ship is its own character, and not just a gray box. Also working on space opera space military uniforms, so these two might be part of some new series of research guides or something.

They’ve filled me with a lot of new ideas that I hadn’t really considered previously, so already successful. Probably do the same for other writers. Worth the time. Like music, keep the brain sharp because I have to yell at Paul to stop edging over into comfortable, safe, and stodgy.

Kincaide 3 is around 117,000 words at this point. On track to 175+/-. Wrapping up lots and lots of grand things while exploring some of the questions present on page 1 if you know what to look for. Got several other novel projects when I get it done, but that’s May and why I am working on some of the other things at the same time.

Getting there slowly, but as I reminded Paul, the fact that I crossed 12,000,000 word written was a testament to me wanting it more than most folks. You know the ones. Cafe dilettantes, who have been working on their novel for the last ten years. Or complaining about how they just don’t have time to write, then spend hours talking about the latest game they’re playing. Or the show they’ve been binging.

What do you want out of life? Go look at what you are spending your time on.

Don’t like it?

Change.

Simple as that.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

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