20240520

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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

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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.

20240513

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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

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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.

20240506

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Ye Gads, what a weekend.

Drove down to Portland to see Fabulous Publisher Babe™ and give her some help with our niece (one month out from brain surgery and doing much better). It was also the niece’s birthday yesterday, so cake and quiet party.

Got up this morning and drove back to Seattle. And did all the things around here that needed doing as soon as I walked in the door. Watering plants in her house. Hydroponics. Refill the bird feeders. Get ready for a busy day tomorrow. And Wednesday. Fuck only knows what Thursday has planned, but that’s out far enough I can breathe.

LOTS of rain on the way home. Several errands between Tacoma and the house. Took five hours to finally get here.

Kinda tired. Had some coffee after I got milk at the grocery. Sun just came out here. Apple tree looks amazing (pic). Figs and grapes starting to bud. Pears and cherries bloomed two weeks ago. Looks like a lot of apples this fall. If you like fresh fruit, mark your calendar and remind me in August so you can come out and pic some. Fuji on the left. Honeycrisp on the right.

Corsac Fox percolating along nicely. Just shy of 66k words on an 80k target, so right on track. Except that 6 cliffhangars into 7 as one LONG story, so I need to write 7 over the summer.

Got two projects on my immediate next list, but not sure which I’ll pursue. Both SF. One heavy into romance tropes, but not Romance™. The other is the actual project that I think I shared with some of you several years ago, called Cloning Blues. It bubbled up to the top of my mind and wants to be written. I have another week to worry, so we’ll see. Probably about this time next week, matter of fact.

Gotta see what writer brain wants when we get there. And what is the inverse flip of what I’ve been doing to keep things sharp. Light/Dark. Fast/Slow. Opera/Adventure. SF/Thriller. Something. The key is always going back and forth so I don’t fall into a rut.

This one feels like Old/New, because both of the projects are entirely fresh, rather than Book N in some series, which is what I have been doing lately.

Summer’s coming. Fabulous Publisher Babe™ should be home in a couple more weeks, then plans to bar the door and hibernate for a few weeks, possibly leaving her phone with me to answer so she goes days without talking.

I’m freaking exhausted, but counting down to hopeful normalcy. I am still likely to be a little to bitey for another month, but shit happens. Y’all been warned.

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

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20240429

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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 17th 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

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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.

20240422

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[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 and been running all over creation for the last several hours. Breakfast. Bank (which is a haul because the closest branch to deposit a check is in Kent now), post office (voted), grocery store, gas.

Busy busy busy. But good. Gonna go north and study some weapon forms with Sensei Johnson tonight. Learning new things. Anti-Stodgy. Hopefully, you are doing the same.

Gotta keep the brain as flexible as the body. Listen to new music. Learn new things. Eat new foods.

Took a quick jaunt down to Portland to see my sweetie last week. She’s taking care of the niece (doing much better) but stressed. Couple days of me around helped. Will go back in another week or so. She’ll hopefully be home after that for the long haul.

Always knew that Jan 1 to about June 1 was going to be stressful. Mostly got past it. Didn’t bite a single person so far, which I will count as a win, all things considered. Writing is coming along, just much slower than normal. At 45k for the month, or about 25k behind my usual pace. Might make it to Pulp 1 (84k). Might not. Shit happens.

Mostly, it will show up in 2025, when I don’t necessarily have a full calendar of novels to deliver. Not sure what I will do instead, but I have several months to write more and maybe fill in gaps.

I have the product in the can, but it’s choppy. Two Giles. Two Heather. Two Shrike. A whole bunch of Book Ones that demand series behind them. At the same time, I have existing series I could extend. A few people have asked about more Last Stand. Ideas for more Marrakesh (it only pauses at 5. It doesn’t stop.) More Corsac Fox. Etc.

But next year might be messy. We’ll see. My job is to keep writing and keep my humor. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, as it were.

Corsac 6 is coming along nicely. Will pick it up as soon as I post this. Sitting at 23k. Target 80k. Plus this is the sixth of seven in Block One, and I am slipping in foreshadowing of how 6 and 7 will flow, then come to a resting point. Got major plans, but there will be a gap of several years in between (years for Uly and Dan, not you).

Dunno what I write after that. Been researching early jet aircraft again, so there might be the next Red Branch on deck. Those are fun because 1949 was a year of ferment, when everyone was inventing the technology of the future, and jets went from toys to war machines. And there are so many cool designs to work with, because nobody really understood the best way to do things, so they were trying lots of things to see which worked best. Faster, higher, farther, except for the part where some idiot decided that the best way for two jets to dogfight involved getting a running start at one another, and performing a jousting pass with unguided rockets. HIGHLY inaccurate, unguided rockets. 1% hit ratio style rockets.

Guided missiles would change everything, but not for another decade or two. There’s a line in the original Top Gun where the instructor discusses the shitty kill ratios in Vietnam, and the need to train pilots better. The problem was the FFAR and the AIM-4, both of which were shit. And those lovely designers removed guns from the planes. All guns.

Even today, there are guns, because you might need to dogfight. I expect that drones will end the manned combat aircraft in another 5-10 years, and I have no idea if the next generation of UAV will just be intelligent missiles, survey platforms, or flying guns. Probably one of each, plus two dozen other things as needs evolve. Ukraine is a tipping point in weapons technology, much like World War II was.

So I’m thinking about fast planes. Because why the hell not? If any of you are knowledgeable about early jets or aviation in general and want to read Red Branch 1, please yell. I know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be an expert. And I’m likely to start #2 soon.

But for now, more Uly and Dan.

Y’all have a lovely Monday.

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.

20240415

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Okay, slight break. Took some time off. Recovering.

Realized that, dating back to about July of last year, I have been the emotional rock upon which a number of my people had clung when their own lives got turned upside down. Best friend’s wife suddenly divorced him and I spent six months keeping him moving forward as he figured out how to rebuild his life. Fabulous Publisher Babe™ got cataract surgery last year, but fell into the 10% who needed follow-on work. Niece suffered a traumatic brain injury several years ago and never got it treated properly until it got BAD.

Niece had brain surgery on Wed the 3rd. Opened her head up with a can opener and dremeled off skull, then pulled the sheet tight and stapled it back in place. She was out of the hospital on Sunday and home. Recovering well.

Fabulous Publisher Babe™ got her other eye done on the 4th (three weeks after the first) and is in great shape. Down in Portland with the niece, basically sitting on her because stubborn doesn’t run in that family at all.

Had breakfast with my buddy this morning, and talked history and culture of martial arts over coffee. He likes to tell me that he doesn’t know anything, until you get him going and he starts deep-diving into the history of Okinawan Karate. And I mean DEEP.

Last week, I finally came home on Monday. My bucket was empty. I joked with a couple of people that I’d hit the fork in the road where my options were Depression, Exhaustion, and Xenocide. I picked exhaustion. Had nothing left to give. Canceled various things and just sat on the couch and read, because even writing took more brain that I had available.

Better today. Almost normal. Looking at when I might squeeze in a trip down to Portland, between some of the busy things I’ve got on my calendar as I try to put my life back together.

In 2022, I wrote 1.4 million words. In 2023, I intentionally slowed that down to 1.0, because I had other things I wanted to do and had to create space for them.

Right now, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to hit 750,000 words this year. Sounds like a lot, until you realize that it’s half of what I was doing, and I still write at my normal pace. It’s having time to sit at the keyboard writing. Less of that this year. Makes me a little grumpy, but these are all things that needed to be done, and nobody else could hold the line while folks were dealing with issues.

Just a matter of identifying things that don’t get done this year. Maybe pushed off. Maybe removed from whatever list. At some point, I’m likely to break my publishing streak of having a novella or more monthly dating back to late 2017. Simply won’t have enough material in hand to do. Might write some shorter stuff instead. Or simply have a year of doing something every other month so I can catch up. Dunno. Don’t really care, because I keep publishing. Keep writing. Keep having fun.

Finished Science Officer #14 in there. Exile, following the Season Two scheme of letters. (You were paying attention and caught that, right? Alien, Buried, Captain, Dragoon, Exile…) H will be Homecoming, and finish off Season Two. And Exile starts an interior trilogy Zakhar describes as the War of the Pirate Clans, Volume Two. Hoping to be able to write F and G later this year, and maybe publish two next year.

Currently about 10k into Corsac Fox #6. #3 and #4 coming this summer (June and July and up for preorder now). Would like to write #6 and #7 and drop those three sequentially at some point to bring Uly and Dan to the end of Block One. Still planning Block Four, which will end when Uly is in his mid-60s. Probably about 30 novels all told, but I don’t really know. Four big blocks of emotion and lifespan, assuming people keep enjoying it.

Not every series works. I have fun writing them, or I wouldn’t, but the amount of personal abuse I suffered for writing Last Stand means that it will be a while before I circle back and touch that realm again. Plus, while it had it’s fans, not many. (Sales were pretty shitty across that series, which was a shame because…)

But it’s Monday. Been writing. Got this blog. Will throw out a newsletter later. Back on track. Chipmunks make lousy ninjas, but they’re in spring training right now. Horse poop here and there. Cherries and plums flowering. Everything else waking up.

We’ll get there.

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.

20240401

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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. 1st. 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

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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.

20240325

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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

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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.

20240318

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[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 always weird when I’m standing at my desk writing and see a deer walk by out the window behind the monitor. Just hanging out. Chilling. Moved over to the side yard and parked his butt under a tree for a few hours. Two of them, when I looked closer. Ignored me when I went out to do yard work. Ignored the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ when she went back and forth.

Chill.

Obviously, utterly terrified of us. Later, we had to go run errands, and one of the dorks was grazing in the yard. I came around the corner and said hi. He bolted all of about ten meters, then went back to eating.

Seriously.

Things getting more or less back to comfortable for now. Still in the middle of a six-month stretch where things are utterly unsettled, but most of that energy isn’t mine, and my job continues to be hanging cool like those deer.

I am, however, reminded of one of my favorite lines from “The Long Run” by Daniel Keys Moran.

“If you can keep your calm while everyone around you is losing theirs, perhaps you have misunderstood the situation.” (roughly. Don’t want to flip through the book to locate it at this moment.)

Hoping I have not misunderstood. Being the rock against which storms break and tides are thwarted. It’s a living.

Mentioned that I was writing the next Science Officer. #14. Exile. Having fun. Crossed 20k this morning, with only a vague guess how long it is. Should probably go look at previous novels. (Don’t go anywhere.) Okay, somewhere between 55 and 65k, so I am likely around a third of the way done. Writer-brain understood that, because that’s about where I am at this moment in terms of story.

Will keep pounding away at that. Then circle back to Ollie 3 at some point. And get back to work on Ivette (needed to pause because I realized that I was missing critical component of plot and characters and needed to have those before I proceeded. Writer-brain, again.)

Reminder that Boundary Shock Quarterly has a shop now, where you can buy individual issues, as well as sign up for a subscription so you don’t ever miss one. Plus, subscriptions work out to $4 per instead of $5.

I have written six Beckett Fernsby stories so far, ranging from 25-32 only skipping 029 (First Contact) because I wrote the first Wardog Charlie story there. And will write more Charlie stories, because I have a pets issue coming up in a few years (I tend to run 2-3 years out in coming up with themes, then trying to write that far ahead).

Also working on Holden and Reilly some more. Need to keep pushing that out a ways to keep folks entertained. And possibly turn that into Vol 1 at some point, but I have a lot of ground to cover first. Sitting right about 90k, which feels like maybe 2/3-3/4 mark of the opening. Crazy big, but folks backing the Patreon at the $5 mark have been reading their adventures. Hope y’all been enjoying it.

Not a lot past that. Quiet week around here if I’m lucky. Spring, so a lot of yard work to do as things wake up. Still figuring I’ll end up selling the place in another 5-8 years and moving into the city someplace, where the walk score is at least 88. Start saving your nickles if the old farmstead appeals to you.

Chat more later.

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.

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[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 Monday that almost appears normal. Which is good, because I spent most of last week recovering from a head cold I picked up on the flight from Guadalajara. Then gave to the Fabulous Publisher Babe™. She’s a little pissed about that.

I had a moment in Mexico. Woke up one morning and a stranger greeted me in the mirror. It happens. Not a lot, but often enough to recognize.

Transition.

Becoming someone else.

Someone new.

A fork in the road taken.

2024 is likely to be full of them, when you think about it. This is the year when I simply ride out the storm as best I can sail it.

At present, I am roughly ¾ of the way through Ollie 3, and hit a wall where I had to put it aside. That was getting my head into the place to go to Mexico.

And I am roughly 13k into Ivette 1 (Gunship Commander), and had to put it aside, because I had to stop and rethink the plot that I had, in light of new ideas that came up while I was in Mexico.

That, and I simply had no enthusiasm for anything by the end of last week. That also happens. Think of it as a kind of hangover from the travel, plus being sick. Plus a bunch of other things.

Had to get up Friday morning hollow. Nothing there at all.

I had written notes for future projects while in Mexico. Took my phone with me for that exact reason.

Friday, I had to reach deep and tap a vein of pure rage.

Those of you who have only known me over the last decade or so have never seen me angry. Not even remotely close. Possibly a bit cross, at worst.

Not like the old days.

Not like when I was a machine fueled by rage.

Woke HIM up Friday to get shit done. He did not disappoint. Probably won’t go back to sleep for a few months, because there are situations upcoming where the willingness to go for someone’s throat with my teeth is suddenly a possibility. Hopefully not a necessity.

Shit’s on the table, though.

Got a guy who desperately needs to be popped in the mouth. Maybe a few times, until he shuts the fuck up. And minds his manners. Personally, I doubt that he’s capable of it, because he’s a malignant narcissist who likes to gaslight people.

Still trying to decide if I should bait him into starting something, so that I have an excuse to put him through a wall. Or a window. Whatever happens to be in the way.

Don’t like him. Don’t respect him. Have to tolerate him for reasons. For now.

Other folks involved have identified me as the nuclear option and refused to take it off the table, so they understand.

In Mexico, I simply projected it outwards like a scent, and NOBODY got that close. I could walk through a crowd and folks would shove others to get out of my way.

So he’s in the back of my mind as I work today.

Started the next Science Officer book. Have been drawing a blank for the longest time on what it should be. Letter “E” for those of you paying attention, but nothing past that.

Woke up in the dead of night in Mexico with the opening, which was good enough to get me into motion. Got 8k on paper right now, and just getting started.

Return of the Pirate Clans that we last saw in 7 and 8. ALL of them. At once. Come for Zakhar and Javier. And everybody else.

Gonna be a mess.

Good thing I’m in a rough mood as I write it.

How’s your Monday?

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.