Blaze Ward's Blog

[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 Tuesday. More fun.

Those of you who have read Boundary Shock Quarterly Issue 029 (First Contact) have met WarDog Charlie. The real Charlie used to live with my friend Dan, who introduces himself as the Duke of Los Angeles In Exile. He’s now living with youngest boy Connor, but Dan has written stories from Charlie’s POV.

I got inspired then and Dan laughed his fool head off when I sent him the story. Yesterday, as it my wont on Mondays, I was in town all day. (I leave at 730 and get back around 730). I write in my down time, as I have gaps built into Mondays.

Wrote another WarDog Charlie stories yesterday. 2200 words, so fast and short, but still fun. And still in the zone. Gonna read it this afternoon and send Dan a copy. It will come out in Boundary Shock 036 (Furry Friends) next October. A WarDog Charlie Tail, because I couldn’t resist.

One of the joys of writing something like that is to never break character and look at the camera, but to play it deadly serious. Star Trek: The Original Series worked because they all treated schlock like Shakespeare, and forced the rest of us to do the same. After all, how many other SF shows in the 1960s can you name? How many had any cultural impact at all?

So I can have silly fun and tell stories about the WarDog to His Eminence Daniel, Duke of Los Angeles In Exile. Probably more of those, because just right out there at the edge of gonzo.

Meanwhile, you should have gotten the next Resurrection in Black story. And I’m well ahead of you in writing more. And likely to finish the second Daughter of Shogun novel tomorrow. It’s the first sequel to Heather (Feb-Oct 2026 on even months). Veronika will have two sequel series, but broken into two very distinct phases and pieces. I can do that because she’s young when you meet her and that gives me decades of personal time to work.

Had a conversation with another writer this week about how certain writers handle aging out characters. Jim Kirk was special, but everyone has decided that someone can be a major starship captain for decades now, when the USN would maybe give you ten years at most.

For me, Jessica’s story is done. Literally Finis. Not bringing her back. You got Phil instead. And now Heather. Kohahu and Veronika after that.

I’m writing Kohahu with the slugline “Autumn, Republic 419.” Auberon started in the summer of 392. Twenty-seven years have passed. And I’m about to take Veronika forward another twenty, rather than having an eighty-year-old Jessica somehow come back to command things.

I get that people fall in love with certain characters, but I get tired of writing them after a while, so I want to expand the sandbox. And we’re gonna. But that’s a story for another day.

Hope y’all been enjoying the new newsletter format. And signed up for Thrill Ride and Boundary Shock newsletters. Always news there, lagging a month after publication to remind you.

And the Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Newsletter coming next week for folks putting a buck in the kitty for this busker.

See you in the funny papers.

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.

20251028

[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.]

Fall has arrived. Had a Pineapple Express last week. Several days of high winds and monsoon rains, warm because they originate near Hawaii and connect like a beam to Seattle.

RAIN.

Most of the region apparently lost power over the weekend, but we blinked twice and that was it. We also had everything replaced after the bomb cyclone last winter. And the crews were out last week trimming trees like mad, looking at the forecast. Bless them.

Suggestions of snow tomorrow. Had grople (sp?) Sunday. For fifteen minutes.

Think little pellets of ice, not much bigger than BBs. Not hail. Not heavy enough to damage. Still ice. Usually, you get a squall line for a minute or so up here, then done.

This went on for a while, so we have the perfect conditions for it and they held, instead of blowing through. But never lost power, for which yay.

Good day yesterday at dojo. Green belt tests for three of the students. They all passed, so there are five of us now. I’m working on brown. Maybe by the end of the year. Maybe not. At some point. Not in any great hurry. Learning tremendous lots.

Just a little frazzled.

But having fun because I heard from an old fan that I haven’t talked to in forever. He’s an aeronautical engineer/aircraft designer who kinda wrote the book. And hasn’t flamed me for Red Branch, so I must have done something right.

Talking to him about his expertise on things. Because, duh, THE expert.

Red Branch Seven is next. Got ideas. Need exotic aircraft, either as prototypes or a new plane for Sasha and the crew to fly, representing yet another aviation revolution. Those happened annually from 1943-1957.

Annually. Seriously.

About halfway through the second daughter of the Shogun novel. Trilogy that follows Warlord of Yaumgan. And sets up the two series after that, one of which will (finally!) be Imperial Aquitaine.

More news this weekend when I send out newsletter. Looking at 2026 and what I do for 2027. Sent Scattered Tribes 3 off to one of my first readers last night. Other one gets it shortly. Might do all five of those. Plus other things.

I never stop pedaling. That’s the secret around here.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

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

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

[As usual, three weeks lag here, if you aren’t reading this on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/blazeward). If you’d like your news fresher, and the monthly Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef newsletter, all I ask is a buck to help keep the lights on around here.]

It was a yucky weekend. Caught a head cold or something. General malaise and sneeziness for about 30 hours. Fine by Sunday afternoon, save that the Monday GM didn’t want me showing up with germs, so I stayed home and ran errands. And made a pie. You’ll get that recipe in November, just in time to make something more interesting than pumpkin and WAY EASY to do.

Film at 11.

Let’s see, finished Scattered Tribes 3, then went back and added about 15k to the end of Ollie 4 when the First Reader said that I ended too soon. When a reader tells you something is wrong, they are almost always right, so I fixed it.

Rotated into Kohahu 2 over the weekend. Planetary Romance, because I grew up on those in the way old days, back when SF was big and bright and exciting. (Lemme tell you, GrimDark just don’t work for me.)

Also in the process of working out a new Action-Thriller series character and stories. Got a couple of things in the trunk, but haven’t published them. Need to get far enough ahead on the SF side that I can take the time and generate a catalog over there, and might be close. Still need Scattered Tribes 4-5 (plus whatever) and Kohahu 3 (it’s a trilogy) as well as more Last Stand (#13 comes out in Boundary Shock next summer, and starts a Season Two long story arc I’m looking forward to.)

Hope y’all are enjoying Zach and the gang. Need to circle back and add more.

Also working on a Kickstarter for the January (?) Make 100 thing they do. Got 100 short stories. (Got almost 200, if I wanted to get crazy next year.) Need to edit them and organize them. If you’ve been around long enough, you’ve probably read ¾ of them.

What’s been your favorite story line so far, of all the stuff I’ve sent out with the monthly Patreon? Happy to look at extending. I have notes about all the old fantasy shorts I wrote once upon a time and extending those in my spare time. Or to fill in monthly spots here.

Dunno. I ride the surf here. You are allowed to have opinions.

8p

Chat more next week.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

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

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

[As usual, three weeks lag here, if you aren’t reading this on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/blazeward). If you’d like your news fresher, and the monthly Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef newsletter, all I ask is a buck to help keep the lights on around here.]

Good morning and welcome to the sideshow. Or something.
Scattered Tribes 3 is just about done. 67K of an expected 70-75, and I’ll finish it tomorrow, probably. We’re in the denouements anyway, so wrapping up. Still feels like 5 books, so this was the emotional halfway point, focused almost entirely on one team of major players with only hints from the other two. Book 4 will flip that, as major team gets back to civilization and those other two story lines (plus two more) move to a collision point that is the climax of 4 and most of 5.
I will say that I worked backwards from the end of the series when planning it. I know how it resolves, and it will even be obvious in retrospect, because I have been able to plant foreshadowing seeds along the way, with just enough ambiguity that you have to think about it to see how it’s going to go.
And I plan a long essay when I get there, so you folks are prepared for the two major literary starting points I used as inspiration, but I honestly want you getting to the end, so that essay might not be published until the month after book 5 comes out.
Counting coup, as it were. But you people should know me by now.
After 3, I need to finish off Ollie. First Reader report confirms that I need to tack another chunk of story on the back, either as book 5 or writing a next act. Going to start rereading 4 possibly tonight (take a couple of days) so I’m ready when I get there.
Also have been working on a new Action-Thriller project. Early in the research phase and already have two unrelated files built. Dunno if folks will read it, because while I have a lot of SF fans, the Action-Thriller stuff is less known. That’s all the things in Thrill Ride Magazine, plus spin-offs, so Chace Haig, Boston, Swordmistress Zhen, and a few more. Mostly, it’s the Red Branch novels. Got four out and two more written. Doing research for what will be #7, but also considering a few spin-off shorts to explore things and seed distributors.
I enjoy historical research, which is why I have fun writing this stuff. Modern can be fun as well, but I read a lot of history in various eras, and have always done that. Tang China predates the Swordmistress by decades, but I didn’t have anything to do with that knowledge. Same with all the Kremlinology and Sinology from college (late ’80s).
Gonna be more.
Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef News tomorrow. Been up to no good, but again, that shouldn’t surprise you one damned bit.
Not a lot past that. Nice day for the first time in a week, so probably winterize the mower this afternoon. Rainy season will be in force, so last night was the last night of dojo on the river bank and we’ll be back indoors next week. Sensei is having a green belt test for folks at the end of the month (I already have green, working on brown at this point, timeline unknown) so we’re focusing on getting everyone ready for that.
Hope your week is going pretty good.

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.

20251007

[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. Didn’t sleep for shit last night, so a lot rough this morning and trying to organize my thoughts. Rambly.

Interesting weekend on Bluesky (social media platform). It is supposed to be decentralized, with different servers serving different communities. The woman who runs the place and most of her team are apparently cryptobros and from the outside it looks like their politics run to Elon Musk in flavor, in spite of the place being fairly left of center generally.

She, however, went all in on transphobia and Trumperism over the last week. It was kinda painful to watch. When a few people (blacksky elders on the blacksky domain instead of hers) called her out on it, she started banning them.

Mind you, these were folks that had migrated to blacksky, which was supposed to mean that they were off her system and not under her control.

It would appear that she forgot to tell everyone that she retains a nuke button and we’re back to X/Twitter or Facebook banning accounts they don’t like for reasons that have nothing to do with anything but challenging them as they race to the right wing.

Pity. I rather enjoyed bluesky because of those same folks that the woman in charge is now punishing and driving away. From her commentary, she wants only Trumpers on her platform, and I’m guessing she’s about 6-9 months from achieving that, because I’ve already mentally stepped back from interacting with that platform. You’ll see me a little on mastadon, but Eugen went full fucking Trumper in the summer of 2024 and I got to be punched in the face online with it, so I don’t trust that fucker as far as I could throw him.

We’ve talked about the era of mass social media inflecting. Looks like we’re on the race to the crash slope at the moment and we’ll be back to search engines and rss feeds (for you olds out there), except that search engines have been fully enshitified now with AI (which is Clippy from MS Office, stoned on mushrooms and speed and guessing what the next word should be).

Dunno if the internet as we know it is about to achieve dystopia. I read Hunter S. Thompson when I was in my twenties, and he talked about that stretch of road beyond Barstow where the Sixties hit their high water before failing, and how that generation was likely to be the peak of American culture, with their kids and their kids worse off.

He wrote those words in the early 70s, some 50-odd years ago. And they were prophetic.

I don’t like living in interesting times, but I at least studied enough political science to see it coming and spend several decades preparing for it.

But yeah, the times they are a’changing.

You ready?

Writing. Writing? Sure.

Past halfway on Scattered Tribes 3. And on Harri the Merchant 1. Corsac 7 comes out in a couple of days and rounds off Block One. Science Officer 15 and 16 right behind that and round off Season Two. Marrakesh 6 in January to extend that series with further adventures. The Heather and Ollie take up most of the year, so I’m writing into 2027-8 at this moment, though I plan to drop a few random things here and there just to get them out of the trunk.

BOLO for more and early releases, because I’m likely to put them up on the store and forget about them for a while, before getting around to pushing them to the distributors.

Hope your Tuesday makes more sense than mine does.

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.]

I’m that writer that lays down in the evening and lets backbrain grind and churn as I relax and start to fall asleep. In the old days, I worked out most of Javier and Suvi long before I discovered that I could make money writing about them. And Uly and Dan.

These days, I’ve trained myself to listen and remember the good bits. Usually, little chunks or scenes will come out of such things.

Then there’s last week.

Wednesday night, a new character started yammering at me. I mean YAMMERING.

Thursday, he would not shut up, so I started taking notes on my phone. I have immense numbers of worlds and settings I have documented that way. Less than half of them ever turn into books, though sometimes three ideas will cross-fertilize and mutate into one thing. Those are usually the ones that gestate.

Yammering.

Friday, I opened up the writing phone and let him run. I mean, I already has the entire damned plot in my head. Usually, I have character/setting/problem and maybe a couple of milestones to touch on as we go, with a fair estimate as to how it ends. Usually not where, so I let any Book One establish itself and dictate what the rest of the series should strive for in length.

No. I know how the villain gets it. And why. And what happens in more than a dozen points along the way that I had a hard time figuring out which of three different points to start from. Ended up with the first of them, chronologically, just so I could run like hell forward without stopping to flashback or info dump later.

Sometimes, you start in the middle, then use those flashback moments to slow the pace down and give the reader a moment to breathe.

Fuck that. You are going to start a four minute mile with this one. Hope you’re ready.

Started writing Friday. Mind you, I’m still churning happily along on Scattered Tribes 3 in the morning. This is sitting on the couch or in the chair in the afternoon/evening, furiously typing on a virtual keyboard with autocorrect off and suggestion on. I have gotten really fast on that phone, because it has learned my vocabulary now.

So Friday-Monday, while doing things like going to a book fair in Pyuallup or the BBQ event in Enumclaw or hanging out with the boyz, I have over 12,000 words on Harri done. And I’m just going to write the damned thing and get it done with so he’ll shut up for a while. Probably the start of a new series because hello, have you met me?

It will come out at some point. Might finish it and throw it to the wolves just because. Not like I’m not into my 2027 publishing schedule at this point. Got all of 2026 nailed down. And Harri is novel #11 this year, with three months to go. And plans for more Last Stand novellas, which go really fast.

You will be entertained. I just have to get Harri, Dash, and Royce to shut up for a while.

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.]

Got a little carried away and didn’t write a blog post this morning. So the alarm at 2 as I was driving to the hardware store was a jolt. After 4 now and possibly in the process of getting my shit together.

Near a I can tell, I haven’t been Raptured. Nor has anyone else but Robert Redford, for what it’s worth. We’ll check in again next week, just in case.

Not a lot to say, but that’s exhaustion of spending the hot afternoon putting screens on the gutters finally, so that they MIGHT NOT plug and clog when the rains start. No leaves around here, but a metric shitton of pine needles and they get in there and I end up having to go out in the rain with a ladder and stick a hand in the cold muddy water to pull the gutter clean.

Hoping not this winter.

Writing: Finished RAN Stormhawk last week and started Scattered Tribes 3.

Am also in the process of test-driving two new copy editors after my last one passive-aggressive quit on me this last spring. Hopefully, both will work out and I can have better confidence in things I put out than having a couple of First Readers (both good, but not perfect) look at things.

Am exhausted, so not a lot of words at the moment. Writing is going well, I just haven’t slept all that great the last couple of nights and shit has ground me down a little. Fell asleep early last night and slept the usual 630 this morning. Might do that again in a few hours.

What are you going as for Halloween?

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.]

Weather up in this corner of the Cascades has been weird this year. Not bad, but weird.

In the spring, we had a two week stretch of warm and dry where everybody’s allergies went insane from the tree sex. I ended up with three trees FULL of cherries instead of a handful. Good.

Been warm but not hot that often, which I prefer. Moved up here for 62 and drizzly, y’all.

Had a long stretch of wet last week to the point we wondered if fall had come early. Usually Oct 1, BTW.

Harvested all the grapes saturday and am making various wines and brandies now. And a lot of wind last night is bringing in hot today. Supposedly 85-90 down in the valleys, so maybe 5 degrees cooler up here. Got apples and aronia left to harvest. And maybe some mowing for the first time in 6 weeks (when it gets dry, it gets really dry.) Lots of green today and various dandelion variants flowering for the late season bees packing away honey for what promises to be a cold and kinda wet winter. I’ll apologize when I mow it all off.

Books. I am going to finish RAN Stormhawk this week and rotate into the third Scattered Tribes. Picked up my old omnibus edition of the Black Company (first three books) and might only reread book one just for the epic fantasy feel to the language.

I find that WAY too much Epic Fantasy these days tends to be Tolkien with the serial numbers (mostly) filed off and that just bores the shit out of me. I want action. Motion. Stakes and emotional growth. Scattered Tribes I’m leaning into a lot of things, and trying to keep the reader engaged without any long chapters of food porn that do not serve to do anything except infodump all the research the writer did on an obscure topic.

Still writing several shorts in my spare time. Think I have four stories open right now, but all on that spare phone and backed up regularly. Plus I know where each is going and just have to get there.

First Reader finished Ollie 4 and assured me that the ending didn’t work, so I’ll write Ollie 5 after that so I can bring it all home. That gets me through November next year. Lots to publish, and probably two kickstarter campaigns next year as well. The Make 100 is coming into shape nicely, and I might just go ahead and KS the first Scattered Tribes. Dunno.

Not a lot past that, save that it’s tuesday and autumn will be here soon enough.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

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

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

20250909

[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.]

Because I can. And because it won’t make a damned bit of sense to the rest of you until sometime next year, the novel I am working on this week is RAN Stormhawk. First Reader who understands laughed his fool head off. As intended.

Heather 5 included a section sending Stormhawk off on a mission, but I realized as soon as I wrote it that the tone would need to be radically different from the massive darkness of the Warlord of Yaumgan books. So time to spin off a trilogy or something.

There’s precedent, because that’s why the CS-405 books were pulled out of Jessica 7 & 8. Tone. Lighter here significantly. And runs temporally parallel to the end of Heather 5, then a little beyond.

And both set up two major series that will start up a few years after Heather’s War is done. Veronika Provst Part One and Part Two for lack of a better term today.

Provst. Tom Provst’s granddaughter. In an RAN uniform. At least during Heather’s War. Shit will get more complicated than I care to explain until the rest of you catch up with me, so just know that I’ll be carrying the RAN books another twenty years into the future. Possibly putting them to rest after that. At least for a time. Possibly not.

Just like Science Officer, I have brought Javier and folks to a resting point again with 16, where I can finally go back and fill in what happens to Mina after Way of the Sword. There were five Ways listed, if I recall without looking. Always intended five books.

Eventually. Inshallah and the creek don’t rise, vato.

Then the fun part. (and I do say that tongue firmly planted in cheek.)

The Ambassador noted that I had created one of the single greatest characters in literature and obviously needed to write more about him. At the same time, that character has had his moment in the sun and now casts his tremendous shadow on the kids coming up behind him, so I hadn’t planned on writing more from the POV of First Centurion/Senator Kosnett.

Because he demanded it. That was the email I sent the other day when I spun up a new spy thriller shorts series and cast him and his lovely wife as a team of semi-retired troubleshooters. (She giggled at being a sniper, but you have to know her to appreciate the joke.)

He wrote back that he wasn’t sure if he was being honored or trolled. (Both, natch, ‘cause I love the guy.)

Worse, yesterday, I started the second story in the series. Heh.

He’ll get to read it before the rest of you do, but the first one will be included in the next issue of Thrill Ride Magazine, coming out in December. And there will be more.

September is upon us. Fall. The Glorious Time of Dying, I have heard it called and liked the symbolism.

And, last night, I anti-stodgied.

Background: I grew up on the very eastern edge of Wichita, KS. Literally, across the street from my bedroom was a milo field as long as I lived in the house. (City has moved a couple of miles out in the 30 years since, but this is me as a kid and I moved out in ‘90 for grad school and ‘97 for good.)

Last night, had to walk across a foot bridge over the river. With a tiny creek flowing parallel below us. Maybe eight feet at the widest and one foot deep as a rule.

I have never seen salmon swimming up the river to spawn. Never once. Until last night. Got to stand there and watch them nose around the rocks looking for the entrance from the river itself. Or just being dorks. Whatever.

Really cool, because totally new. (I occasionally have to remind people that I’m not from this planet.)

What utterly new and magical thing have you done lately?

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.

20250902

[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.]

Gotten over August, I think. It was an ugly one, but not bad.

Just, as noted elsewhere, utterly exhausting. August anyway, plus the barbecue, then the Con, then the recovery.

I managed to not bite anybody in August. Most of you have no idea how important that is.

It is also the start of fall, so a lot of fruit to deal with. Drying it, fermenting it, distilling it in some cases. Took the leftover watermelon and added pineapple to make a wine and brandy it. All the yellow plums are fermenting now and will brandy soon. Got white lightning in a glass jar with oak flavoring pieces added to give it color and flavor.

Even making more shrub now, before all the grapes and apples ripen over the next few weeks, plus Nik and Bry are sitting on eight pounds of cherries they are supposedly getting back to me at some point as booze.

Gonna be a brandy kind of fall. Maybe with hot chocolate when the weather turns.

And shrub, because a hot summer.

Writing.

Hell, I’ve lost count at this point. Tasker is done. Phil and Alison is done. Still have open stories for Zach (8 & 9 I think without looking). Still have open erotica arc.

I am writing what I think will be the last chapter of Ollie 4. Actually hit that and took a break to write this, because I needed time to process how it ended. This is not a car-chase-and-gunfight kind of series, so the climax is entirely emotional and social, but I think it works. And the actual ending, several chapters later, needs to bring it all back to rest and circle it in to resolution.

At the same time, one of my endings actually leaves it all hanging out there, open for people to fill in their own stories, until such time as I actually circle back and write it. All of my series tend to end with enough of an open door that I could go back and write more. Science Officer and Jessica both got that. Captain Daring didn’t, but people have demanded more and I seriously don’t know where to take it in such a way that doesn’t throw out everything we already did for something else.

And I’m past it in my head.

Having finished Heather and about to finish Ollie, I’m facing forward. Heather has two spin-offs, one in the very short term and a second that is the actual sequel series (one of two for Veronika, as I’ve gotten into the details) building up to something that was promised all the way back in Auberon itself. And regularly hinted at since, but only a handful of you have read Heather to understand. (Phil contains all the clues.)

Because I’m having a lot of fun with the RAN books and might actually finish them off at some point, weird as that is to consider.

But I also want to tell Autumn’s story, and it takes place in 15004, or about 1600 years after Jessica. Because Suvi is the Last of the Immortals, and I can carry her forward through history as a narrator. Just gotta fill in the middle bits before permanently hopping into the future.

Busy tonight, so you’ll get Zach 002 tomorrow, I think. Back to normal week, but this is a busy Tuesday and I don’t have to spend all my effort accommodating everyone else.

So there will be more words. More worlds. More stuff.

Hope you folks are all tied in for the next phase, because Holden and the gang will be coming up soon.

shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

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