[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

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