The bad news? A lot of it was not on the new post-apocalyptic series. What was written in that is something of a mess. So while I'd hoped to have a book in April or May, I can see that's not going to happen.
Furthermore, personal goals are going to keep me from the computer the next month or so, and did to an extent the past month. While I've written a lot about self-sufficiency and being off the grid, I can only claim to have experienced being off the grid, 100% solar, and surviving on something like $300/month (which I suppose means you aren't terribly dependent on the outside world, but I never figured a way out of needing propane for my refrigerator or food from the store in that situation or objects that I owned that I am in no way capable of manufacturing on my own. (See The Toaster Project.)
So now I'm working toward having less reliance on the mass food distribution network, starting with growing most of my own vegetables, expanding to fruit in future years, fishing more and more for the plate, and after that finding local sources for eggs, cheese and meat if I can. (I can't have a dairy cow where I live but I can have hens, though hens make no economic sense at all at this scale.) I've been busy in March building infrastructure for the garden. I have terrible clay soil, as many of us do, so I've been on a mission to improve it using no-till methods. (Worms, I have lots of. Spiders, check. Fungi, I have. I think it's pretty healthy and fertile soil except for the fact that it turns to concrete when it dries out.) I spent one day building a fence, and another day spreading two tons of compost I had delivered over the cardboard-mulch start I made last autumn. I started over 500 veg plants indoors with a grow light and greenhouse window (I won't say that window is why I bought this house, but it sure didn't hurt!) I've harvested two salads so far--spinach and lettuce. Peas are up, turnips are up, chard and bok choi are up, and onions and leeks are growing happily larger. I've set up trellising, wrestling with the clay soil to get posts sunk deeply. And so on. I'm having a blast, but it does take most of my time. I'm out there six hours some days and too exhausted to do much at all at the end of the work day.
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| Scraping paint on the shed. It's not crooked, the photographer is |
The good news is, once this "build and repair the infrastructure" phase is over, there will be plenty of days where I only need an hour of work outdoors, so I can get back to the writing.
I love writing, and I'm at no risk of stopping doing it. It's simply on the back burner for now. I'm only checking my business email once a week, as well. I'll let you know when there's progress on a book that's worth reporting on.
Thanks, as ever, for being fans and friends and for enjoying my books.
Don't worry about doing other stuff (actual real life stuff, haha) instead of writing. I loved your Oil Apocalypse series and I plan on reading your Gray series in the near future.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I'd like to read another Oil Apoc book (although I think you've said you're probably done with that one, for all intents and purposes), I'd totally understand if you were taking time off to tackle actual real-world things! Take care!
Thanks! Writing more was easier when I didn't own a house, for sure. : )
DeleteMr. Cadle, first off your writing is amazing. Publishers can suck it. I too garden, im self sufficient and even tap maples to make syrup. I grow mushrooms (to eat lol) and my pigs, chickens, rabbits and cows all give back meat, eggs or milk. No pets but the barn cat lol. Keep on keeping on. I love your books.
ReplyDeleteBren, that's great on your self-sufficiency. I'm actually veg self-sufficient at this point, and so many readers have asked about it, I'll blog about it this winter. If you remember, drop by and correct anything I say that you think is wrong. Maple syrup is a great thing to have. I would love a cow, but my town wouldn't love me to have one. I might throw some mushroom spawn on the wood chips this year and see if that works. I have 110 fruit bushes arriving the first week of April to plant, and 25 asparagus crowns. (And no, I don't like asparagus that much! But it was a deal on quantity, and I can always give it away to neighbors, who are then less likely to complain about the garden or bees or my cheating the hen law by one or two hens.)
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