VACATION TIME!!! Ideas for other stories. (Patreon)

I'm taking an actual vacation starting in a couple of days, and traveling less than 100 miles to Ocean City NJ. I rented a house sort of by the beach and boardwalk in the quiet part of time. All the grown kids will be there along with my first grandchild, Alice. I plan on spending lots of quality park and beach time with Alice. And most of the rest of my time will be sitting on a veranda, watching the ocean, and writing. And sleeping. I write better when I do the sleep thing.

I'm putting up a chapter for each story today on RR and announcing a week off. That's a week off from RR, not a week off from writing. I still plan to toss up the chapters I get done to Patreon, do some editing, and work on a couple of other stories bouncing in my head.

But let's be clear about something: I have 0 intention of stopping with Butcher and Tunnel Rat. I have no endpoint in my head for Butcher and want to do a lot more exploring with Milo before things heat up again in the real world. (Hotter than a Fusion Reactor? Yeah, that hot.)

 I've got three I want to write, and will be doing outlines to see how far my ideas go. Sometimes I have an opening scene or first arc in my head and then it all grinds to a halt...done. I want to explore these a bit, outline a first book, and see if I still have ideas.

Scrapyard Hero:
You've seen a little of this and I posted some first chapters in the the ten dollar level, then went silent when I had to start editing 6 books of material. The story keeps evolving, but in general, I want to wander down the roads where Manly Wade Wellman took Silver John. Amazing weird tales of strange things happening in the Appalachian Mountains. I want to mix a little of Silver John, and a little Supernatural, and the first years of Dungeon and Dragons, and anchor the story around an old scrapyard and the steel belt of Pennsylvania around 1990. If you haven't read Who fears the Devil, it's worth the read. Great stuff.

Gutter Magic
A fantasy Litrpg story set in a world where people lucky enough to have classes have to work to discover them and reveal a tattoo somewhere on their bodies. (Too late, I realized the similarity to the Cuteymark Crusaders in My Little Pony.) The MC has spent years training hard to be a top-ranking member of the thieves' guild, doing things the hard way with no special abilities, and slowly sliding down the ranks as those around him gain their mark and perks. As the title hints, his talents lie in other areas, but not those respected by any true wizard. Which is fine, since he doesn't plan on being one. But studying spells is better than digging his way out of prison.

Get off my Lawn (Planet?)
The War has come to Earth, the latest battleground in an age-old fight where three Alien races fight to stop the invading horde from gobbling up the galaxy. Scavengers take advantage of the chaos to raid new worlds ahead of their destruction and the local sentient are encouraged to join the fight.

And Rufus doesn't give a shit. The fireworks up in the sky are pretty to watch at night and he's thankful that lost tourists aren't driving down the road to his beat-up ranch. He does wonder why his two ranchhands never came back from a night on the town, but suspects they got drunk and the Sheriff is making them work off some community service. He doesn't care. Fences will get fixed someday, he has plenty of whiskey and cornmeal in the pantry, and meat in the pigpen.

Until the night two ships come crashing out of the sky on top of his barn and pigpen, disgorging people shooting at each other in fancy costumes. Pissed off about losing his bacon and beef, Rufus joins the fight, deciding to start with the bugs with tentacles rather than the folks with two arms and legs in fancy armor. He's having fun until the house blows up.

Out of whiskey, he decides to head to town for more supplies and a load of lumber to fix the roof, arguing with his old Ford pickup all the way into town. When the hell did his truck learn to talk?

System Apocalypse with a grumpy old man