I don’t think it’s any surprise to the folks that follow me that Me and the Word Witch enjoy a spin around the county on the motorcycle for a bit of WIND THERAPY.
There really ain’t much else like being on the back of a bike and cruising down an open highway. There’s a zen that comes from the rush of wind and rumble of the pipes.
While doing some regular maintenance on Veronica, my 1996 Kawasaki Vulcan 800, I found that the main wiring harness had finally given up. It’ll take a full strip down and rewire or I’ll just replace the stock wiring harness, (which had issues to start with).
But…
I have been considering for a very long while about getting a new bike that has more power for riding with the both of us. The 800cc that the Vulcan has, plus the extra ponies after I re-jetted the carburetor and made several other modifications that increased her power output, was great for scooting around by myself. But she just didn’t have the get-up-and-go that I wanted with both of us on the bike. Getting caught in a traffic issue and the only good way out is to power your way through is really difficult when you don’t have the ponies to do it with.
So…
I did a thing yesterday.
Meet Josie, a 2021 Harley-Davidson Road King Special with the 114 Milwalkie-8 powerplant, (over 1800cc) and my new ride.
During the purchase, I made a few tweaks to what you see in the picture. When we make the trip north to pick her up, she’ll have a windscreen, backrest, rear floorboards, and luggage rack installed and ready for us to roll back to Georgia.
Probably the funniest thing about this entire process has been the number of people at that dealership who were surprised that we were getting a rental car to drive up there, then drop it off after we pick up the bike so we can RIDE back. It seems like more people buy bikes for the sake of saying they have one and to look pretty at events than to actually ride the damn things.
Our run back will put over 600 miles on her in a weekend. Because, why the hell not. I’m not buying it to sit around and look pretty. I’m buying it to ride the wheels off.
Alright, enough yammering. Time for the update stuff.
Currently working on
Cranking away as many words as I can manage on Black Tooth Grin. I really want to have the draft of my next JTF-13 novel done before LibertyCon. On top of that, I’ve been working on the edits for my story “Messenger of Death” which is one of the anchor stories in the Intergalactic Rejects Anthology. Which, I will shoot the raw file out to all of you paid supporters over on Patreon to check out, and once I get the final file polished and ready, I’ll kick it out to you guys as well. Thank you for your support. Every little bit helps out.
Reading
Last weekend I wrapped up another little western and started my next.
“To Tame a Land by Louis L’Amour was a great read, even if the earlier bits seemed rushed, it was still a great adventure. Well worth the time spent.
And I followed up with staring my first read-through of “Radigan”, which is one of his Range Wars stories where folks come in claiming the land as theirs and he has to fight them for every inch of land. Great so far and one chapter to go.
Listening To
Today has been one of those crazy days where I binged one band, and that band was Nekrogoblikon.
Writing Tip
Unless you’re the type that absolutely has to go in sequential order, don’t worry if a scene isn’t coming to you. Move to the next or even the ending. Write the scene that’s screaming at you and put it all together later. That way you aren’t stagnant, you’re still putting in your word count.
Patreon
If you enjoy my posts and want to see behind-the-scenes sneak peeks at my writing, go check out my Patreon account.