I hope everyone had a nice holiday season. For me, I usually consider the official end of the holidays to be on my birthday (mid-January). No sense is going back to dieting and all that crap for just a couple weeks, right? Right 🙂
Anyway, finalizing many projects for this coming year and figured I would give a little info about what I will be working on.
First up, The Outsider. I say first up – you can’t really be 100% sure of the order of these things, but it’s a good tentative guess. Now, back to the The Outsider…
For years, I have dabbled in assorted types of instrumental music under one name or another. I’ve always wanted to go kind of “freestyle” though. Just sit down for a few days, lose my mind and see what comes out on tape.
The first week of January, I did just that. I completed two of four tracks. I expect to wrap up recording on the rest by end of this month and, since it’s going to be outside of the label system, I’m just going to put it out once it’s done. No promo build up, no hoopla. It’s just an piece I’ve always wanted to make.
Working title is The Outsider and I will be releasing it under my name (first time ever). I’ll post make a few posts about it once it’s ready. But, it is high on the list and should be out first quarter of 2025, for sure.
More music… another old re-issue will be out on Valentine’s Day. This time it’s Project: PornTrack from RFH. This was from the same time period as Strange Highways was, same software. I thought it would be funny to do a DIY porno soundtrack. So, I did. I built a bunch of instrumental tracks for you, you and your partner or you and your group of friends to use as background music lol. Anyway, it’s my warped sense of humor and it will be re-released under the RFH handle on all the digital platforms.
On the writing side, I’m hoping to publish two works this year. The first is called my first “full length” (aka not a short story) called EternaLife. It’s a little about mind control and other things that I don’t want to give away too much about right now. There will be decent promo on this one, so you’ll know when it’s coming, for sure.
The other I’m in progress on and plan on releasing next Fall is tentatively called Uncle Jeff’s Once Upon a Time: A collection of Thoughtful Bedtime Stories for Children and their Grown-Ups. It’s basically done. Just has mega-editing to do. The idea is “moral of the story” tales. When I started on it early in 2024, the ideas just kept flowing. So, trying to weed out the weaker ingredients and make a smoother read. More on that later.
What else? Oh, my Mixed Bags is still very much an active project. For those who don’t know, last year I started working on converting some family favorite recipes into recipes made from dry ingredients that could be sold in bags – you know the drill – dump it in, add water or whatever and enjoy.
My first “bag” was for something my mom used to make. We called them sweet hot pickles. They are very hard to describe and have a truly unique taste. Anyway, I got the recipe down, did some taste testing and I think it’s fair to say that first recipe is ready to go. Everyone to tested it was happy with the results.
The next step is to work on packaging and a sugar-free version. Once both of those are together, I will be able to start selling here in Texas. If you’re interested in it, it’s called Elder’s Mixed Bags (facebook page, etc).
Speaking of social media, I am now on Blue Sky. If you’d like to follow me there, my handle is @jeffelder.bsky.social
Ok ok ok… I’d say we’re caught up. Thanks, again, for joining me on this ride. It’s been fun and I intend to do my best to keep things interesting as we move forward.
Jeff