Book Review: Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell

I received a free copy of this book in a blog giveaway.  There were no strings attached; I don't have to review it, but I want to anyway.
It is impossible not to compare this book with Cinder by Marissa Meyer. They're just so much alike in basic form.  However, Cinder is sci-fi, and Mechanica is a steampunk fairytale.  And, of the two, I like Mechanica better, mostly because Cornwell does not pretend to have a strong female character but then undermine her by giving her some Twilighty obsession with abusive men, which is what Meyer does, and which is why I stopped reading her Lunar Chronicles a few chapters into the third book.
Cornwell, in contrast, creates a truly empowered protagonist named Nick, who bucks the system, doesn't give up her life to marry the handsome prince, and won't bow to stereotypical family structures. (Hailing from Utah, as I do, where families are so habitually defined narrowly as only heterosexual parents plus kids, I really liked how Cornwell was willing to admit that a girl might not want to choose just one guy and that a family can be whatever one decides it is.)
However, I did have a few problems with the book:
1) Nick is too good at too many things.  She works with metal and glass?  She's good at sales, too?  She's also a good businesswoman?
2) All her problems were resolved far too easily.  Her stepfamily never notices anything.  Very little gets in the way of her success.
3) A lot is left hanging.  We never find out much about the magic.  Characters just disappear without being picked up again.  Is there going to be a sequel?  This might help, but it still felt odd.

Overall, it's a good read, and I'm going to get some copies in my classroom.  But it feels a bit like a draft of a book rather than a finished copy.

A Little List of Steampunk For Your Reading Pleasure

I love steampunk -- when it's done right.  And what do I mean by that?  Well, I mean that it's actually set in the age of steam.  I'm good if there's a bit of paranormal involved.  Or clockwork.  But if it's all magic, then it's not steampunk, as far as I'm concerned.  Plus, the book should not be set before 1800 nor after 1900  (although Scott Westerfeld's steampunk WWI series is so good, I'll make an exception for it.).

So, if you like steampunk, I have some suggestions for you, both for things you should read and things you shouldn't bother to pick up.

Steampunk for Adults:

1. All Men of Genius by Lev AC Rosen.
This is my favorite steampunk book ever.  It is NOT a series (for a change!).  It mixes 12th Night with Victoriana and steam in a wonderful way.  It has no direct sex, but many mentions of it are made.  I think it would be suitable for mature teens, but I wouldn't put it in my classroom for fear of repercussions.
2. The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger.
This is too spicy for school, but it's pretty tame for adults.  (This is no 50 shades of steam.)  This series has paranormal in it, too -- and it's hilarious.
3. Gears of Wonderland by Jason G. Anderson.
Alice gets an action/adventure, guy-friendly makeover with this tale.  And it's a bit violent, but most teens should be fine with it.
4. The Hounds of Autumn by Heather Blackwood
This is rather a steampunk, female Hound of the Baskervilles.  I liked it very much.  It has one or two adult references.
5. Prudence by Gail Carriger (sequel to come)
This is set some 20 years after the Parasol Protectorate.  It would be suitable for most teens, but there are hints that book 2 (Imprudence) may be spicier.
6. Doktor Glass by Thomas Brennan
Not bad.  Adult characters, violence, and plot

Steampunk for YA:
1. The Etiquette and Espionage series by Gail Carriger
These are prequels to The Parasol Protectorate -- and they're hilarious
2.  The Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld
WWI steampunk with 2 protagonists.  Masterful and a good way to get boys to accept a book with a female protagonist.  Again, there is that hint of 12th Night.
3. Ripper by Stefan Petrucha
Mostly action/adventure. Mildly steampunk.  Good book
4. The Friday Society by Adrienne Kress
Steampunk Charlie's Angels.  Pretty good, although it tries a little too hard to be multi-cultural and feels stilted
5. Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
Not bad.  Desert island survival stuff
6. This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel (has sequels)
This is sort of steampunk and sort of alchemy.  It's really set too early to be steampunk, as it reimagines what Viktor Frankenstein's early life might have been like.
7. The Inventor's Secret by Andrea Cremer
The steampunk is great; the plot and character development are filled with holes and inconsistencies.
8. The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron
Sort of steampunk, mostly not.
9. The Fever Crumb series by Philip Reeve
Steampunk, but dark and depressing
10.  The Unnaturalists by Tiffany Trent
Heavy on the magic, mild on the steampunk.  Plot predictable.
11. A Lady of Devices by Shelley Adina
Meh.  She tried for Oliver Twist in reverse.  The steampunk is pretty good, but the plot feels contrived.

Don't bother with these:
1. The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross
This was so poorly-written I could barely get through it.  Garbage.
2.  The Iryn Worm Affair by Lillith Saintcrow
Awkward plot.  Too much magic.
3. The Golden Compass series by Phillip Pullman
The first one wasn't bad, but then he tried to write a kids' version of CS Lewis' creepy outer-space mythology, only in reverse.  The three books build up to what should be a totally apocalyptic battle between God and the forces of evil -- and then it just peters out into nothing.  It is the LAMEST battle ever.  Seriously, the crap that Stephenie Meyer wrote into Breaking Dawn (yeah, I trudged through that slime) is more gripping.
Also, I cannot really tell why people say this series is steampunk.
4. Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare
I tried for a week to get into the first one of these -- and I could not.  I could not figure out what was going on, and I could not care two bits about the characters.
I have no clue why these books are selling so well.

Book Review: Prudence by Gail Carriger

Author Gail Carriger began her steampunk paranormal world of tea and parasols with Soulless, which is book one in the Parasol Protectorate series.  (The whole series is a delightful blend of steampunk, espionage, vampires, werewolves, and Victoriana.  It has references to sex -- straight and not-so-straight -- in it, but no real descriptions of anything. It's probably a bit much for the junior high crowd, but a high school kid ought to be just fine with it.)  Carriger then jumped back in time in her fictional world with a 4-volume (the fourth not yet released) series of prequels, beginning with Etiquette and Espionage.  (This series is definitely YA, and it does contain some of the same characters as the Protectorate, as werewolves and vampires are immortal.)  Most recently, Carriger has released Prudence, which begins what appears to be at least a duology set 20 years after the end of the Parasol Protectorate series and featuring the daughter of the two main characters therein. Below is my review thereof:

This was less YA than Etiquette and Espionage, but much more so than Soulless and the rest.  There is a bit of talk about making love, but no actual activity other than a bit of kissing.  There are some humorous nudity scenes with not much description of bodies.  Overall, I think only the most strict parents would disapprove of this.  I certainly wouldn't have found it shocking when I was 14 or so.
As for the rest, the characters are fully developed and delightful, as usual for Carriger.  (I was disappointed that she never tells us what's become of Tunstell, Primrose and Percy's father.)  And many of our old favorites (Professor Lyall!!) appear again.
The plot moves along trippingly and with much fun, but the book does end on a mild cliff-hanger, with a couple of big issues obviously waiting for the next book, which I believe is called Imprudence. :)  (I hope it's out soon!)

Book Review: The Inventor's Secret by Andrea Cremer

I was pleased to see this as a new acquisition on our school library shelves.  I hadn't heard of it, but the blurb sounded promising.

Sixteen-year-old Charlotte and her fellow refugees have scraped out an existence on the edge of Britain’s industrial empire. Though they live by the skin of their teeth they have their health (at least when they can find enough food and avoid the Imperial Labor Gatherers) and each other. When a new exile with no memory of his escape from the coastal cities or even his own name seeks shelter in their camp he brings new dangers with him and secrets about the terrible future that awaits all those who have struggled has to live free of the bonds of the empire’s Machineworks.

The Inventor’s Secret is the first book of a YA steampunk series set in an alternate nineteenth-century North America where the Revolutionary War never took place and the British Empire has expanded into a global juggernaut propelled by marvelous and horrible machinery.


And it was steampunk!  Obviously, I had to read it.
So I did.  Until 2:00 AM.
My conclusion?  Meh.

The book's greatest strength is the steampunk.  Seriously, this Cremer person DOES steampunk setting right!  We have a whole cave town under what appears to be Niagra Falls, invention rooms, an electro-magnetic gun that kills huge rats, the coolest submarine ever, airships, a floating city (NYC, re-imagined), a tinker town, a Wizard-of-Oz-type gypsy/palmreader, a metal forest, a hive of slightly-bonkers inventors, rebellion against the Empire, air-pressure-powered elevators, a gigantic Ferris wheel (before Ferris wheels were invented, but oh well), and more.  This is steampunk to the Nth degree!
So why did I not fall in love with the book?
Well, Cremer's greatest weakness is inconsistency.  Frankly, a lot of things did not make sense, even within the world of the book.  Let's take this cave community where about 2 dozen teens and children live, hiding from the evil Empire while their parents are off fighting -- and apparently never check in.  The cave itself has plumbing -- with sewage drains and hot water -- supposedly added by earlier groups of kids.  Okaaaayyyy.  Also, there are no adults to teach the kids how to run their own mini-society so they don't go all Lord of the Flies, but the kids just "naturally" follow whoever decides to be the leader.  Riiiiiggght.  (Note: has Cremer ever dealt with groups of kids before???)  There's no in-fighting.  And no jealousy.  Suuurre. *rolls eyes*  Plus, Cremer never explains where they get their food.  She has them raid dumps for scrap metal to make the spiffy submarine and such, but they eat cheese and bread.  Where does it come from?  Are they making their own?  If so, where do they get the flour and the milk?  Or are they stealing the food?  If so, how is it that no one has ever caught or noticed kids repeatedly stealing food for at least a decade?  And why has the constantly-watching Empire never noticed the smoke from cooking fires and laboratories?  Why are these kids not living off forest animals and foraged berries or the fungus Cremer mentions grows in the cave?
Then there's Charlotte, the protagonist.  Where do all of her spiffy corsets and leather dresses come from?  Who's making those?  If it's one of the kids, how did a child learn to sew such difficult stuff?
And when Charlotte has to fake being a fine lady in NYC, she seems to learn all about society in a day or two.  No other girl considers her a rival (not even the girl who obviously should).  No one notices her social faux pas.  No comment is made when she shows up to make her debut in high society in a dress that is at least 25 years out of style.  (Granted, Charlotte would not know it was out of style, and perhaps the military leader who hustles her into that dress to scoot her to the event in a hurry before his brother finds out doesn't know much about ladies' dresses.  But no girls or their mamas at the ball laugh or gossip or notice her.  Look, this is the social equivalent of Kate Middleton's showing up at a Royal event with an 80s mullet.  People WOULD NOTICE.  But no one does.  What the heck?  Cremer sets this in 1816.  Has she never read Pride and Prejudice??!!)
Now, Charlotte's incredibly bad taste in guys can be set down to hormones, so that's believable (although I wanted to slap her a couple of times), but she has a major, unexplained reaction when she meets a woman who, grieving over the death of her son, left her husband to join a religious commune.  Charlotte freaks out in a rant about how horrible the woman is.  Yet Charlotte sees absolutely nothing wrong with the fact that she knows a couple of dozen children abandoned by their parents who are fighting for the rebellion.  So, she finds it socially acceptable for parents to leave children unattended for a decade but socially unacceptable for a woman to leave her healthy and employed husband for a different kind of life.  Her reaction is completely unexplained in the book.

Also, the book is clearly part of a series.  The ending of the book is really just the ending of a chapter, and there are a couple of nasty cliffhangers just dangling there.

So, overall, my recommendation would be don't read it yet.  Wait until the whole series is out, then read it as one reads a cozy mystery or a beach novel: don't expect too much.  This is not a tightly-written book, but rather an exhibition of steampunk ideas in a sloppy plot.

My New Favorite Christmas Carol

"Shovel more coal into the boiler; Set the airship for the North Pole.
As we float through the sky, keep a watchful eye
For reindeer out the porthole.
Strap your goggles on against the blizzard.
Hang a wreath on each hatchway.
As we all sail up, raise the wassail cup
To the steampunk holiday."

Full Steam Ahead!

My 7th grade gifted and talented class is doing a bit with steampunk literature right now, and today I wanted to let them hear a little steampunk music during their break time.  (We have 80-minute classes, which is a LOT when you're 12 years old, so I give a five-minute break for them to talk about half-way through class.)

My favorite steampunk band is The Cog Is Dead, and when I went to pull up a video or two of theirs on youtube, I discovered that they'd released a new album!  I have no clue how I missed the release news, especially since I follow them on twitter.  Nevertheless, let me share with you one of the most fun numbers from their new album, Full Steam Ahead:

*****

Oh, swear! *&&^%

Once again, blogger won't upload something from a URL.

Fine.  Be that way.

*sulks in front of monitor*

Here's a link, then.  I hope that works, at least.

Hmph!

Going Vintage

Monday was Presidents' Day, and I should have been grading essays.  But instead I went nuts making "vintage" images for new products on my zazzle Shafer ArtWorks store.

Isn't this one gorgeous?
My sister-in-law refers us as The Shafer Museum.  We seem to have everything odd we might need at sometime.
Seriously, to get ready for this photo shoot, I walked from room-to-room in the house, grabbing scrapbook paper, Tim Holz gears and clock faces, public domain photos (that's Evelyn Nesbit in the above photo, the girl who beat Miley Cyrus and her wrecking ball by a century when she swung about in the nude on a velvet swing), Victorian valentine reproductions, vintage jewelry, antique books, dip pens and ink (with extra nibs), lace, ribbon, a silk rose, a decorative plate, antique buttons, antique marbles, dried lavender blossoms, and my Cannon point-and-shoot.
My photo studio was the landing on the stairs where the light was good.
For about 30 minutes, I positioned and repositioned still lifes, switched angles, and made shots.  Then I cleaned up, uploaded the photos onto my laptop, and dinked around on iPhoto with the effects button for a while.
Presto!  Cool, steampunky, vintage-look, "gaslight romance," psuedo-Victorian photos!

I love this one, too!

This one is made into a pocket journal with a wrap-around cover, so half the photo's on the other side.

I call this one the Time Traveler's Notebook.  :)

And there are more, but suddenly blogger's throwing fits about the URLs again.  I hate it when it does that; there's no rhyme or reason to it!  Ugh.
Oh well.
Please drop by Shafer ArtWorks and check out these notebooks to see the rest!

Clockwork Christmas Is Now Available! (And I'm Giving Away Two E-Copies This Week!)

My steampunk Christmas short story collection is now available on Amazon for 99¢.  Just click here.

It's Christmas, 1874, like you've never experienced it before.  Like it never was, actually.

In "The Cephalopod Who Saved Christmas," lighthouse keeper Zeke Longstalks is troubled by his son Timmy's request for a Christmas tree when there's no way to cross the dangerous shoals of the River Victorianna -- the largest in all Pacifica -- in order to find one.  In "The Steampirates of St. Andrews," merchant sailman (and sometime smuggler) London Sunday is over the North Sea aboard the airship La Virgen del Aire, hoping for a way to distance himself from the noisy, smelly animals below deck.  In "The Wise Men and the Angel," apprentices Bertie Haven and Oliver Laird are worried that the secrets of their employer's son might become public with the arrival of the theocratic leader of the Independent State of Deseret.  And in "The Reason," Derrik Andrews sits in a boardinghouse in New York City, longing for a future which has been stolen from him -- by his own mistake.

These four short stories form a stand-alone collection, but they also serve as a teaser forThe Chocolate Smuggler's Notebook, an upcoming steampunk adventure by Lisa Shafer.


To celebrate the official release, I'm giving away two e-copies this week.  Here's the rafflecopter entry form:


a Rafflecopter giveaway

The winners will be announced on Thanksgiving Day.

Announcing Clockwork Christmas! (And Requesting Reviewers.)

It's Christmas, 1874, like you've never experienced it before.  Like it never was, actually.

In "The Cephalopod Who Saved Christmas," lighthouse keeper Zeke Longstalks is troubled by his son Timmy's request for a Christmas tree when there's no way to cross the dangerous shoals of the River Victorianna -- the largest in all Pacifica -- in order to find one.  In "The Steampirates of St. Andrews," merchant sailman (and sometime smuggler) London Sunday is over the North Sea aboard the airship La Virgen del Aire, hoping for a way to distance himself from the noisy, smelly animals below deck.  In "The Wise Men and the Angel," apprentices Bertie Haven and Oliver Laird are worried that the secrets of their employer's son might become public with the arrival of the theocratic leader of the Independent State of Deseret.  And in "The Reason," Derrik Andrews sits in a boardinghouse in New York City, longing for a future which has been stolen from him -- by his own mistake.

These four short stories form a stand-alone collection, but they also serve as a teaser for The Chocolate Smuggler's Notebook, an upcoming steampunk adventure by Lisa Shafer.


*****
And so, I finished this over the weekend.  It's 33 pages, a collection of four steampunk Christmas short stories.  I plan to release it on November 25 and sell it -- e-book only -- for 99¢ on Amazon.
However, I hate to see it languishing unreviewed, as is the fate of most of my books for weeks after publication.  But this needs to be out for Christmas sales; it can't wait weeks for reviews.
Thus, if anyone would like to have a free PDF copy of it THIS week, ahead of publication, and with the promise you'll post a review of it on Amazon -- and I hope on Goodreads as well -- as soon as the book is available (i.e. on November 25), please leave your e-mail address in a comment (I won't publish the comment if it has an address in it.) below or else tweet or DM me your e-mail address. @lisamshafer
The book is short, about a half-hour's read.  And the review can be short; a paragraph would be just dandy.
The stories are rather funny -- at least, I think so.
Do I have any takers?  C'mon, it's a FREE BOOK.  Can you resist that?  (I hope not.)

Writing Update 8/12/13

Naturally, Confessions of an Average Half-Vampire and All in the Half-Vampire Family are still for sale.  (Have you entered my Back-To-School Giveaway?)  Here's more about the rest of my writing:

Becoming Brigid:
1) I'm about to start my umpteenth edit on the book.  It's very nearly there.
2) I hope to be requesting hosts for my cover reveal (not the WIP cover seen elsewhere on this blog) and the book trailer very soon.
3) Besides editing the book, I've been making/gathering cool swag for giveaways.  So far, I've put together two swag bags filled with themed items -- and some that just have lots of girl appeal -- and I've been working on two Brigid-themed altered books.  And, yes, of course, I plan to give away copies of the book itself.
4) If all goes well, the book should be released on (fingers crossed) Sept. 13.

The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay:

(Work-in-Process cover only.)

1) This book has been on hold all summer, as I've been so busy with the other books.
2) It needs more beta readers, as most of my 7th graders were unable to finish it last year, due to standardized testing getting in the way.  Thus, only one 9th-grader and one high school junior have beta read.  However, I've got a whole new crop of guinea pigs potential beta readers with FIVE classes of seventh-graders starting up all too soon.  (Seventh-graders begin school this Friday.  No kidding.)  I will not lack for volunteers, so I'm not the least bit worried about this.
3) I still continue my Pinterest board for Nerissa, as the book may have sequels someday.

The Chocolate Smuggler's Notebook:

(WIP cover, but I really like this, so the final cover may be very, very similar.)

1) I finished writing the first draft of chapter 3 last night, and I'm at just over 7000 words.  The rest of the book is in a rough outline stage, and I'm ready to write up a summary of chapter four -- just as soon as I finish this next edit of Brigid.  I hope to be able to finish the first draft of this book by January of 2014.
2) The set of short stories, called The Chocolate Chronicles: Scenes From New Penzance, has been outlined and tied into The Chocolate Smuggler's Notebook.  The plan is still to release the stories in e-book form running up to the release of the novel.  The titles of the short stories (in order) are as follows:
a) "The Tale of London Sunday"
b) "The Tale of Agnes Braithweight"
c) "The Tale of Ellen Andersson"
d) "The Tale of Camilla and Oscar"
e) "The Tale of Captain Annie Lovelark"
3) I have no covers designed yet for the short stories, but I believe I will just use variations on the novel's cover, so as to have a visual tie-in to the main story.  After all, I took a couple of dozen different shots of that cover photo, with the pens and gears and ink all laid out in different ways.  It shouldn't be too hard to construct a few different covers.

So, that's the update.  Now, someone PLEASE help me not to get any more brilliant ideas for books until I can get caught up a bit on these!

Steampunk Stuff

I love steampunk, but I've had kind of a hard time finding steampunk books I really, really love.
I love Gail Carriger's Soulless series, but there's an awful lot of paranormal distracting the steampunk.  And, of course, it's not suitable for junior high school readers, so I can't put it in school.
I read Kenneth Oppel's Airborn and really liked it, but it's really more action/adventure than steampunk.  Still, it's good, and I've got it on my reading lists.  And the man writes very well.
And then there's his This Dark Endeavor and Such Wicked Intent, supposedly steampunk.  But, although I enjoyed both books very much, I found them more about alchemy than steam.  Besides, they're prequels to Frankenstein, which was written in 1816 in Switzerland, not really Victorian London-y at all.
And I was so excited for Tiffany Trent's The Unnaturalists, but it was almost ALL about magic and romance, and I felt the book had been mislabeled by those who held it up as steampunk.  It was really more of a fantasy book set in a museum in Victorian London.
I was underwhelmed by Kady Cross's The Girl in the Steel Corset, which had some fun steampunk elements in it but never once made me care about the characters.
Of course, there is the masterful writer Philip Reeve and his Fever Crumb series.  Definitely steampunk.  So very well done.  But everything I've ever read by this guy is so dark and depressing.
So, Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series is great.  I love it.  It's good for guys and girls.  It promotes feminism, it has action and adventure, it's set at the right time period, and it's all steampunk/alternate history and no magic.  Phew.  That's one really safe option for the junior high.
I also fell in love with Lev AC Rosen's All Men Of Genius.  It's totally steampunk.  It's a Shakespeare parody.  It's feminist.  It's action/adventure + romance.  AND it has Oscar the swearing rabbit.  But it's definitely high school material.  Sex is referred to waaaay too often for this to be in a junior high.
And then there was The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron.  It was sort of steampunk.  It had, you  know, clocks and things.  But to me it felt like a story for young children, like a Santa Claus-in-his-village story.

But then we come to this:

The Friday Society by Adrienne Kress.
This was awesome.
It has feminism in which the women are not only independent, but in which they realize that being independent doesn't necessarily mean sleeping with every possible guy.  It also has women working together to solve problems instead of working against each other to get a guy or else undermine each other.  The only downside is that they're all pretty, which is depressing.  I felt that instead of having them all be Charlie's Angels, at least one of them should have been ordinary-looking.
It is steampunk.  No magic, no paranormal.  Just Victorian London, inventions, explosions, and really cool weapons.
It's funny.  Okay, sometimes it's a bit cartoony.  And the secondary villain was really obvious from the start.  But it was still funny.
It's action/adventure.  Murder, explosions, Jack the Ripper spin-offs, Jeckyll and Hyde philosophy, underground tunnels, Burke and Hare references, and a parrot that's almost as much fun as Rosen's Oscar the rabbit.  (But not quite.)
And it's clean.  I can put it on my school lists.
Yeah, I think I'm in love.

My Steampunk Creations For Tonight

I've been working up ideas for chapter one of The Chocolate Smuggler's Notebook and writing a bit of the same.  (It's a bit tough to stay in character, telling the story in a 19th century style, and not talking like a teenager, like I normally narrate my books.  And also, I keep wanting someone to speak Scots, but that doesn't fit in this book! -- At least not that I know of yet.)
So tonight I have created an air caravan/steampunk airship and a cocoa den --  modeled after an opium den.  Oh, and a steampunk crank lock as well!
*giggles*  This has been fun!
Okay, I've only got a few hundred words of actual writing done, but I've got lots and lots of notes!

What's Next? I'm Thinking Steampunk....

So, on July 4th I finished the first draft of The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay, my YA novella about a girl who accidentally turns herself invisible.  That ms is now in the "ripening" stage, where I can't touch it for weeks, so I can come back to  it, rip it apart, and improve it.  This is, of course, a process which must be done several times before anyone else can even see the manuscript (so they can rip it apart and tell me what needs work).
So what's next?
Well, I have some ideas for a sequel novella, starring Nerissa, and I think I really will write that eventually, but it's too early yet.  I have to see where the first ms is going before I start the second.
All in the Half-Vampire Family is just about ready for publication.  However, the last version of the cover went dreadfully wrong (okay, it just went really dark), and I need to get with Max sometime and fix it.  I still think I can have that one ready for the public by the time school starts, though.  It's really just about there.
I'm also doing the first proof edits of Becoming Brigid, which is fun.  We have the new cover for that one, but it's off-center and a little too rough, so I'll have to work with Max on that one as well (once I'm a little more healed up from surgeries).  And, of course, it'll need several reads-through to get it up to publishing-ready.  I'm also thinking up a booktrailer and swag for this book.  Fun.
All this means it's time to start another manuscript, though.  Besides a sequel about Nerissa, I'm toying with the idea of doing something along the lines of an alternate history Mormon steampunk dystopia.  (Think about it for a second or two and it'll make sense.  Really.)  I know Patricia Wrede tackled alternate history steampunk in the Old West, but I'd like to play with less Laura Ingalls and more Mountain Meadows Massacre.  Let's face it: the Mormons came West to leave the US and form a nation state they called Deseret.  What if they'd succeeded?  And, add to that the usual steampunk tropes of what if the Victorian ideas about science had been correct?  What if aether really existed?  What if we'd stuck with clockwork and steam instead of going to electricity, transistors, and the microchip?  Also, because I'm sick to death of love triangles in YA books for girls, I'd like to throw in a love pentacle (or pentagram, if you prefer) to this one.  Fun?  Does this spark your interest?  Would you pick it up to read or to show it to your favorite teen to read?
My other idea is to do a steampunk fairy tale.  Tons of authors have re-written fairy tales lately, and Marissa Meyer even cyberpunked Cinderella.  But no one has really steampunked a fairy tale yet.
Also, authors keep doing Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, and Little Red Riding Hood over and over again.  I want to do something different.  Perhaps a mash-up of Sleeping Beauty and Rip Van Winkle.  Or I was thinking of the Pied Piper.  No one does that.  That would be cool.
Any ideas?  What are you favorite lesser-known fairy tales that I might take and steampunk?

A Bit Of Something Pinteresting....

Pinterest amuses me.
It's not as time-consuming as blogging or tweeting, and I pick up followers without even trying.  I really like the visual aspect of it, and it actually had become a good place to post idea-starters for my writing.
(Of course, I follow my niece with all her wedding plans and kitties, so that part is getting a little inundating for me.....)
It's no surprise that one of my most popular boards is "Just Funny," which has nothing to do with my writing, but has a very broad appeal.  (It's also been the ONLY place where I've had to delete nasty comments, as two women did NOT like the fact that I posted a pic making fun of girls who think that they're too special to prepare for the future.)  You can check out my sense of humor here.  My newest pin is of Max's blue LTD flying over the supermoon last night.  :)
Equally popular are my boards about Creating Nerissa's Style for my WIP, The (Dis)Appearance of Nerissa MacKay, whereon I pin pictures of things that look like Nerissa might wear, and my Steampunk board, which is just a general  collection, as my steampunk ideas are all very much in the earliest stages.  Both boards have 63 followers.
Coming in right behind those two is my Celtic board, where I pin things related to Becoming Brigid, which is in editing stages.  This board has pictures of places that actually inspired the story, like The Ring of Brodgar in Orkney.  There are 62 followers for this board.  C'mon over and have a look at what I've got posted.
Then, with 61 followers, is my Vampire board, with lots of fun stuff, only some of which matches either of my Half-Vampire books.  Most recently, I pinned pics of vampire hunting kits.  :)  And naturally I have photos of Johnny Depp as Barnabus Collins.  (Mmmm...)
Last night I created two more boards, one about castles (as Nerissa lives in a castle -- plus, I just freakin' love castles!), and one about eerie/cool/odd places that might be good to use as story settings at some future point.  Here's the Castles board.  And here's the Places and Spaces board.
Pay me a visit and see if anything catches your interest!