Keith's April Newsletter

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Welcome One and All

Hope everyone is enjoying the slew of bank holidays that have come our way in recent months, as well as the smattering of nice weather. Much has been going on here at the Steam Factory (some of it not steampunk related at all!) so without further ado...

Window Shopping. And Bricks. And Mortar.

I've been looking at buying a house, and it is absolute carnage out there! Houses going for 20% over the asking price, and getting sold within a week. It's insane. So I've decided to hold fire for a little bit longer, see how the cost of living crisis changes things. A wise man knows when to move forward, when to retreat, and when to stand still, and in all things I always try to act like a wise man (despite the evidence to the contrary).

News From The Steam Factory

I'm happy to say that I made the Luna Press deadline, and that

Glunda The Veg Witch

is with them now. At thirty-two thousand words Glunda counts as either a mid-length novella or a short YA novel, depending on your point of view. Which it ends up being depends in large part on who ends up publishing it, lol.

They say everyone who applied should hear back by 10th May so fingers crossed for that, although truth be told I'm not too worried. If they don't want it I know of a couple of agents who might be interested. Happy to shop this one around, see what happens. And if all else fails I can still publish it myself. Not gonna let a good story go to waste.

Other than finalising the design of the Dragonfly with my illustrator (see above) I've been working on a number of things, including a new short story starring

Inspector Lassiter

, and a variety of promotional opportunities on Twitter that are not fully fleshed out yet. The short story I intend to make part of a mini anthology I'll be giving away free, sort of an intro to the world of Hammersmyth to get people into the books. I've still a few more stories to write to go in it, but all being well it should be ready before the release of

The Dragonfly Delivery Company

(more on that at the end).

When I'm Not Writing

My media game has been a little off this month. Did a bunch of night shifts which really messes with my brain. Haven't done much consuming of anything really, made all the more difficult because of the nature of the few things I have consumed.

Let me explain...

If there's one trope I don't like it's the use of dreams and/or alternate timelines. I don't like dreams because they don't matter, what happens in them isn't real, and I don't like alternate timelines (where someone goes into the past, changes something, then our heroes have to go back and fix what was broken) because there is only going to be one outcome - everything goes back to normal. So you can imagine what a hard time I've been having with

Moon Knight

and

Picard

this past month.

Moon Knight

is all about other worlds and fantasy realities, with the main character having several personalities living in one head. You never quite know what's going on, what's real, and so you (as in me) never quite care about the outcome. At any minute it could all be a dream, and so really who cares what happens?

Picard

is all "real", but it's one of those fix-the-past-to-save-the-future deals. As I've said already, you know they're going to succeed, so does it matter what happens in the meantime?

I hate dreams as a means of storytelling. I think they're lazy. Also they make the narrator unreliable, and once you do that all bets are off, I stop being vested in a story. Now if that's what you're trying to achieve, fine. But if it's not then in my book they're something to be avoided.

You might ask why I persist in watching them if they're so unsatisfying? Well, they're not so bad that I'm willing to give up. They're still enjoyable in their own way (although how badly each one has treated one of my favourite characters is fodder for another story!) I just know that if they suddenly stopped bringing out new episodes I wouldn't notice, or even care. That is what dreams and unreliable narration do to me.

So, lots of irons in the fire but no big developments as yet. Hopefully this coming month will see some major progress. It's

International Steampunk Day

in June, when I intend to bring out

The Dragonfly Delivery Company

. I'm hopeful that can still happen, but I'm aware of the encroaching deadline, and the slow progress of the project.

I'll still be doing something to celebrate the day - I kind of have to, lol - although quite what I don't know yet. Perhaps an online reading or something. Just how much I am able to do depends in great part on what happens in May.

Wish me luck!

Toodle-pip for now.

Keith