Ravens Fly South

I've just uploaded my latest story onto Smashwords - it's quite short, at just over 18,000 words, but it finishes off Owain's story from Raven's Heirs.
It should be available tomorrow.

Arab Saddles

My characters are visiting a Middle Eastern kingdom, and Owain has been invited out for a ride in the countryside. I needed to know what an Arab saddle looked like, and I came upon the perfect picture for the horse being ridden by his host the Amir.

I found this picture on the blog Blind to Bounds (thinkloud65.wordpress.com), posted back in 2012, where they say it is a Moroccan saddle.

Writing in a Time of Enforced Idleness

I'm sitting at home twiddling my thumbs. I have entertainment of various kinds - I listened to a podcast episode of Breaking the Glass Slipper yesterday, and I'm in the middle of Francis Pryor's fascinating book about the excavations at Flag Fen - but I also want to be doing something creative with my time.
So I read the Mah Jongg oracle cards the other day, and they told me I should be doing more writing.
It occurred to me that I'd intended to write a sequel to the very first story I'd put up on Smashwords, way back in 2012, but then I moved on to other stories instead. Since I made the story (Raven's Heirs) free, more than 700 people have downloaded it, which is very gratifying.
I can't find the notes I made for the sequel now, but I have a rough idea of what I was planning, and today I sat down and immersed myself in that world again.
I'm feeling quite enthusiastic about getting back to work on it - and it'll keep me out of mischief for the duration.

Smashwords Sale

Because of all the people stuck at home at the moment, Smashwords decided to hold a special sale for a month. I decided to put all my stories in the sale for free - and more people have downloaded them in the last week than in the previous 5 years! Which is lovely, and I hope they enjoy reading them.

Li Bic and the Golden Dawn

I've just uploaded my latest story onto Smashwords, and added the cover on the side-bar here. I'm just waiting for them to approve the publication, which usually takes a day or so.
It's a ripping yarn that takes my Steampunk heroine, Li Bic, from the Victorian music halls of London, across Europe on an airship, up the Nile, and into the unexplored interior of Africa, pitting her wits against members of the Order of the Golden Dawn.
I had a lot of fun doing all the research!

The Horniman Museum

I've been on my holidays, and doing some research for my latest story.
It involves the Order of the Golden Dawn, and I knew that they met at what is now the Horniman Museum, back in 1896. So that was the first place to look at.
And it just shows the value of going to the places you're researching, because the original villa no longer exists. The original Museum was opened in 1890, but the collection continued to grow, so in 1898 a new Museum was built on the site of the house in Forest Hill, which opened in 1901. There are also extensive gardens - a Farmer's Market was taking place by the bandstand when we were there - and the museum has had various extensions over the years.

Here's the mosaic over the original entrance (the Young Man remembers going in that way as a child) and the bandstand, which has a fine view over the city.

So we had fun looking round the free exhibitions - the music gallery underground is absolutely brilliant, crammed with all sorts of instruments from all around the world, including experimental instruments like a harmonica/flute. We also said hello to the walrus, in the middle of the natural history gallery, which is famous enough to appear in a mural under a bridge near the station.

I'm going to have to use my imagination for the scenes in my story that take place at the Horniman residence, though, since the house no longer exists.

The Horniman family were tea merchants, as shown on a brick frieze further down the hill:

It's quite long, and seems to show scenes related to local history.

Celebrating!

I sold two books on Smashwords today!
Someone bought The Secret of Saynshand and The Ministry of Unladylike Behaviour at the same time!
I am now celebrating with a bottle of Adnams Ghost Ship pale ale.

Taoist Priestesses

So I've just spent a very happy week with my Young Man, during which we did a bit of brainstorming on my latest story. My Steampunk heroine is researching Chinese magic, and as a result, I've been attempting some online research. After a while, I discovered sites talking about Taoist magic, and I was delighted to find that there are Taoist priestesses. So Li Bic will be meeting someone like this in her search for a ritual good enough to fool a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn (she's putting her head somewhat into the lion's den in this one, tangling with real Western ritual magicians!).

The Ministry of Unladylike Warfare

So I've finally put my latest story on Smashwords - and somewhat to my surprise, I've already sold 2 copies!
I had a lot of fun with this one, researching the early days of the British secret service and SOE and then, in the second half of the story, sending my heroine, Li Bic, to Manchester's Chinatown - which didn't actually exist in 1895, but this is my alternate history, so in my universe the Chinese started arriving from Hong Kong in the 1860s instead of the 1960s.
I was at a panel discussion at EasterCon last year, at the Manchester Hilton, which was talking about Manchester's rich history and wondering why more stories are not set there, especially in the Steampunk genre, when Manchester was the manufacturing capital of the world as far as cotton was concerned!
I'd already decided to send Bic there, but hearing the talk gave me added confidence - it would have been lazy to send her to London, and I wanted to play with the history of my home city.

And, since Bic is undercover as an American newspaper reporter, here are the offices of the Manchester Guardian, which she visits in the course of the story.

Zhou Shu Liang, Painter of Native American Scenes

Over on Facebook, I've been sharing beautiful art to break up the relentless bad news of current affairs, and I came across this artist. Zhou Shu Liang was born in China, and comes from a family of artists. In 1982, he moved to the United States and gained his BFA in painting from Massachusetts College of Arts in 1986, and his MFA from Boston University in 1989.
While he was there, he spent some time painting scenes of the Wampanoag Indian culture at the outdoor museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He's made Native American culture his speciality since then, and his paintings are beautifully detailed. He pays a lot of attention to historical accuracy, and has made many contacts and friends among Native tribes across the US.
Many of his pictures show Native warriors, but the one I particularly liked when I visited his website at www.liangstudio.com was this one:

It's called Pueblo Market 1920 - and it immediately made me think of one of the main characters in my Steampunk stories. The white lady bending over the little girl's wares is just as I imagine Amelia Harper would be.

ZS Liang's prints and paintings are available at several galleries in the United States.

Steampunk Accessories

A friend shared this picture with me on Facebook. It's made by Broadarrow Jack Leather, and it's a fan holster!
It's just perfect for Li Bic, the main character in my Steampunk stories, to keep her fighting fan!

Royalties!

I'm ridiculously pleased to have recieved an email from Smashwords, telling me that I have earned the grand total of $10.90 from my novels!
Wow! What should I do with this windfall? :)
Actually, I'm just ridiculously pleased that someone out there has read my work (and presumably enjoyed the sample enough to buy the full story)!

Manchester in 1901

Manchester in 1901

Amazing footage of Manchester city centre in 1901!Source: BFI

Posted by The MANC Bible on Monday, 14 March 2016

A street scene in Manchester in 1901, only five years after the date of the story I'm writing at the moment, so this is just the sort of research I'm looking out for!

Researching Manchester's Railway Stations

My newly qualified secret agent, Li Bic, is being sent to Manchester to investigate the Chinatown there (which didn't actually exist in 1896, but I'm sending it back in time for the purposes of the story). So naturally, she will arrive by rail - but which station?
It surprised me to find that Manchester Piccadilly has only been known by that name since about 1960, but there has been a station on the site since 1842. For most of that time, it was known as London Road Station, and they even had postcards:

It looks a little bit different today, but that ramp in the foreground is still there.

Horwood House - secret agent training school!

I've started writing the sequel to The Secret of Saynshand, in which my heroine, Li Bic, is sent for training as a secret agent.
She arrives in England, in proper Steampunk fashion, aboard an airship, which lands at Northolt Aerodrome. This was the predecessor to Heathrow.
I knew I wanted the training school to be a country house somewhere in Southern England, but where?
So I had a look at a railway map - and found the line going to Bletchley. Bletchley Park, as a code breaking institution, didn't exist in 1895, of course, and neither did nearby Milton Keynes, but one of the villages close by might fit the bill for my purposes.
Great Horwood sounded as if it was the sort of place that would have a Hall.
So I looked it up - the house is actually called Horwood House, and seems to be a hotel where they do weddings now - and it is absolutely perfect as a setting!

The Secret of Saynshand

I've just been on Smashwords, uploading my new story.
It's a Steampunk adventure, featuring intrepid secret agents, Mongolian Book Bandits and a dastardly Russian plot involving the trans-Mongolian railway.
Li Bic, a Chinese-American young lady from San Francisco, and Amelia Harper, from England, are the heroines, and I had great fun researching their travels through China on the Grand Canal, and up into Mongolia and the town of Saynshand, on the edge of the Gobi desert.

My book covers are very basic, but there are websites full of the most appalling covers which were designed by professionals working for proper publishers. The title and author are the most important things - and the image is of Bic's fighting fan. It's now been added to the side bar, and there is a link to my Smashwords page at the bottom of the blog list.

The Secret of Saynshand

First draft completed - 28,000 words roughly.
Now to go back and fill in all the plot holes and write extra scenes (like explaining how an American comes to be working for the British Secret Service)!

Disney Princesses as Indian Brides

I found this picture, and others depicting Disney Princesses, on the tumblr Worried about my Fern. She had found the pictures and re-blogged them. They're the work of Vancouver-based wedding photographer Amrit Grewal.
I don't actually know a lot about Disney princesses - that whole craze happened after I was a child - but I presume this is Mulan.
So this is the picture I'll be looking at from now on when I'm thinking about Li Bic, the main character in the Steampunk adventure I'm writing. I already have a picture for her partner Amelia Harper:

Lost Treasure of Ytir

Well, I've just pressed "Publish" on the last in my fantasy trilogy, and added the cover picture to the side bar here. It will be available from Smashwords shortly.
Lost Treasure of Ytir features a werewolf, a dragon, a unicorn horn, a plot to overthrow the Ard Ri of Ytir (which is the High King), and lots of magic. And one of my main characters has to make a life-changing decision. It was great fun to write, and I hope it will be as much fun to read.

Victorian Ladies' Exercise

I've started writing a Steampunk adventure, during which my two heroines decide to take some healthy exercise while travelling on a barge up the Chinese Grand Canal.
Trouble was, I had no idea what they would be doing. I've never been a sporty person, apart from walking and archery - but Amelia and her Chinese friend Bic are definitely active, sporty types who are keen on keeping fit.
So I asked my Young Man, and instantly got the perfect response - club hurling, or Indian clubs. Even better, I found this picture:

My characters wouldn't be wearing a long skirt like that though - they'd be dressed more like these girls in a gym class in 1899:

That should scandalise the locals!