Gears, Gloves, and Unemployment

I am now officially an unemployed, starving artist! Today, I put my resignation in at my full-time job in order to take the plunge and branch out as a full-time writer and novelist. In a few weeks, I will be launching a project on kickstarter.com that will have chapters of my upcoming novel and info about how you can help this unemployed, starving artist get her trilogy from brain to computer and from computer to Kindle/paper form.

In the meantime, I am planning on presenting a steampunk-themed writing workshop at Octopodicon down in Oklahoma City October 5-7 www.octopodicon.org and possibly SteamconIV in Bellevue, Washington October 26-28th. www.steamcon.org If any of you fine folk will be wandering those ways, I will see you at the cons! And I will also keep everyone posted if I am presenting or not. Even if I am not presenting, I think I will head that way to get my name out, network, and enjoy the chance to waltz around in a corset.

Particularly since I have these fine steampunk gloves I just constructed, thanks to some lace gloves from Claires, a few random gears, and matching ribbon. (by "constructed" I mean "swap out the ribbon with a different color and attach gears)

Please forgive the definitely not steampunk-esque attire of cargo pants and a polo shirt below.

The gloves (and most certainly not the pants and shirt) will be part of what will be my fanciest steampunk getup yet - the Steampunk Society of Nebraska has a paid gig at the Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha for a huge conference Hyatt Hotels is doing, and I have been working on a costume for months. Apparently this is an international shindig, so we may be greeting visitors from around the world who will probably wonder why Americans like dressing up in boots and corsets in 92 degree weather. I know for one that I will be sweltering under a crinoline, underskirt, and bustled overskirt, not to mention that the gloves are surprisingly warm. The delicate lace fan I am carrying will not be of much help, I can guarantee that.

In the meanwhile, I am luxuriating in air-conditioning and percolating plots. Captain Gavin Roberts is currently dealing with an airship that has a blown boiler and a massive hole in its hull and trying to convince his mad scientist of an old childhood friend to repair it. I left them squabbling irritably, so I suppose I should check on if the issue is resolved and if the good airship Horizon will be aloft soon. She'd better because Roberts has a blood debt to pay off in three short years or he's a dead man in a very literal way. So I'd best avail the gentleman of my writing skills to get him out of the fix he is in - an action which will require explosions, high-speed air chases, drug smuggling, quite possibly samurai, and a lot of other adventure.