I just made it through finals week. I’m disappointed that I didn’t write more while the students were testing but they like it when you grade things fast.

I’ve inched my way a bit more into a Steampunk Christmas story that I actually intend for next Christmas (i.e. send it to the themed anthologies and if they don’t bite, self publish it myself.) I think it’s 1899 and I’ve just realize I’ll probably have to make up a war for my airshipman to have fought in. The Civil War was too far in the past and I didn’t really want to set it in WWI (besides I don’t want it to be in Europe). So was America fighting Canada or Mexico…. I still need to name the lead. I’m between Adam and Abel but realize that if I want the professor love interest to be Al I shouldn’t use either of those. Literally just realized that while typing this. Excuse me while I beat my skull on the wall for a moment.

I know what the perfect gift he’s bringing Al for Christmas: a Buffalo coat and a Blackhills gold accented pocket watch (Al thinks the perfect gift is Whatshisname being home for the holiday).

Hmmm maybe instead of a war he’s lost a leg defending ships transporting Comstock and/or Blackhills gold.

I’ve nibbled around the edges of Behind Blue Eyes but haven’t gotten far and I am getting more and more sure I’m bungling the rearranging of Blood Red Roulette. I’m just going to keep going and get a second pair of eyes on it.

Also I’ve been kicked in the muse by another contemporary which I think might be better to try than the one I was noodling with (I’ll keep that one on the back burner as I like it but it’s impossibly geeky). Or might it be paranormal? One of the characters hunts ghosts for fun and for that matter so do I…I’m not sure yet what to do with it but I do know this: Brendan has come to the hocking hills and has taken a cabin there ala Hocking Hills Cabins I’m trying to decide between this large one

or this small one but it’ll probably closer to the small with a loft.

Brendan is a successful YA author from Columbus who wanted to do a horror/ghost story novel next and has rented the cabin for a month while he investigates haunts in SE Ohio, most of which he’s seen from a haunted ohio website. Brendan is dubious about being alone in the cabin as he’s still, three years later, deeply mourning his son’s death from brain cancer at age 5. His marriage has long since broken up and really he’s never sure he’s more than two steps from joining his child.

He meets the currently unnamed owner of the website who was going to be a naturalist but decided that was a tad too close to my friend whose job and website I’d be modeling this guy after. Also I just didn’t want to deal with some of that so instead he’s an environmental scientist at a local college (i.e. mine) doing research in the hills as well as being a guide for Brendan. Naturally they hit it off albeit rather slowly.

I do know Brendan wears a glass pendant forged from his son’s ashes and I need to find the site I originally saw those one but have found others. At one point he nearly loses it which is probably how the professor learns of the boy.

Drop by tomorrow for a release from me! And since I forgot to share this last week I think have the wonderful art Lex Chase did of Tsela Zahni in Once Upon a Time in the Midwest which comes out in 5 days.