“The West Wind” – A Steampunk Adventure set in the Old West

Un-sticking this post…

Status as of 10/23/11  11/26/11 1/29/12 11/23/12: Putting the rewrite “on hold”

It is the summer of 1912 and the western frontier of the British American Colonies is a pressure cooker of intrigues fueled by greed, resentment, and the need for revenge in this steampunk adventure dominated by plots and power struggles between rich and powerful industrialists. It is a world of massive floating mansions, horses, stagecoaches, airships, private railroad cars, dusty western towns, flying machines, and a traveling mechanical freak show.

Dramatis personæ:

Roland Pritchard – a true success story of Her Majesty’s American Colonies having built an extensive railroad empire that is the backbone of industrial development in the western frontier.

Eli Hardy – the only child of Jakob Hardy, recently returned from studying abroad (something more controversial) and is confronted by the real truth behind his father’s success.

Rachel West – an apprentice clock maker (something less banal) has emigrated fled to the American Colonies in search of a place where she and with her half brother Clarence will be accepted for who they are and not what society dictates. to escape a deadly conspiracy only to find herself embroiled in even more dangerous intrigues.

Roland Pritchard has a POV and he isn’t afraid to use it…

Roland Pritchard is one of my POV characters in The West Wind.

I had some basic ideas of who I wanted him to be when I set out to work on this project.  As I wrote, I found Roland helping me discover him.

Roland worked his way up from the bottom, a true success story of Her Majesty’s American colonies having built an extensive railroad empire that is the backbone of industrial development in the western frontier.

Despite Roland’s success, the misfortune of being born a “grounder” prevents him from being accepted by the powerful industrial elite that exploit the land’s natural resources to increase their personal wealth and power.

The West Wind follows Roland as he launches a conspiracy of fraud, manipulation and collusion to finally prove his superiority over the greedy tycoons and gain their respect.

Roland Pritchard is aided by his daughter Margaret Pritchard and his brother-in-law Nathan Webber the alleged, though vigorously denied, former outlaw.

Roland is in the Can!

After last week’s major milestone (well it was at least for me…) of crossing the 100k word count, this weekend’s milestone is equally exciting (well it is at least for me…).

Roland, one of my main POV characters, storyline is complete!

That leaves me with one more chapter of Rachel and three chapters, maybe only two and a half, of Eli until I am done.

I was hoping to have a re-write done by the end of July in time for Gen-Con Indy.  I started my writing there last year by attending several writing track seminars.  This year I was planning on taking cards and synopsis to do a little networking.