The copyedits for Courting Trouble, the second novella in the Bustlepunk Chronicles, are done! Woot! Now my hard work is over and I’m just waiting to see the awesome cover — I know it’ll be awesome because Carina Press covers are stunning.

I’m working on the third Bustlepunk Chronicle, Curses and Confetti, as you read this (well, I might be sleeping instead…nah, writers don’t sleep ). The first draft was fun to write. This second draft is a complete re-write, adding a dirigible-load more conflict. Oh dearie me, what was Jed thinking to get himself compromised by a gypsy?

I’m also struggling to find time to write my first full length *gulp* steampunk novel. Like Esme and Jed’s stories, it’s set in an alternative vision of Western Australia (the Swan River Colony) in the 1890s. Jed was a rascal, but the hero of “Stolen: One Bridegroom” is more marked by life. Matthew’s disillusioned, a man who has fought for his beliefs only to be betrayed. He arrives in Swan River looking for forgetfulness, instead he finds himself kidnapped, bullied and bribed by an independent engineer who needs a bridgegroom — temporarily. Rose will do anything to ensure her adopted grandmother dies happy (anything short of marriage), but in kidnapping Matthew she can hardly have forseen the trouble that will follow him: International intrigue, a Faberge egg with lethal steampunk power and Matthew’s ex-girlfriend.

You know, if someone could just find a way for me to have an extra twenty four hours in the day — and the energy to use them! — I’d be fine