Alex’s Writing [Steampunk] Wishlist

Every writer has a Christmas list, a list of stories they want to write – I think a few bloggers have done similar posts like these in the last couple of weeks, but I didn’t have the time to do this before Christmas, so these are more like year+ resolutions. I’d like to take a crack at writing all of these at some point. Of course, I’ve added my own twist, and have focused only on the Steampunk and Alt-History Fantasy stories I want to write.

Egyptology

I have the first page of this! On paper, if nothing else. It is story 1.5 in the series that doesn’t exist yet; I fully intend to write more Stempunky stuff, but I haven’t had the time even to plan. Edit first, plan later. And then maybe NaNo one. In Egyptology, which is rather Dieselpunk, Amelia leads an excavation that quickly turns into a murder investigation. Cliché, I know.

Kryptozoology

Working title. Since Horology comes, for me, from the Latin for ‘hour’, I want to keep the titles in the ‘series’ similar. A year after Amelia decided to stay in Italy, she’s started travelling around the world, using her skills as a cartographer to help unearth ancient ruins. But the sand planes of Dubai might be her downfall, when she incidentally unearths creatures of old. Possibly Cthulhu. I haven’t planned that far ahead yet.

This is the only one on this list that is a full novel, as opposed to a novella.

All Aboard and Up! Mallard

Two words: Space Train. The Mallard is a beautiful piece of engineering, and I have many a photo from the Rail Museum to help with my research. Also – creatures lurking in the engine room, handsome driver and meek, servant maid, and an alchemist with colour-blind synaesthesia. Now you see why it’s on the list? 🙂 There’s so much more work I have to do for this novella, but it’s one I’m most excited about, due to its cast more than anything. Characters, for the win!

A Sergeant and Creature in the [Mindscape] Labs

Working title, obviously. This one’s almost New Adult Steampunk, as the protagonist is a minor academic at a Steampunk university. Lady C studies anthropic psychobiology whilst her gentleman flies planes and serves tea for his living. However, a new piece of technology may unleash a terror over the psychobiology laboratories, and even the world! Steampunk MRI scanners, anyone?

Mimicking the Melodic

Another story that can be summed up in two words, partly because I have little more than a title and said two words: Steampunk Schopenhauer. Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher whom I studied a little last term in my Aesthetics Philosophy lectures…and became a little obsessed with. He considered music to be the highest form of aesthetics and wrote copious amounts on how one must consider music, ie. whether it possesses emotions itself or simply mimics what we experience.

As well as that, he had a turbulent personal life (as they often do, eh?), and I think he would be an interesting figure to write fiction about, especially if I could set it in a Steampunk world where music really is a sentient being of sorts.

Alexander and Cathy’s Wedding

This would most likely be a short story rather than a novella or anything bigger, and I don’t intend to write it yet – until Alexander and Cathy’s story is actually better edited anyway – but this Lindsey Stirling music video inspired me. I want to write a story where music is weaponry – and where better to set it than a Squire’s wedding, where an entire orchestra will likely be playing to defend against an oboe-wielding madman. Or something.

That’s it for now. I’ll always have more ideas, but maybe summarising these ones will be the push I need to start drafting them at least.