Not much up my sleeve today, except that I’ve begun revisions on Boneshaker. As part of these revisions, I’m adding a set of bookends [prologue/epilogue] by way of rounding things out; and today I took some time to sit down and try to come up with a reasonable prologue.

Tomorrow I’ll barrel forward and cobble up an epilogue, and once I’ve completed both pieces of supplemental material, I’ll revisit them and see if I’m still in love with the idea.

Project: Boneshaker Prologue
New Words Written Today: 1734
Present Total Word Count: n/a
Goal: n/a

Fiction Things Accomplished: Established the backdrop of my alternate history setting, in a way that leaves some of the technology less dependent upon the Civil War (which is still being fought back east, in my universe) and more closely tied to an arms race of mining technology, as Russia and America both attempt to dig gold out of the frozen parts of Alaska.

Real Life Things Accomplished: Arranged to go buy tickets for Team Seattle and affiliates for the Neil Gaiman event at the U-district this Friday (will pick them up tomorrow morning); polished and submitted a book review; read half of another book for yet another review; successfully cooked supper.

Reason for Stopping: Finished this section, and had other work to do.

Suspected Upcoming Problems: For the moment, I’m running with a pretend-history-book excerpt, written by a minor character in the novel who has a flair for dramatic Victorian storytelling. It begins: From Unlikely Episodes in Western History, Chapter 7 — “Seattle’s Walled and Peculiar State,” by Hale Quarter (work in progress). I’m a little bit afraid that no matter how charming I make this section, a few readers will be turned off by the prospect of a history lesson … but then again, if I were to stumble across a history lesson about how a quaint coastal mill town grew into a giant walled city filled with zombies and poisonous gas, I’d probably keep reading. But I hope that’s not just me.

Darling du Jour: “But in California there were nuggets the size of walnuts lying on the ground — or so it was said — and truth travels slowly when rumors have wings of gold. The trickle of humanity became a magnificent flow. The glittering western shores swarmed with prospectors, pushing their luck and pushing their pans into the gravelly streams, praying for fortunes.”

Total Fiction Words Composed in 2008: 274,849