David S. Goodwin's Blog

Cassie's adventures continue with a three-day-long duel at a dusty crossroads in a town on the edge of nowhere. I'm thrilled to finally have this story available, and it's nice to see Cassie with a little more experience under her belt as she tackles new challenges.

This story stands on its own, but of course you should absolutely read both of them.

To answer a question nobody asked, the reason Cassie isn't using Teapot's wheel as a shield is that it was getting in her way - it covers up a couple of her portholes and makes it hard to see. She might use it for added protection in some circumstances, but she hasn't figured it out for a one-on-one duel yet.

Naturally, the second put this up the idea for Cassie's next adventure popped in to my head, so I'll start work on that this week. I don't want to wait six months between stories this time!

And, if you missed the first one:

I found this article really interesting. It is definitely going to make me think harder when I am putting myself in Cassie's shoes (or mech.)

http://io9.com/5912366/why-i-write-strong-female-characters

I should, or course, be working on the story itself; laptop issues and procrastination lost me some time. It's almost done, though.

Meanwhile, this is almost ready to go. I think I need to lighten it up, and tweak Cassie a bit, but it actually looks a bit like I imagine the inside of Teapot.

So I've written a short story. It's a long short story - 10,000 words, which apparently makes it a novelette - but it's by no means a book. It's also the first in a series. I feel l should say something about this.

Cassie Fogg popped into my head pretty much as you see her on the cover of her first adventure, Cassie Fogg and the Unwound Knight: a young woman of indeterminate age perched on an absurd machine of her own design. The rest of her world grew out from that image, and from themes that had been percolating in my head already - the Vile, the mechants and the techants, the bright new ideas against a backdrop of ancient ruin. It's steampunk by default - I can't resist the unlikely technology and the engineer hero, even if Cassie's world is often more a mix of medieval culture and science-fiction artifacts.

Cassie's next adventure is well underway - I see where it's going, but I don't know where it will end up. That's fine by me. In a perfect world, it will be out by the end of February. If I can release one story every two months for 2012, I will be very happy.

As a final note, I designed the cover myself. That turned out to be almost as much fun as writing the story in the first place, so I am looking forward to the next one.

Cassie Fogg and the Unwound Knight