Keyboards of Fire

I have my new book, LORD BOBBINS AND THE ROMANIAN RUCKUS, coming out on November 4 at TeslaCon in Madison. I'm also working on setting up a book launch at Mystery to Me in Madison, Wis. and maybe some other bookstores around Wisconsin, too.

If you have a steampunk convention or a bookstore and would like to host me for an hour or two, let me know. I'm charming and funny in person. Honest.

Since getting the last book ready, I have had to luxury of spending 4-6 hours a day working on the sequel for the TeslaCon book. Called LORD BOBBINS AND THE DOME OF LIGHT, I had a story, an outline, and I was motivated to do more with the characters I had been working with over the past year. So, I absolutely jammed through the initial draft of this book. I cranked out the entire 68,000 word sequel in exactly 30 days. It's probably the fastest I've ever written a novel.

And, even though it's still on the first draft--I think it's really pretty good. It's a tight, fun story with some solid jokes.

In the meantime, I am in that horrible waiting period for the new book to be released. I'm highly worried about how it will be received. Given the fact that I'm playing in someone else's sandbox with the book, it feels like there is a lot that can go wrong. All I can do is hope that people will be happy with it.

Now that the two TeslaCon projects are out of the way, I've been able to turn my full attentions back to the sequel for AFTER EVERYONE DIED.

It's been good to get back to that book, but given the tone, the voice, and the perspective are entirely different than the TeslaCon books, it's been a little rough getting back into Twist's head. It feels good to be back to it, though. I still hope to have it see publication next Spring, but we'll see if that can actually happen. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, please keep spreading the word of AFTER EVERYONE DIED, if you can. Tell friends. Post on social media. If you're creative, draw pictures or compose songs or make short videos--anything helps. Talk to your local library and ask them to get the book. Talk to your local bookstores and ask them to carry it. Everything helps.

I sincerely appreciate the emails and messages I've gotten from people about the sequel, and I'm very glad to be back working on it again.

We'll see you on THE LONG AND EMPTY ROAD next Spring.