Yesterday I reached a milestone of Steam Highwayman IV: Princes of the West: I told myself that I had ‘completed’ my draft.
What does that mean? First question from interested parties (eg my wife). “Is the book finished?”
No, it isn’t finished. It won’t be finished until it has been edited, improved, illustrated and printed. We’re a little way off all that. But I would say that I am not at the beginning of the end.
Why did I call a stop to drafting? I actually have around 100 passages still reserved to write, but I recognise that at the current rate, I would keep expanding the book. That’s a problem for a few reasons – one being, that eventually this volume will need to be printed, and I think we could be looking at a whopping 1800 passages, or around 300 pages, already. I also could tell that at my current rate of writing, I would exhaust myself badly. And the next stage of the writing process is a one I badly need to get some perspective: sharing the draft with early readers for their opinions and ideas. After that, there’ll be a good deal of corrections and edits to write, and when I do those I’ll also finish and finalise the last loose ends.
So I’ve begun to reach out to people who have been committed readers of Steam Highwayman and stepping back from the coal face. I need to do some other work to get the project to succeed, so it’s time for a change of mode. I think that there’ll be a few months of long conversations, tweaking around the edges, and then a big editing sometime in the late summer or autumn – maybe at the same time as a trip down to Cornwall myself.
Ben has been working on the cover and I hope to have some things to share very soon. The big thing I’m waiting on is a colour draft of the front cover – with that, you’ll start to see a regular posting that points towards my next Kickstarter campaign. I have a plan something like this:
April-June – Preparation for Kickstarter, production of marketing materials, drawing of the map.
[April/May – birth of fourth child…]
July – Kickstarter campaign to publish Steam Highwayman: Princes of the West. It’s going to be great.
Presuming the Kickstarter succeeds in raising enough funds…
August – January – Ben creates the illustrations, I edit the book, proofreading and further playtesting, layout and preparation for printing, creation of extra reward materials…
February 2026 – Steam Highwayman: Princes of the West sent to backers and available online.
How does that sound?
So what is Princes of the West like? Well, early readers are already favourable about improved, modern mechanics, atmospheric adventures in the West Country, and a continuation to the epic tale of the Steam Highwayman (that’s you, then…). It covers a large area – probably about as large as the first two books together – but uses efficient networking to save on repeated passages and cram in as much content as you can. You’ll be able to go mining, tame Dartmoor ponies, find hidden gold, assist wreckers, join smugglers, blow things up (a lot of that), take a musical tour of the pubs of Devon, use all your velosteam customisations, negotiate with multiple factions and leaders, help lonely people fall in love, rescue cows from the mud, eat Cornish pasties, smuggle clotted cream, drink a lot of beer in many pubs and lonely inns, find places to stay, get a black eye, sleep under hedges, bribe guards, take airship rides, impersonate an orchestral conductor, defend the poor and marginalised, ally with a visionary (mad?) King, join a fishing crew, play croquet (again), meet old friends, play cards, fix the stock market, use steam computational engines to decode messages and secretive notebooks, use your special skill of haute cuisine (you know, the one you gained in Highways and Holloways when you had to distinguish between different heritage vegetables while in an airborne kitchen) and rob the rich, give to the poor and steam off into the night. It is great.
Current draft is about 1630 passages long. I think I’ll probably cut around 100 and I might add in another 200 or so – I expect it’ll round out around 1800 passages. I’m toying with the idea of producing a lengthier book with more quests as stretch goals… Four extensions, say, of 50 passages each? It’s an idea.
And the break from working on the draft is good for me. I’ve already experienced a massive difference in my focus and no longer have an over-full head. There are several things I’ve been putting off reading – and writing – over the last months that I can now get back to.
So watch this space! I’ll be on here pretty frequently until July, I think, although there may be a hiatus while child #4 appears. And then we should all get to enjoy the pleasure of a lively crowdfunding campaign together. I know I can count on you all to join in.
Until then, may your boilers stay ever at pressure! YOU are the Steam Highwayman!
Over on Kickstarter you can read 
