You can read the update here. But the update doesn’t tell you what it feels like to see a little green tick next to the mini image of the book that has been waiting for release on my IngramSpark account for over a year… It feels great.
I’m also excited and emotional because of another little Steam Highwayman treat that was sent my way today. Not the two backers who already let me know that they received their maps and that they loved them – that was nice. Something even better…
Something I’m going to post about on Saturday.
In the next few weeks I’m looking forward to re-jigging this website so that Steam Highwayman is front and centre, uploading some new images and generally having a spruce-up, and also to writing about the process of making SH3. I guess this is a spring in my step.
Broadly speaking, the project is now squarely in the fulfilment phase, even though I haven’t sent any actual rewards yet. But anyone who’s ever run their own Kickstarter project knows how this point, with the cardboard boxes stacking up in their living room, feels like a watershed. Some of that cardboard is being re-purposed to make roads for Teodora to drive her cars on as I write this…
Folding and packaging maps.
Once this is over, I’m really looking forward to posting other writing on here again – and giving myself the time to work on other writing projects. I’m certainly not short of ideas!
Over on Kickstarter you can read the most recent update for my Steam Highwayman III: The Reeking Metropolis project. It’s a while since I’ve linked them up on here, but why not? You’ll find out which map took me longest to draw, and how soon I hope for the book to be on its way to backers!
Over on Kickstarter I’ve just posted my 21st update about Steam Highwayman III: The Reeking Metropolis. You can find out what I’ve been doing over the past fortnight, and what’s planned for the next two weeks as well.
Over on Kickstarter I’ve just posted an update about the current project progress. It’s a full one, including some details about plans up until November as well as lots of remarks about work complete. Head over there and enjoy the details!
Over here is a fresh image from Russ, full of action and violence – great! You might spot the eponymous hero himself somewhere in the background (sensibly masked against infectious diseases) as well as a backer in the brawl…
I took a week (and a couple of extra days) off from working on Steam Highwayman III: The Reeking Metropolis to visit the Lake District with my wife and daughter. The project hasn’t stopped, though – faithful Russ has been churning out the good old black-and-white, as you will be able to see over on the new Kickstarter update. I’m very pleased to be able to reveal the first full-page feature for The Reeking Metropolis – so take a look at Update 19!
You can also discover where I went in the Lake District to encounter some live steam… mmm!
And here is Russ’s rendition of that wonder of nineteenth-century prefabrication, Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace, which housed the Great Exhibition. Not bad for a gardener from Derbyshire, eh? Paxton, not Russ. Russ is Scottish. And not a gardener. Not primarily, anyway.
I’ve just posted my fifteenth fortnightly update for the Steam Highwayman III: The Reeking Metropolis Kickstarter, in which I describe my recent writing efforts, give some sneak peeks at maps and mention what’s next in the plan!
Something I’ve always wanted to do is to explicitly celebrate the pubs of Steam Highwayman. Every one featured in the series is based on – and usually, named directly after – a real, visitable pub in our very own timeline. And now that the Kickstarter for Steam Highwayman III: The Reeking Metropolis has raised an incredible £10,000 in pledges, I’ll be producing a trio of special maps and a printed guide to the regions, which will feature reviews of every single pub.
The page above is my first attempt at a mockup, and it has its own story to tell. The image is my own pen and ink, but heavily inspired by a certain poster I once saw in an Oxford bookshop…
When I was still in the process of writing Steam Highwayman I: Smog and Ambuscade, before had any experience of publishing or working with an illustrator, I was looking for someone to draw my world and the pictures for my gamebook. I knew a few illustrators and I had received some help refining exactly what I was looking for and writing a brief, but I had no strong leads. The people I knew weren’t about to jump into a new project, or to draw what I was looking for: monochrome, classic, pen and ink, with an exciting sense of movement and a realistic take on steampunk. Where to find such an illustrator.
One evening as I was praying on the balcony of our flat, I distinctly heard the word ‘Oxford’ in my mind’s ear. It popped into my head accompanied by a sudden sense of peace and a release from the worry I’d been accumulating about how I would ever find myself a collaborator. So the very next day, I drove to Oxford.
I didn’t have a particular plan or destination, but reached Oxford around lunchtime. I walked around for a short time and entered Blackwell’s art shop. There, just inside the door, was a fine poster of the pubs of Oxford, drawn in pen and ink, in a fine, confident style.
It took me a little while to work out what I should do, but I eventually plucked up the courage to speak to the person behind the desk and to ask if the illustrator of the poster was local, and if they knew how I could contact them.
“This poster?” asked the young man behind the counter.
“Yes,” I replied.
“I’m the artist,” he said.
And that’s how I met Ben May, who designed the Ferguson velosteam and illustrated the first two volumes of my adventure: the power of prayer and a good pub drawing.
Over on Kickstarter you can read 
