20001: A Steampunk Odyssey

We have an exciting thing going on.  We're working on an anthologie (spelling intentional).  There's this fancy little convention called Steamcon coming up, and it's a delightful event that's all about gears and fancy hats and Invention! and that ilk of things. My cohort Peter came up with the notion of putting together an anthology for it, and of using the previous alternative spelling, and a lot else.  Like doing most of the solicitation for submissions, and handling the early correspondence, and generally proving himself to be worth two or three of me in this regard.  I just wrote something for it, and felt like I was doing my part a bit.  But now we've come to the fun (read: hard) part of the process: the editing.  There's all these stories, you see, and we like them, but we'd like them more if they were better.  Which, strangely, doesn't happen just because I want it to.  Instead, we have to get in touch with the talented writers who've submitted, and boldly claim that we know better than they do what their stories should be like, and then insist they follow our every freakish whim.  Or something like that.  I'm pretty new at this whole editing-other-people thing, so maybe I'm doing it wrong.

Surprisingly, it's more pleasant than I imagined it would be.  Mostly, everyone is very open to the notion of changing things.  And when they do, it tends to be for the best, not the worst, as might be feared.  To be honest, I wish I was as good at paying heed and making changes when they are suggested.  With a month left to get edits done and do layout, formatting and cover design, I feel pretty strongly we're going to end up with a very good body of work, one that everyone involved can be proud of.

I think in the end though, that's not so much the point.  The point for me, and I think for Peter, is that we've given some good, new writers a reason to think they're good.  We're a first credit for a number of these folks, and that makes me feel just amazing, that I can be a part of that happening.  So 20001: A Steampunk Odyssey, while it's a lot of work, and will be a whole lot more, is pretty satisfying already, and only going to get more so.  I'm very happy we decided to do it.

Look for the ebook editions on or about the 14th of September.  Print to follow shortly after, we anticipate.  It's going to be well worth your time and your book buying dollars.