Although, this could just as easily be called "Let's Take a Few Moments to Look at Pretty/Neat/Awesome Things", but there is the goal of hoping what follows inspires you in some way.
May it spark an idea, or offer a twist in a story, or give you to urge to create something new.
That's what I hope for myself.
Theme for the Week: Steampunk
A steampunkified keyboard
A steamy version of Cinderella's carriage
Is that a steampunk Cheshire or are you just happy to see me?
A miniature steam-fairy. (I don't even care if this is completely Photoshopped, because it looks awesome.)
Note: If anyone has credits they'd like to me add to any photo, please just let a comment. I just do a lot of Google Image searches, and mean no harm other than to promote these wonderful visuals.
I love the idea of Steampunk. In fact, I'm pinching little details that I come across to gather research and inspiration for a steampunk story I'm going to write (I'm working on having more of a solid base to start writing from, rather than opening a new blank Word doc and just going with no idea of who teh story is about or what happens, thus not "writing" yet). I'm enamored of the visuals, and the details.
Allow me to first point viewers/readers to Cakewrecks, a wonderful site which situates the horrendous next to the divine. One of their latest posts is steampunk cakes.
The trend for steampunk stories has been floating around the blogs for a while, or so it seems to me. Scott Westerfield has an illustrated YA steampunk book just out, entitled Leviathan. And Cherie Priest is John Scalzi's most recent Big Idea, with her book, Boneshaker. It's got inventions, a prolonged Civil War, a walled Seattle, and zombies! Who doesn't love that?
She does a ton of research to make her alterations to history believable (and you can see some of that here), and just from this Big Idea post, it seems she spent a long time world-building. But ultimately, the story is about a woman and her son, inside that walled city fo Seattle, filled with zombies.
Another fun thing for writers, which my writerly-inclined older sister pointed me to, this YouTube video. It's a song from a Broadway show called [title of show], and is enjoyable, and aplicable to screenwriters, painters, novelists, and all sorts of artists. The song is "Die, Vampire, Die," and the lyrics are available on the actual YouTube page, but below is the video itself. Go forth and enjoy.
