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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2121161-The-Steampunk-Authors-Guild-Group-Blog
Rated: E · Book · Steampunk · #2121161
Blogging in the name of Steampunk. Guest bloggers weekly. "In Steampunk Voices Only"
From May 2017 entries are entered into "The Bard's Hall Contest

From May 2017 entries are entered into "Invalid Item


Blogging in the Name Of ... Steampunk.
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **


Guest Bloggers by week. All steampunk, all the time.

*Type**Type**Type*


*Gear* AS WAY OF INTRODUCTION *Gear*

“Steampunk is a genre and a subculture that's all about a past that wasn't. We feel free to reinvent that past however we see fit.” - Nick Ottens, Gatehouse Gazette.

Blogging is an outlet for writing and self expression. Many of us blog while holding down full time jobs. Many of us blog while living full and interesting lives. Many of us blog about how boring our lives have become.

Steampunk is a form of speculative fiction that deals primarily in anachronism and alternative universes. It’s roots lie in adventure, romance, and re-imaginitive technology.

Blogging on Writing.com is more then the documenting of the pedantica in our everyday lives, it is about utilising our innate curiousity and ,yes, our creativity to express ourselves about our lives whether they are big or small. Blogging on WDC has become as much about the poetry and the prose as it has about the pedantica.

The purpose of this blog is as simple as it is exciting: let's reimagine our lives as only those on Writing.com can.



*Type**Type**Type*



*Gear* THE NITTY GRITTY *Gear*
To be a featured SteamPunk Blogger you MUST be a member of the SteamPunk Authors Guild and you must be prepared to blog as if you live in a Steampunk World.

There will be a link in "The Steampunk Boiler Room with more details including, importantly, a roster and any (sparse) rules or suggestions. I do suggest that Steampunk Bloggers utilise the many blog prompts and challenges here on Writing.Com as a source of inspiration.

Donations are welcome and will be used to promote the blog only, and perhaps pay the authors. If I get enough donations I will set up a fund, otherwise just donate to the "Welcome to the Steampunk Authors' Guild.



*Type**Type**Type*



*Gear* THE ROSTER *Gear*
As the Blimp Pilot of this Incorrigible Dirrigible herein known as Blimpy McBlimpy, I will from time to time post pertinent news about all things Steampunk and all things Steampunk Authors Guild. If you have a Steampunk item, event or hankering let me know and I will endeavour to accomodate you as all good Blimp Pilot's should.

Now, about manning levels.

First cab off the rank is yours truly, to get the sails set as they might say. Then Kate - Writing & Reading will be taking the wheel. And then there will be ... others. This section of the page will be a permanent record of those partaking on this wondrous flight.



*Hotair2**Hotair2**Hotair2*


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May 13, 2018 at 10:26pm
May 13, 2018 at 10:26pm
#934516
*Gear* STEAMPUNK STORY TEASER *Gear*
Editor's Note: If you'd like your STEAM PUNK story featured here (with a read more link to the item in your portfolio) then all you have to do is REVIEW a STEAM PUNK story that has been featured on this blog and post the review ID as a comment on this entry. I will then feature the STEAMPUNK story of your choice (from your portfolio).

I will also be featuring (legal) snippets from published STEAMPUNK authors for your benefit. Have a favourite STEAMPUNK novel? Leave a comment here and I will feature it and then we can all have a GASBAG about it.

Donations are welcome and will be used to promote the blog only, and perhaps pay the authors. If I get enough donations I will set up a fund, otherwise just donate to the "Welcome to the Steampunk Authors' Guild.


*Type**Type**Type*






Ellie Claven was in trouble again. One of the constables had caught her trying to get into the tunnels under the city and had dragged her, kicking and fighting, back home. It was just her bad luck too; the constable happened to walk by the alley just as she was removing the loose boards from the sealed-up access door. If he had passed by thirty seconds earlier or later, she would be exploring the under-city labyrinth right now.

Lately, the tunnels were the only place she felt free. Ever since Vernon Rourk had taken control of the city with his Constructs, life hadn't been the same. Governor Rourk was a brilliant man who had convinced the city to create a security force of mechanized soldiers, which he then promptly used to overthrow the Governing Council and install himself as the city's sole authoritarian leader. His title may say Governor, but everyone in Capitol City new Dictator would have been more appropriate.

Ellie struggled against the constable's iron grip on her shirt collar as they walked toward her house. She lived with her parents in the two-room apartment above her father's workshop in one of the forgotten corners of Capitol City's commercial districts. He made his modest living as a machinist, fixing or replacing broken parts in other people's gadgets and gizmos.

"Ellington!" Mrs. Claven exclaimed with an exasperated sigh when she opened the door to find Ellie standing there with the constable. "Where have you been?"

"Caught her trying to sneak into the tunnels, ma'am."

"Of course you did," Mrs. Claven said, glaring at her daughter. "How many times do we have to tell you to stay out of there? It's not allowed!"

The look on Mrs. Claven's face was enough to cause both Ellie and the constable to avert their gazes to the floor. The constable took a step back toward the door, figuring that Mrs. Claven's punishment was likely to be far more severe than the mere citation that he could issue for trespassing.

"Well, it seems that you have everything in order here. Please make sure that she doesn't go down in the tunnels again. I can only let her off with a warning once."

"Thank you, constable." Mrs. Claven said, and dragged her daughter inside.

Ellie spent the remainder of the evening being lectured by her parents. Mrs. Claven spent the better part of an hour laying into her, extolling the importance of following the rules and not getting into trouble. Then Mr. Claven came upstairs after closing the shop and the lecturing began anew. Ellie knew they weren't bad parents, but she hated the way they always insisted on doing everything by the book. If there was a rule to be followed, it was followed to the letter in the Claven household.

What made everything particularly intolerable was Governor Rourk was forever coming up with new and ridiculous laws and regulations. First it was a sunset curfew for everyone with a birthday in June; then a monthly tithing from all industrial workers; and, just last week, a mandate that strawberries were the only berries allowed within the city limits. Mr. and Mrs. Claven immediately complied with all of these demands without question.


When she couldn't escape to the tunnels, Ellie instead escaped into the world of fantasy. She read pulp novels, which were traded among her friends at school. Her favorites featured a soldier of fortune named Josiah Jessup, who was supposedly a real vigilante in Capitol City. When the Constructs helped Rourk take over, the first thing they did was kill everyone on the Governing Council, including their staff and security forces. Jessup was the only one to survive the massacre, but just barely escaped from their fortified Citadel with his life. Since then, he has devoted his life to hunting down the Constructs and destroying them, one by one, and looking for a way to get to Rourk inside the Citadel.

Most of her friends dismissed Josiah Jessup stories as sensational fiction; after all, no one could really take on the Constructs and defeat them. They were made of assembled machine parts – old pieces of clocks and appliances and factory machinery – which made them effectively invincible. Bullets, knives, fists, poisons... all useless. The only two effective means that rebels had found, according to rumor, was nitroglycerin and cannons. A cannonball was big and blunt enough to smash a Construct to pieces, and nitro could blow them to bits, but neither one was a practical weapon to use in the city streets without serious risk to other people and their homes and businesses. Still, Ellie liked to imagine that Josiah Jessup was out there somewhere, fighting the good fight and trying to defeat Governor Rourk.


That afternoon, school was dismissed early on account of one of her classmates had brought a homemade rocket to school and accidentally set it off in the boys' bathroom while showing it to some friends. Two toilets and a sink exploded, as did a good chunk of the school's main water pipeline, flooding the building and forcing everyone home for the day while it was repaired.

Rather than sit at home for an extra two hours, Ellie used the opportunity to sneak off to the tunnels. She loved the tunnels and their labyrinthine complexity. They were off limits because most people got hopelessly lost down there, but Ellie had spent so much time in them, that she knew them all by heart. If you dropped her in the tunnels and gave her a destination anywhere in the city, she could get there with nary a wrong turn.

This time, she made sure that the coast was clear before prying off the boards on the access door. She slipped inside and descended the stairs into the tunnels. She always stuck to the upper tunnels; the lower tunnels were used for drainage and you never could tell when a passage would be unexpectedly flooded with dirty water, or worse, sewage. No, she stuck to the upper tunnels, which were once used as a traveling method for servants and couriers, who could travel and transport things all over the city without getting in the way of the aristocracy who, in that day, wanted the streets kept clear of commoners and tradesmen.

When the Citadel was constructed, however, the rest of the city was opened up to the commoners and tradesmen. The Citadel was a high-walled oasis where the Governing Council and other important city officials could live, sheltered from the common folk that lived in the city. Once the Citadel was finished, the tunnels were boarded up and the streets were used by everyone, although Ellie suspected there was another reason why they were off limits; she could get into the Citadel through the tunnels. There were a few branches of a few older tunnels that ran right under the Citadel itself, and Ellie had used them before to sneak inside and steal trinkets and memorabilia, which she kept locked up tight at the bottom of the chest at the foot of her bed.


The tunnels themselves were carved into the bedrock a dozen feet below street level. The walls were mostly rough and uneven, with only the minimal amount of arches, support beams and other stone and woodwork to keep them from collapsing. The floors were loose gravel and dirt, packed firm from years of travel. Ellie would use her portable oil lantern when she was down here; by far the best gift her parents had ever given her. It was a clear, cylindrical tube about the size of a flashlight, with a reserve of kerosene. You lit the wick of the candle and closed it up inside the aerated canister, which then amplified the light through the magnified glass walls; it was easily capable of illuminating a fifty-foot length of passageway. She loved it.


....

*Gear* READ MORE *Gear*
The story continues in Jeff portfolio.
Be sure to finish reading about Ellie and her steampunk world at
 Taking a Stand  [13+]
Pressure Valve Contest Entry - June 2011 - My first attempt at steampunk.
by Jeff

And, don't forget to leave a review!


*Type**Type**Type*


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SteamPunk Newsletter Out Now!
 Invalid Item 
This item number is not valid.
#2092940 by Not Available.

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Johny Thundersbeard
Editor, Mentor & Member.
"The Steampunk Authors' Guild
---
WDC Author of the Month May 2012
30DBC Administrator, Judge & Rejigger 2012.
Forum Master "Invalid Item 2016.
May 8, 2018 at 9:43am
May 8, 2018 at 9:43am
#934155
Featured Steam Punk Story & Author:
The Swift  [13+]
The steam-powered superhero pursues his arch-enemy, Professor Delirium Tremens.
by CeruleanSon




Slowly, the Swift picked himself up from the gravel-coated tar-paper roof where he had been forced down. He glanced quickly around for immediate danger, and seeing none, checked himself for injury. His tough gloves were scuffed but undamaged; on his right knee, just above his black Wellington boot, the thick material of his slate-gray jodhpurs was torn, but the joint itself had escaped harm.

Next, he checked the slender, aluminum struts of his wings. The fact that he had folded them before impact had saved them from being snapped in the tumble, but one of the three fingers of the left wing was bent out of alignment. He gripped the incredibly expensive metal on either side of the kink and, straining, was able to straighten it to an approximation of its former position. The slick material of the membranes, at least, was untorn.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he adjusted the complicated web of leather straps that held the experimental rig to his back and checked the pressure gauge mounted next to his wrist chronometer.

The boiler was working perfectly. The fuel pellets he had developed should be enough to keep a steady supply of steam to power the thruster unit for another hour or so. He hoped that would be enough, because the slowly rising buzz that filled the audio enhancement cups mounted in his helmet’s earflaps warned that the drone was coming around for another run at him. A quick glance southward showed the dirigible dwindling beyond the Statue of Liberty as Professor Delirium Tremens made his escape with the Kilimanjaro Ruby.

And with Harriet.



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Continue This Featured Steam Punk Story in author CeruleanSon portfolio,

STATIC
The Swift  (13+)
The steam-powered superhero pursues his arch-enemy, Professor Delirium Tremens.
#1879638 by CeruleanSon


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Editor's Note: If you'd like your STEAM PUNK story featured here (with a read more link to the item in your portfolio) then all you have to do is REVIEW a STEAM PUNK story that has been featured on this blog and post the review ID as a comment on this entry. I will then feature the STEAMPUNK story of your choice (from your portfolio).

I will also be featuring (legal) snippets from published STEAMPUNK authors for your benefit. Have a favourite STEAMPUNK novel? Leave a comment here and I will feature it and then we can all have a GASBAG about it.


SteamPunk Newsletter Out Now!
 Invalid Item 
This item number is not valid.
#2092940 by Not Available.

---
Johny Thundersbeard
Editor, Mentor & Member.
"The Steampunk Authors' Guild
---
WDC Author of the Month May 2012
30DBC Administrator, Judge & Rejigger 2012.
Forum Master "Invalid Item 2016.
May 13, 2017 at 7:57am
May 13, 2017 at 7:57am
#911004
May 12th Prompt from "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"   by Fivesixer


Today's Steampunk Blogger is: Thundersbeard 30DBC JULY HOST
only members of "The Steampunk Authors' Guild "   by Beck Firing back up! may become Steampunk Bloggers (so sign up already)


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Fun Fact Friday! On this day in 1847, William Clayton invented the odometer. How do you measure your speed or distance?


Strictly speaking, William Clayton, while an awesome fellow, did not invent the odometer. That honour falls on a number of chaps: namely Benjamin Franklin for a prototype but also as far back as the Roman Empire.

Encyclopedia Punkania credits Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius with inventing an odometer around 15 BCBY (Before Christ Beyond Yesterday). This used a chariot wheel of standard definition and turned 400 times in a Roman mile. It's not known if he used a Roman Candle to help shed light on his work. For his sake, let's hope not. Those chariot wheels were highly combustible.

"It was mounted in a frame with a 400-tooth cogwheel and for each mile, the cogwheel engaged a gear that dropped a pebble into the box. You knew how many miles you went by counting the pebbles. It was pushed by hand."


Of course, like all good inventions that don't involve the use of steam power and alternative energy, it may never have been actually built and used.

Another dashing hero of history (or heroine of history as the case may be, which in this case, it is) who can be credited with the invention of the odometer, is Changette Heng, the inventor of the seismograph (an instrument that measures and records details of earthquakes, such as force and duration).

It is said she also invented an odometer that had a figure that struck a drum as each li or 0.5 km went by to measure distance. It is rumoured that this figure matched her own hour-glass figure in accomplishments, which usually measured time by the amount of dropped jaws and swooning men as it passed by.

The french also lay claim to the invention of the odometer. Rear-Admiral Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662), the dashing provocateur and man-about-town, invented a prototype of an odometer; a calculating machine called a pascaline. The pasacaline was constructed of gears and wheels. Each gear contained 10 teeth that when moved one complete revolution, advanced a second gear one place. This is the same principal employed in the mechanical odometer. Pascal was known to use this device not for it's proscribed purpose but to lure lively lads into awe of his mechanical know-how and lantern jaw. He was a reknowned rear-admiral, after all. The term Steamy Punk may also have been invented for him.

Whilst all these hijinks were happening across history, Thomas Savery (1650 - 1715) was busy getting the job done. He was an English military engineer and inventor who in 1698, patented the first crude steam engine. Among Savery's other inventions was an odometer for ships, a device that actually measured distance travelled. There was nothing crude about Thomas Savery himself. He was a man of undiminished refinement.

But then we come to the controversial figure, Ben Franklin (1706-1790). Big Ben Franklin is best known as a statesman and writer. However, he was also an inventor who invented towering clocks over London, mechanised swim fins, magnifying bifocals, a glass harmonica that could call down lightning, watertight bulkheads for airships and submarines, the lightning hotrod, a rocket stove, and, here we are, an odometer.

While serving as Postmaster General in 1775, Franklin decided to analyze the best routes for delivering the mail. He invented a simple odometer to help measure the mileage of the routes that he attached to his dirrigable.

An odometer called the roadometer was invented in 1847 by the pioneers from beyond the Thunderdome as they crossed the plains from New York to Hollywood. The roadometer attached to a wagon wheel of a steam-powered vehicle and counted the revolutions of the wheel as the steam-wagon traveled. It was designed by William Clayton and Orson Pratt and built by carpenter Appleton Milo "Mark" Harmon.

From the film log of George Miller, documentarian of Thunderdome history, "William Clayton was inspired to invent the roadometer by his first method of recording the distance the pioneers traveled each day. Clayton had determined that 360 revolutions of a wagon wheel made a mile, he then tied a red rag to the wheel and counted the revolutions to keep an accurate record of the mileage traveled. After seven days, this method became tiresome, and Clayton went on to invent the roadometer, first used on the morning of May 12, 1847. William Clayton is also known for his writing of the pioneer hymn "We Don't Need Another Hero."

"I walked some this afternoon in company with Orson Pratt and suggested to him the idea of fixing a set of wooden cog wheels to the hub of a steam-wagon wheel, in such order as to tell the exact number of miles we travel each day.​​

"About noon today Brother Appleton "Mark" Harmon completed the machinery on the wagon called a 'roadometer' by adding a wheel to revolve once in ten miles, showing each mile and also each quarter mile we travel, and then casing the whole over so as to secure it from the weather. We also added an aerodynamic spoiler and cut the muffler to really scare the bejesus out of the natives." ~ From William Clayton's Journal

Lastly in the history of odometer inventors and reinventors was Samuel McKeen. In 1854, Samuel McKeen, of Nova Scotia, designed an early version of the odometer, a device that measures mileage driven. His was attached to the side of a carriage and measured the miles with the turning of the wheels. Of course, it was an air wagon and the wheels were solely for decoration and as such never touched the ground to turn. He did win first place in the Nova Scotia State Steam-Science Fair for Prettiest-But-Most-Useless-Piece-of-Machinery-That's-Really-Decorative-And-Not-Actually-Used-For-Anything Division.

So as you can now see, William Clayton can only lay a dubious claim to being the inventor of the odometer. As for the actual question attached to this prompt, This scribe measures his speed and distance with a foofer valve.


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SteamPunk Newsletter Out Now!
 Invalid Item 
This item number is not valid.
#2092940 by Not Available.

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Johny Thundersbeard
Editor, Mentor & Member.
"The Steampunk Authors' Guild
---
WDC Author of the Month May 2012
30DBC Administrator, Judge & Rejigger 2012.
Forum Master "Invalid Item 2016.

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The beautiful Steampunk Authors Guild banner created by kiyasama for which we are most grateful indeed.
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this article is a piece of found news I have turned into a piece of fake news, I hope you have found it to be fun news.

[Embed For Use By Upgraded+]
May 9, 2017 at 10:58pm
May 9, 2017 at 10:58pm
#910814
The first issue of the "The Steampunk Authors' Guild flagship newsletter, has gathered from the smokey bowels of WDC City, 700 views and over 40 reviews and comments. There is an interest and a place, here, for a thriving Steampunk community.

 Invalid Item 
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#1891027 by Not Available.


One of Our Guild's big ticket campaigns is that we are now looking for community items to sponsor. They must be community based: interactive, contest, challenge etc (ie. NOT single author stories or poems): prizes, gift points, awardicons and the like are on offer, in return for letting us brand your beloved with a hot poker (only half joking).

The group has recently sponsored "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge, handing out a Steampunk merit badge as well as GPs to the winner, to rousing success.

With Captain Beck (Beck Firing back up! ) ably taking the reins of Our Guild, and instituting both change and momentum, Steampunk as a genre will be rising towards the sky like a hot air balloon, but traversing the clouds with a zeppelins purpose. As well as revitalising the group, Captain Beck has called to her service an inner circle (or motley crew) to best capitalise on the zeitgeist.

As a whole, "The Steampunk Authors' Guild is maintained in such tiptop shape by a hard working leadership group comprising: Beck Firing back up! CeruleanSon tYpO/T.Boilerman Kate - Writing & Reading L. Stephen O'Neill Thundersbeard 30DBC JULY HOST Inkslinger Vincent Coffin The Run-on King PDG Member C. M. Nuckols .

Any one of these esteemed and able people can and will pass on your Steampunk related sponsorship requests to the leadership group.

I hope you’ll let us join you in your Steampunk-inspired journey on writing.com. A world beyond yesterday awaits.

Don't forget you can read the second issue here:

 Invalid Item 
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#2092940 by Not Available.


© Copyright 2018 Thundersbeard 30DBC JULY HOST (UN: thundersbeard at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Thundersbeard 30DBC JULY HOST has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.

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