The Clockwork Boy

 

So I’ve taken a rather unique approach to parenting, as you may have read here before.  I’m not especially good at relating to my children – or at least not as good as I wish I was.  However I have tried to latch onto those interests I share with each of my children and emphasize them.

With my oldest son it was paintball and basketball and lately the things he’s studying in college.  With my daughter it has been fantasy and superheroes.  She and I have seen all of the Avengers films together as well as Spiderman, Superman, X-Men, and such.  And we never miss an episode of Once Upon a Time.  Until she stopped letting me read to her we shared a deep mutual interest in The Sisters Grimm books, the Narnia books, the Disney Fairies, Harry Potter of course, and so on.  So now we’re writing a book together aimed at her age group (she was 12 when we started), and all about heroes and fairytale creatures, using ourselves as models for the main characters.  And we’re having a wonderful time.  She has even started writing her own novel, in collaboration with her best friend.  I couldn’t be more proud.

My younger son, on the other hand (who also appears in our book) has broader interests.  Superheroes, of course.  But also anything that flies, anything that goes in the water, anything that has wheels, anything that transforms, and anything built out of Legos or Lincoln Logs.  Or pretty much anything.  Oh, and pirates.  We make paper airplanes together, play with wooden trains, and fight with invisible light sabres almost every day.

So I got to thinking….

Part of the idea behind The Last Princess was to earn college money for my daughter, plus if she ever wanted to pursue a career as a writer she would have her foot in the door and representation before she even wrote her first book.  And now we’re thinking series because middle grade publishers are buying more series than individual books these days, and … because I like to plan ahead.

So why not write a series for my son?  He’s only five, now, and his particular market is not one I feel comfortable writing for.  I would need an illustrator, for one.  And I tend to write long.  I can’t even imagine writing a book with only a few score of words – I need tens of thousands of the damn things for the stories I want to tell.  So – thinking ahead like I like – what if in a few years I write a spin-off series from The Last Princess, but about the younger brother?  This time for a more male audience. About an 8-9 year old boy who builds all kinds of amazing gadgets that fly and shoot and transform, for fighting bad guys because he lacks the faerie magic his older sister has.  I’ve wanted to delve into steampunk for awhile now, and here’s the perfect vehicle but for an audience to which steampunk is mostly brand new.

The idea has lurked in the back of my mind these past several months, but suddenly stood up and started doing jumping jacks when I read a listing in Writer’s Market for a publisher who was looking for steampunk stories not set in the Victorian time period.  I swear the clouds parted and rays of sunlight beamed down upon my head.

Obviously, it’s going to be several years before this idea comes to fruition, but that just gives me time to plan it.  And to start reading every steampunk novel I can get my hands on.

Any suggestions?