I met my goal yesterday, and exceeded it a little–slightly over 2,000 words. I’m taking just a brief moment to introduce you to my characters this morning. I still don’t have a satisfactory name for this sucker so, in deference to Erika, I’m calling it AGGIE AND THE ZOMBIES for now. While AATZ is set in Victorian times, I wasn’t quite so lucky as to find male models in period costume. I was a bit luckier with the ladies.
Allow me to introduce Lady Agatha Elizabeth Victoria Carmichael, M.D. She much prefers to be called Aggie by her friends. Aggie grew up tagging around the world after her father, Colonel Sir George Carmichael, M.D., late of Her Royal Majesty’s Army. She spent time in India as a girl when he was in service there as a medical officer with his regiment. Now, while Aggie is something of a free spirit, she doesn’t really dance around the woods naked. The first picture is her face. The second is the way she normally appears in polite society.

Polite society, you say? I find nothing polite about a sniveling bunch of boors.

Yes, this would be Aggie.

Aggie’s dearest friend is a very sweet and proper young lady by the name of Winnifred Horatia Phipps. Winnie is a Lady with a capitol L as well and quite well connected. She recently made her debut and, much to her delight, intends to make a good marriage with a titled gentleman with quite extensive estates in the country. Sadly, though, he only rents rooms in the city, a situation she hops to rectify once they are married. Needless to say, Winnie is quite smitten with the Marquis of Rivencroft, but more about him in a bit. Winnie is a lovely girl and quite loyal to Aggie, though she’s never understood Aggie’s drive and ambition.

The man Winnie hopes to marry, at the urging of her parents, is Lord Victor Henry Sutcliffe, the Marquis of Rivencroft. Victor had a distinguished military career that ended abruptly and after some time spent overseeing his various holdings around the Empire, he’s just returned to England and has put out the word he’s looking for a proper English wife. Winnie fits the bill–young, impressionable, rich. Winnie has stars in her eyes when she looks at him. “Oh isn’t he handsome,” she croons. “And being older, he must be wiser and will be so much more patient and kinder with me.” Aggie tends to roll her eyes. Victor? His expression doesn’t change much but if you watch him closely, you’ll realize that his gaze doesn’t miss much.

Enter Mr. Bartholomew Winston Alexander-Smythe. Mr. Alexander-Smythe is the second son of a minor lord. He’s reading for the law. Or trying to, anyway. London is a place of many temptations. One of them is a rather sweet-faced, brown-haired, brown-eyed girl by the name of Lady Winnifred Phipps. They met at a party and poor Bartee has never been the same. He was smitten. Like a moon-eyed calf he is whenever she enters the room, and half the time when she’s nowhere to be found. He is positive that he can be a be a better husband and is intent on proving that to Winnie….just as soon as he stops walking into doors.

And last but not least, we need our slightly nerdy scientist because this is a steampunk novel, right? May I present Lord John Gideon Charles Somerset, the Earl of Glamorgan? Aggie calls him Jack. Sometimes he remembers to answer. He tends to get lost in his experiments. He has a steam-powered gyroflitter (I say, I must have a way to get from the ground to my Zeppelin I’ll have you know.), a clock-work horse (“I forgot to feed the live one,” he mutters looking sheepish and then hastens to add, “though the fellow is doing quite well now with a man up in Shropshire.”) and all manner of interesting machines at his home. Oh, I should mention that Jack is also a vampire. So while he might be a geek, one really doesn’t want to piss him off. Just sayin’…

These would be the characters in the new WIP. I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot. Aggie is the heroine, Jack is her hero and Victor has to be the villain, of course. Bartee is our comic relief and yes there will be zombies. And steampunk. And clockwork figures that go bump in the night. I leave you with one last image. This is what London looked like the night Aggie and Jack met. But tell me? How are your projects going? And what do you think of my new “critters”?

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