This was originally posted under the title  "Where do (my) ideas come from?"  on the old Steampunk Empire website.  And things in square brackets [ ] are modern insertions.

-      (WARNING - This post contains what those reading [ or having read ] my CR&A stories may consider to be spoilers.  [ Or maybe not.  It's quite possible that no one reading this is familiar with my material. ]  Anyways, proceed at your own risk.)

      I considered a lengthy introduction to…

      OK, I've described coincidences 1, 3, and 4, so I may as well reiterate #2.

      AFTER thinking up the character of Adele Calloway, giving her a romantic relationship with the character based on me, and deciding on her birthday (September 23, 1882), I decided to see how "we" relate according to the so-called "Chinese Zodiac".  In simplest terms, this assigns an animal to a person according to the year of their birth, and indicates certain characteristics which a person with a…

      I've mentioned some of these things before, and here is another one.

      The character of Adele Calloway has a number of highly developed skills that enable her to function successfully in a Wild/Weird Western Steampunk environment.  She is an expert horsewoman, adept with a lariat, can track, and 'read sign' to an extraordinary degree, is fluent in American Indian sign language, and is highly proficient with handguns.  She is also not shy about pointing out her abilities to…

      [This was originally a post in a group I had created on the old Steampunk Empire website, dedicated to classical music, and its relationship to steampunk.]

-      Machines used to play music are nothing new.  Carillons have been automated since at least the 17th century, and small music boxes have been around since at least the 18th.  By the 19th century, musical machines of many types began to be produced.  One of the most famous was the Panharmonicon, invented by…