Woo and hoo!

The next Gracie story is now available! It’s the second story, chronologically speaking…

Here’s the blurb:

Gracie lives in town and works for Mr. Dickerson, hidden in the back room ’cause no one wants a mere girl fixing their whirligigs or automatons. Gracie fights against the attitude that girls should only get married and have babies, but no one will hire her on her own.

Then she meets the professor, an inventor who likes that she’s talented, that she has a mind of her own.

However, the professor is only in town for a short while. Can Gracie convince him to take her with him?

Or is Gracie going to have to break out on her own?

I started this story three times. Each time, I got several thousand words in, then had to throw out everything I’d done and start again. I’d written two other Gracie stories, and I just couldn’t find the start of this one. I had Gracie in town, first, then on the railroad (where she meets the professor) then at a mine–none of them worked.

I finally got her into Mr. Dickerson’s shop. But this story went in fits and starts. I finished it over the course of a weekend. I wouldn’t say I struggled with it, but I think I probably wrote an extra 5000 words that I ended up not using by the time I was done, scenes that I cut or that just wouldn’t work.

I still like where this story ended up. And I have a very good idea about the next Gracie story, chronologically speaking (Gracie’s Great Train Adventure.)

Gracie Breaks Out is available at your favorite retailer. The paperback will be available in the next couple of weeks.