Welcome
to the February Charity Sunday blog hop! As usual, I am featuring a
worthy cause, giving you an excerpt to thank you for visiting, and
asking for your comments. For each comment you leave, I will make a
donation to my chosen charity.
This
month I am once again supporting Girls
Who Code, an organization that works to increase female
participation in STEM, especially in computer technology and with a
special focus on underrepresented groups and people of color. I
strongly believe in their core principles: bravery, sisterhood and
activism.
I’m
a woman engineer myself. My path was easier than that of many young
women; I came from a white, middle-class family with a strong
commitment to education as well as a belief in female equality. I
also had bold and creative female role models (though none of them
was in tech). How much harder would it have been for me if I’d been
born in a Black ghetto, or to a Syrian refugee family, or to a
conservative, rural family struggling to survive through farming?
You
can read more about Girls Who Code and their various activities on
their website. (And I
hope you will...) Meanwhile, I will donate two dollars to their work
for every comment I receive on this post.
Last
year I finished the third book in my trilogy featuring a female
engineer, Gillian Smith, who joins a secret society involved in
designing and building cutting edge erotic artifacts. So I have lots
of excerpts showing smart women solving engineering problems! Here’s
one from Book 2 of the series, The Journeyman’s Trial.
Gillian and her lover Rafe have both been expelled from The Toymakers
Guild, as punishment for a rash act that endangered the organization.
Gillian has taken refuge in a cottage on the Cornish coast, where she
tries to come to terms with her banishment.
Enjoy!
And don’t forget to leave me a comment!
Excerpt
(PG)
A
sudden revelation stunned her. If Rafe did reject the Guild, then he
was not, after all, the soul mate he had seemed.
As
fellow journeymen, their paths aligned. They shared a common set of
goals and values, dedicating both their erotic creativity and their
technical abilities to the Guild’s mission. Members of Randerley’s
wanton and uninhibited community, they belonged to an elite group of
natural libertines, a handful of brave souls committed to answering
the call of desire.
An
outsider would never understand the bonds that linked the Guild
members to one another. And despite several years of experience at
Randerley, if Rafe were to turn his back on the Master and his
perverse flock, he would become an outsider.
Intense
grief swept through her, as though she’d already lost him. At the
same time, she felt a new clarity and strength of purpose. She knew
her own mind and heart and had made her own choice. Over Rafe’s
decisions, she had no power. Only when she’d completed her
banishment would she know the outcome.
Meanwhile,
she could make herself useful. In response to Amelia’s suggestion,
Gillian had brought her experimental Analytical Engine with her to
Cornwall. This interlude of isolation was an ideal opportunity for
her to address the difficulties that had previously frustrated her,
with no competing tasks and no sensual distractions.
Exhausted
by emotion and her hours of walking, she fell asleep by the fire. The
next morning, however, crisp sunlight woke her. After dressing and
stirring the embers on the hearth into a blaze, she breakfasted on
hot tea, brown bread and curd. Then she pulled the complex mechanism
from her luggage and set it on the table near the hourglass.
She
worked until well past noon, refreshing her memory regarding the
modes of failure she’d observed during her last efforts with the
device. When the usual boy from the village arrived to deliver
provisions, she realised she was ravenous, but she didn’t want to
take the time to cook lunch. She grabbed an apple, a hunk of cheese
and more bread, and returned to her contemplation of the recalcitrant
machine.
It
appeared to be consuming the instructions encoded on the perforated
paper strip. The problem seemed to lie in translating them into
actions. She’d built a small, highly simplified model of the
punishment rack to use for testing, really just a set of levers and
gears intended to represent one percussive instrument like a paddle
and one reciprocating item like a dildo. These components did in fact
move in response to her programme, but in an uncoordinated, erratic
manner.
Had
she made mistakes in implementing the engine? She’d followed Lady
Lovelace’s notes faithfully, with the exception of one or two
improvements that had seemed obvious. Could her minor enhancements be
responsible for the poor performance? Anything was possible. Indeed,
Lady Ada’s design might contain flaws; Ada Lovelace had never
actually built an instance of her celebrated engine, having been more
interested in the theory and its mathematical underpinnings. Going
back to the notes, Gillian reviewed them step by step, searching for
any omissions or for ambiguities she might have misinterpreted.
Around
two, Gillian put the work aside and went out walking. The skies had
cleared since the previous day and the views from the headlands were
glorious. Despite her frustration with her development efforts, she
found her spirits rising. She still had more than two weeks. She’d
solve the puzzle eventually and return to Randerley triumphant, with
the solution in hand.
Stopping
to catch her breath, she gazed out at the sea. It was unusually calm.
Overhead, the lowering sun painted the streaked clouds in shades of
pink and orange. She’d walked all the way to Porthcumo, almost five
miles. To the south, she could just make out the rhythmic pulsing of
Wolf Rock Lighthouse. The open vista and the distant horizon were a
marked contrast to the rolling country around Randerley.
Gratitude
swelled in her chest. Amelia had been generous in offering this
simple, peaceful haven. Mrs. Featherstone, at least, seemed to want
her to come back. Gillian was determined to earn her redemption in
the Governing Director’s eyes.
By
the time she’d returned to the cottage, it was pitch dark. Gillian
made herself a simple supper, read for a while by the light of a
candle, then lay down on the narrow iron-framed bed. All the doubts
churning in her mind had subsided: her shame and regret at having
endangered the Guild; her fear that they wouldn’t accept her back;
the wistful longing for Rafe’s presence and the craving for his
touch. She drifted into sleep, relaxed and at peace, and woke alert
and energised. Today, perhaps, she’d unravel the riddle.
She
did not in fact get the engine to function correctly that day, or the
next. However, she forced herself to remain calm and focused.
Persistence and discipline were the key to progress. She disassembled
the engine, examined each of its many parts for imperfections, then
put it back together, step by step. Each time she integrated a new
component, she tested its function using sets of minimal
instructions.
Her
efforts did not lead to success, but they built her confidence in the
physical construction of the engine. As far as she could tell, it had
been implemented correctly. The crux of the issue must lie elsewhere.
As
the days ticked by, she worked and waited for the moment when she
could rejoin the fellowship of the Guild. The answer came to her on
January 31st,
which happened to be her twentieth birthday.
She’d
expected to celebrate this milestone in the company of her fellow
engineers at Randerley. Indeed, she’d imagined the Master might
organize another erotically-charged gathering, sharing more of his
magical winter wine. Still, she didn’t waste mental energy on what
might have been.
She
did allow herself a glass of Burgundy with her birthday supper of
cold chicken and boiled potatoes. The single room where she’d spent
nearly a month felt warm and cosy, lit by a merry fire and a pair of
oil lanterns. She raised her glass – a simple tumbler, not a wine
goblet – and smiled. Her voice was loud in her ears. “Happy
Birthday, Gillian Smith! Here’s to another year of new adventures
and new insights.”
Given
her abstinence over the past weeks, the wine went straight to her
head. Giggling, she refilled her tumbler. The Analytical Engine
caught her eye, carefully put aside on the far corner of the table
along with her tools and her notebook. “And here’s to you, you
bloody stubborn machine,” she continued. “Sooner or later I’ll
figure out how to make you obey me!”
Something
shifted at the back of her mind, loosened perhaps by the alcohol.
Maybe what she needed was commands. Her symbolic language for
controlling the engine had specific representations for each possible
instrument and each individual movement. Perhaps that was the wrong
level of abstraction. If she could generalise the actions, that might
permit smoother reactions...
She
wasn’t about to try out her theory while she was tipsy. The next
day, though, she began to sketch out a new grammar for her
programmes. It took her until the third of February to create a
paper-based sequence of instructions using her revised approach.
Holding her breath, she watched the paper slide between the rollers
that fed it to the engine. For a moment nothing happened. Then the
miniature paddle began to swing, at a slow, even tempo, just as she’d
intended.
“By
Boole and Babbage! That’s it!” Jumping to her feet, she danced a
little jig around the table. “I’ve done it! The Master will be so
pleased!”
Don’t
forget to leave a comment! Every one helps make the dreams and
ambitious of smart young women become reality.
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