Straw Bear 2013 and weekly miscellany

This week I have mostly been… ill.

It started off on Saturday, which was unfortunately also the day of this year’s Straw Bear festival. I was in that half way state where you know you’re ill but you don’t yet know what it’s going to be when it’s fully manifested itself. So I dressed for dancing, then added several more layers of jumpers and a sheepskin coat and went as a musician who might dance if absolutely necessary.

The layers were all very needed, as it was perishingly cold, but it was also sunny and clear. Perfect weather πŸ™‚ I haven’t got much more to say about it than I said last year or the year before, but it was a good one, which I will remember fondly.

It was the first showing of my new purple waistcoat πŸ™‚

More photos than anyone other than a member of the Riot could ever want to see:

http://www.elriot.co.uk/jalbum_sb2013/index.html

I spent Sunday hacking my lungs out. But I felt a littleΒ  better on Monday, so I started the week determined to stick to my New Year’s Resolution of writing 4,000 words a day. This I managed on Monday, and on Tuesday. By Wednesday I felt awful again and wrote nothing. 3,200 on Thursday, and I told myself “you’ll feel even better by Friday. You can do the 4000 and maybe even an extra 700 to make up Thursday’s total. Thus, having jinxed myself, I feel terrible again today and need to sleep.

OTOneH, this push of over 10,000 words has brought me *this close* to the end of The Glass Floor – I only have the finale to write now. OTotherH, it’s so frustrating to know I could have done more.

Still, what I did manage on the non-writing day that was Wednesday was a complete revision of the plot plan, to make the whole thing tighter and more exciting. I suspect that ought not to be sniffed at as an achievement either.

Other achievements this week – my youngest, having been told he wouldn’t get the grades to get into his 6th form college of choice, buckled down, pulled his finger out, and got those grades regardless. I am super proud of him.

I’m also pretty chuffed with this lovely review of Blessed Isle:

http://www.bookloversinc.com/2013/01/17/review-blessed-isle-by-alex-beecroft/

I’m slightly perturbed at the fact that the lack of sex is causing such problems for everyone. Are there really no other sweet m/m romances out there? What about Charlie Cochrane’s? But I am delighted that everyone’s enjoying it despite that πŸ™‚

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HJ
HJ
11 years ago

Wishing you better, from a fellow-sufferer.

– I don’t think what you did on Wednesday should have been dismissed as “wrote nothing”. A complete revision of the plot plan is a very real achievement!

– as is your youngest’s achieving his grades. That’s brilliant!

– Do you think that the lack of sex is really “causing … problems”? I suspect it’s just that it’s worthy of note, so that potential readers know what they’re (not) getting. And so that those who prefer that know it’s one they can safely go for!

Also pleased for you that it’s getting such good reviews, but it’s no more than it deserves.

Charlene Newcomb
11 years ago

Another interesting take on sex in m/m from Kate A.: http://onlytruemagic.blogspot.com/2013/01/when-sex-gets-boring.html#more – readers noting they skipped over the sex because it was the same as every other sex scene. We can’t please everyone, right?

Do you think m/m novels appeal to a broader audience if there is minimal graphic sex?

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