I’ve just had an email asking me if I was any relation to Admiral Beecroft. This gave me pause for thought, partly because I don’t know of any Admiral Beecroft. Do you?
And partly because I wouldn’t know if he was a relative even if he was. The Beecroft side of the family is my mother’s, and I don’t know even what my grandparents’ first names were, let alone any relatives further back than that.
When I was googling to see if I could find Admiral Beecroft, I did come across a John Beecroft, British Consul for the Bights of Biafra and Benin who had splendid mutton-chop whiskers and apparently was
“H.M.’s first consul for Bights of Benin and Biafra. In this capacity he did very good work and was instrumental in making many of the treaties for the suppression of the export slave trade. The naval expedition of 1841 up the Niger under Captain Bird Allen would have suftered even more terribly than it did had it not been for the prompt action taken by Governor Beecroft in going to their rescue. Governor Beecroft was the first to discover and survey the Cross river as far as the rapids.”
It would be interesting if he was a relative, but I have no way of knowing (not without some hefty genealogical research for which I don’t have the tools or time.) He probably wasn’t, though. I’ve always thought we were a lot more lower deck than that.
When I first had the idea for Under the Hill, back when it was Away with the Faeries, it was going to be a 30K novella. It was going to be a kind of lighthearted paranormal romance with some elves and ghosts and morris dancing. It was going to feature a bloke who worked in a bank, and another bloke who had been in the RAF before he was shot down by a UFO. And it was going to be a pretty plain m/m romance with some entertaining tomfoolery in the land of Faerie.
Then Chris decided he had a big mysterious secret.
Then Ben decided he had to have a bigger mysterious secret than Chris.
Then George, Chris’ old flame, turned up out of nowhere and said “I’m still alive, you know! Also trapped in Elfland. Help!”
Then Sumala turned up and said “yes, and there aren’t enough female characters, so I need a story!”
Then Oonagh, Queen of the elves, felt it was important to kidnap some people in order to explain to them why she was doing all this kidnapping of people.
There were incidents with a photocopier and well dressing, but that was OK because they had always been meant to be there.
But then Oonagh acquired a rival in the shape of Liadain, and suddenly the elves had politics. And Chris got arrested for murder, Ben got brainwashed, George got put in suspended animation, and Sumala discovered that the elves are mobilizing for war…
And then I realized I didn’t really have a romance on my hands any more.
The damn thing keeps growing and growing and getting more complicated, and now it’s in the process of getting a spine transplant, because I can’t get all the elvish stuff into the story if it’s only a story about Ben and Chris and how they fall for each other. It’s going to have to be a story about elves first, and a love story (love triangle? love square?) afterwards. But that means there needs to be something new to drive the plot. A fantasy can’t stand up on its own if it’s built around the skeleton of a romance. It would only end up being a deformed romance if it tried, and I can’t imagine a deformed romance doing anyone any good.
The worst thing is I’ve written 40K of it as a romance, and I don’t know how much of that will survive the transition into fantasy. I keep going back to the drawing board with this one and re-plotting it. I’ll be very glad when it fixes itself into one shape so I can start actually writing it again. I feel as if I’m trying to run up a down escalator with this one at the moment.
So I fell off the internet last week, due to having my final proofreading edit of Shining in the Sun with a deadline of one week to finish. Also cover art to make for an upcoming book by Cheyenne Publishing. Also cover art for a new series of Age of Sail novels coming out from Bristlecone Pine Press. (I had to come up with a concept for the series, so that all 5 books would look similar while all being individual, find pictures that the writer liked and felt were appropriate for each book, and then make the first cover in the full size version.
Also, I had a bit of a family crisis in which I discovered that not everything was OK between me and my sister, so that took precidence over everything.
It was kind of a miserable week, as a result, and I let my email pile up and didn’t post on my blog. If anyone’s been wondering about my new “were-snail” icon, that’s what it’s about – the fact that if there is trouble I deal with it by drawing in my horns and huddling in my shell.
However, this week, I have finished the edit, finished the Cheyenne cover, finalized the series concept and sent off the art for covers #1 and #2, and (due to a lot of forgiveness all around) the family crisis is no longer a crisis.
So I thought I would celebrate by (finally) spending some of the money I got as a Christmas gift from my Dad and buying myself an ereader. I was going to get a Sony, but as I scrolled down the options at Amazon.co.uk, I got distracted by the Cybook Gen 3 of which even the 3 star review said (paraphrased) “it’s a nice, basic ebook reader with no fancy stuff.”
I checked out their website, and it sounded just the job. Also it came with a free case, and was cheaper than the Sony. Now that I know that all the hints I’ve dropped over the past six months have been in vain and I’m getting 18th Century shoes for my birthday, I decided to buy it for myself. More news on that when it arrives!
Also, yay! Shining in the Sun is showing up on Samhain’s “Coming Soon” page. First unfolding seedling of a new release 
This must mean I’ll be getting a cover soon. Keep your fingers crossed for me! While I can’t expect anything as outstanding as the cover art for Captain’s Surrender twice in a row, Samhain’s cover art is always very good. But it’s still nerve-wracking when you don’t have any idea at all of what you’ll get.
Through the wonders of Google Alert, I discovered today that somebody has made a Wikipedia page for me!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Beecroft
Wow! Fame! I feel as if I’ve really arrived. (And my children are now broadcasting it about the internet in an attempt to one-up their friends. Your mother might be a brain surgeon, but I bet she isn’t on Wikipedia…. 
) Whoever you are, oh Wikipedia Page-maker, you are a complete star. Thank you so much How cool is that?!
Big thanks to Penelope Friday for this article in the T5m Collective magazine:
in which she interviews Lee Rowan, Kris Jacen and I about the I Do anthologies.
On other news, eagle eyed LJ readers may notice that I’ve changed my LJ style. I envied Erastes her sidebar with the pictures of her book covers on it. So I went looking for a three column style and then tweaked it so that it (a) fits with my website and (b) doesn’t look too much like hers, I hope. It would look less like hers if there wasn’t only a single three column layout to choose from. Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, but being unexpectedly cloned can offend.
A bonus feature is that I’ve discovered the list of links on the right hand side, and how to add more of them. So if you have a website you would like me to list there, just comment here with the name and URL and I will add it.
This weekend I have done three different text layouts on one book cover, received two different sets of suggestions for improvement, applied both and sent the resulting two different layouts to the publisher for a final decision on which one to go with. I’ve done three different concept mock-ups for another book cover. I’ve read and made notes on one book, and read the book for which I did the 3 mockups. That just leaves me with two books to read and review, and a blog post to write during the week. I’m almost looking forward to the week because it’ll be more restful!
Since posting on Thursday that my day was strangely hectic, I’ve decided that there was nothing strange about it. I’ve been taking on stuff here and there, and not doing it. So now I’ve suddenly realized that I have four books to read: two to review, one to read in order to get ideas for making the cover, one to read to give feedback on next Saturday at my writer’s club. I also have four, possibly five, book-covers to make. And I’ve promised to do a post on the Macaronis blog next week.
And, of course, I’m trying to get my daily minimum of 1050 words written, plus answering emails, and trying to extricate myself from conversations on topics which could be interesting, could get nasty, certainly require lots of thought, and for which I just don’t have the time or energy.
And there’s real life too. The girls went back to school yesterday after A was ill on Tuesday and R was ill on Thursday, but DH and I spent Friday at the reenactor’s market (a post on that anon). From which we returned with enough material for me to make a frock coat and waistcoat. That joins the “make higher class clothes for the family” to do list, which I haven’t started yet. I did finally get 18th Century shoes, though, which is a relief, as my clogs were quite uncomfortable. However, it adds “find appropriate buckles” to my list.
And there’s the whole feed, clothe, clean up after and taxi your family to their various activities. Exercise has once more been abandoned as an unrealistic ideal, and bodhran practice cut back to twice a week. I really don’t know how some writers manage all of this and a full time job too! *Am awed*.
I guess I’d better stop blathering here and go and do some of the things I ought to do instead.
Today has been strangely hectic, and yet I don’t seem to have achieved anything. Largely because Rose was at home ill again. She spent the morning asleep in bed, so I managed to get my daily 1050 words done (just), but this afternoon I feel absolutely exhausted from running about, but nothing seems to have got done. (Other than making a pint of custard because she wanted comfort food. Half of which is now going solid in the pan.)
However, two very good things have also happened today
A lovely review for The Wages of Sin
One is that I got this lovely review from Val Kovalin at Obsidian Bookshelf, who really enjoyed The Wages of Sin and voted it a recommended read. She says “I enjoyed reading The Wages of Sin and I’m a reader who usually finds ghost stories to be tedious. However, this one held my undivided attention, starting with the title, …. I liked the flashes of humor expressed by the admiral when he describes the neighbor feud, and I found Jasper and Charles to be appealing characters that I’d love to see in a sequel, practicing their unique investigative abilities.”
The full review is available here: The Wages of Sin by Alex Beecroft
and *fanfare*
Captain’s Surrender comes in joint second place in Love Romances Cafe’s Best Historical Romance of 2009 category.
I have got a button 
which I will put on my website to celebrate Thank you so much to anyone who voted for me! You are very cool and it’s entirely appreciated.
One of the nicest things about this is that the m/m historical romance was judged in with the m/f historical romance, rather than being confined to its own little ghetto. Congratulations too to Charlie Cochrane, whose “Lessons in Temptation” won an Honourable Mention. Given that m/f romance is a very much bigger field than m/m, I think we did pretty well
After I posted that “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief” contained gratuitous scenes of Daniel Craig in a Greek mini-skirt, the astute Sarah F pointed out that whoever was playing Poseidon, it wasn’t Daniel Craig.
Daniel Craig playing Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film
This threw me into a three day ferment of “so who was it then? I’m sure I know his face from somewhere.” And I’m happy to announce that I’ve tracked him down and it was in fact Kevin McKidd, who I knew from the Rome TV series, where he played the centurion Lucius Vorenus.
Kevin McKidd, in Roman mini-skirt (sadly not visible in this picture.)
I’m not at all ashamed at getting them mixed up, since I had them both filed in my mental category of “hard looking blond bastards.”
I’ve enjoyed reading the 10 rules of famous writers in the Guardian’s Ten rules for writing fiction article. I’ve just picked the ones that resonate most with me. Some of them make a worthy list which puts me off ever reading any of their work, and some – Anne Enright in particular – sound so sensible and pithy that I feel sure I would like their books. Some of my particular favourites are:
From Margaret Atwood
You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there’s no free lunch. Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but essentially you’re on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.
From Anne Enright
(I don’t know who Anne Enright is, or what she writes, but I like so many of her rules so much that I may have to check out her work.) Read the rest of this entry »
