I had a great time at the UK Meet this year, though the intense (and wonderful) experience of being in a room with 40 odd other people who are all buzzed and happy and excited at being with kindred spirits did lead to me being utterly exhausted the next day.
There have been several write-ups of the day that cover the excellent talks, sumptious food and the excitement of all being in this together. For example this from Jenre’s blog, Well Read:
http://jenre-wellread.blogspot.com/2011/07/report-from-uk-meet-2011.html
and this one from Erastes
I would like to mention that the free anthology the attending authors contributed to is getting some great reviews!
http://kassa011.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/review-british-flash/
So if you haven’t got a copy it might be worth checking out.
I was involved in the panel on how to write the gay historical, alongside Erastes and Charlie Cochrane. (I was glad they made me speak first or I would have been too intimidated after their contributions!) We each spoke for about 5 minutes and then took some questions. Rather than doing another round-up post of what happened, I thought I’d post the text of my speech, as a kind of hard backup. I understand that all three will be available on Speak Its Name and/or The Macaronis by next week.
Anyway. I wrote this down, then I read it out, then I practiced the speech three times without the text. Then on the day I dispensed with paper or notes and just talked, trying to get the same main points across. So this text and what I actually said are certainly not identical, but I believe that the gist of the two things is the same.
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It’s probably some kind of blasphemy to group those two together, but on the other hand I had exactly the same reaction to both of them; they did not bore me but they did not wow me either.
I wasn’t familiar with the Green Lantern comics, though I admit to a prejudice on the grounds that I’ve never thought DC comics were as good as Marvel. (I must be one of the few people in the world who didn’t like the Spiderman films that the critics seem to regard as classics.) Seriously, DC, why do you go in for such wisecracking whiny brats as your heroes? This was another of the same sort. It’s probably meant to be endearing, or something, but I just wanted to punch the git through much of the story. OTOH, the world building and the special effects saved the day, and really the ability to give your imagination physical form is one of the cooler superpowers.
I’ve got to admit that the Harry Potter films lost me at the same place that the books lost me – I was interested up to Prisoner of Azkaban, and then I got bored. I had to go and see the final one as it was a major event in my childrens’ lives – they’d grown up with HP and now it was over. But I didn’t go in really caring about any of it, and the film didn’t make me care. I’ve already forgotten most of what happened, and I thought it was a shame that such a long event, so important to so many people, should have ended on such a note of mere adequacy. I wanted it to go out on a note of excitement and awe/satisfaction rather than with a shrug.
The problem might be me, mind you, as I haven’t even watched the first episode of the new Torchwood – no Ianto, no interest. I like the look of Captain America, though, which I feel a little embarrassed about, due to the whole ridiculous jingoistic nationalism of the concept. But Hugo Weaving always makes a fantastic villain, and the high-tech WW2 setting could be fun, and I guiltily admit that I kind of like the shield. Also I’m gearing up for the Avengers and I want to get the background in first.
Urgh. I’ve spent all morning setting up my page on the Romance Wiki, which of course included making a page for each of my books, and in many cases making a page for several of my publishers.
If you have a romance wiki page, and you’re in an anthology with me, or share a publisher with me, you may find there’s now an entry for those things, which you should just be able to link to, rather than having to write them up yourselves :) At least that’s a bonus!
http://www.romancewiki.com/Alex_Beecroft
Now to make some lunch and actually try to get some writing done.
In which Freyja is as good as her word.
Chapter Three.
Dreams out of Season .
Alfred looked up, staring out into the darkening air with a vacant stare. Sceldwulf was in his thoughts. The old man had told him once, when he was a small boy and sat rocking in his father’s shield, fancying himself a hero in a war-bound long-ship, that there was more to life than fighting. This was what he had said;
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Recently Josephine Myles, JL Merrow, Charlie Cochrane, Clare London and I were interviewed by Wave about our role as acquisitions team and editors for Tea and Crumpet – and the interview is now up on Wave’s blog!
So if you’d like to know a bit more about where this celebration of all things queer and British comes from – and for a chance to win a copy – head on over to Wave’s blog, where we’ll all be popping along later to answer comments! 
I hope not all authors are like this, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it’s a tendency at least I share:
On Saturday it was the Cambridge day of dance. The Riot had been invited but we couldn’t field enough members to make a side, so I went in support of my husband’s side, the Coton morris men. At the first dance spot a lady fell into conversation with me – which is normal enough, cos that’s partly what it’s all about (connecting people, getting them to talk and laugh together). She explained that she was a classically trained dancer who was “respectfully and non-judgmentally” writing a book about dance. So far so good – I’m all in favour of people writing books, as you know.
Then she said “which village are you from? Tell me about your tradition.” I was a bit non-plussed by the village thing, because it’s been almost a century since all the members of most morris sides all came from the same village, and I didn’t initially twig that that was what she was assuming. I said, “well, these are the Coton morris men and they dance in the Cotswold style.”
At which she looked at me as though she’d stopped believing a word I said, and (in a kind of ‘stop messing me about’ voice) she said “Coton isn’t in the Cotswolds.”
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By gentle persuasion, a bit of misdirection (and quite a lot of blackmail) Loki has persuaded Freyja to dismiss her loyal elvish maidservant, and agree to do a spot of matchmaking on Midgard:
~
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Thanks to Bruin Fisher, author of the wonderful “Work Experience” for pointing out to me that attitudedirect.com are featuring Shining in the Sun. Their number one bestseller, apparently! How very cool! http://attitudedirect.com/SHINING-IN-THE-SUN.html
This reminds me that I haven’t yet mentioned this lovely review by Alan Chin, author of the beautiful and haunting The Lonely War, even though it’s been quite a while since I squeed over it myself.
At first blush this seems like a rather simple yet well-told story of opposites attract. Beecroft hooks the reader with vividly drawn characters and then draws the reader into a beautifully crafted world where both rich and poor can find a middle ground to protect each other and even flourish for a time. These characters come alive because of their genuine emotions and concerns.
But as both characters’ lives begin to catch up with them, the plot becomes more complex, with twists and turns that give the reader a nice range of emotional experiences. This is no simple tale of rich man meets poor boy. It is a multifaceted web of situations and emotions.
Whole review here at Dorothy’s Closet
It’s taken a while for this to find its audience, because I think it’s a slightly different audience than the one that likes my age of sail books, but it’s nice to see it blossoming.
Thank you so much to attitudedirect.com, to Alan and to Bruin 🙂
I’m currently at the stage of thinking up a new novel length plot, and for the first time I’m trying it using plot cards. I reckon that I comfortably write 1000 words a day, so one card is going to represent the amount of stuff I can write in one day. This means I need 100 cards in order to have material enough to fill a 100K book.
So far, after 3 days of trying to think of stuff, I’ve got 29 cards, and already the thing is looking more like a kind of intimately focussed quest story, instead of the big epic magical shoot-em-up I thought it was going to be.
It’s an unusual method for me – normally I start at the beginning of a book and work logically through to the end, putting in the steps that have to happen as I go along. With the cards I can go “ooh, I’d love a scene where X happens”, write it down, and then have to shuffle things around to see where I can fit it in. I strongly hope that this will result in a plot which takes some unpredictable swerves and contains unexpected coolnesses. I sometimes think that being too linear in plotting makes things predictable.
But at least it means that I know where I’m going! At the moment, I think I have an opening third that I was not expecting myself, and two thirds where I still have no idea what will happen. Still, I guess that’s not bad going for three days. Maybe another week will see me in possession of a whole plot and ready to start writing again.
Anyone here with experience in plotting in scene cards? How do you use such an apparently random method while making sure you have rising tension and rising stakes?
