Charlie Cochrane, as well as being an amazingly prolific and talented author is also a whiz at thinking up ideas for places to promote. Recently she suggested that as we were both members of the RNA (the Romantic Novelists’ Association – the UK equivalent of the RWA) we should write a piece about gay historical romance for their in house magazine.
Since we joined the RNA, neither of us have noticed any difference between the way they treat gay romance and the way they treat straight, and here again they have proved their quality (or should I say their equality) by printing the feature. You can see a scan of the shortened article here:
(Click to enlarge.) Or the full, unedited text is up on the Macaronis here: Writing Breeches Rippers
Massive thanks to Charlie for being the brains of the outfit, and to the RNA for their inclusiveness 🙂
I met Rawiya on Twitter, and was struck by her enthusiasm and drive. Anyone who can get 5-6 stories out of a single holiday is awesomely productive by my measure 🙂 We agreed to do a blog swap for the day, so I’m handing over to her now:
1. Who has been the biggest influence upon your work?
MM: Lately, it has been fellow author and editor, Sascha Illyvich. He has really given me a lot of confidence that I can be a better writer. I’m still learning, and when you are a newbie, you need someone to guide you. Through my first set of edits for Only When I Lose Myself, he did just that.
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Treat yourself and help Japan
First of all, I was going to post about the wonderful birthday present I got from Mirien, which I absolutely love. I’ve put it on a black thong to wear it because that seems to go better with the feeling of wearing something out of antiquity. I tried to take a photo of it, but failed to get one that was good enough to show it off properly. You can see what it looks like at her post here. Or, since I borrowed her photo, here:
So, as I say, I was going to post about that, but then Mirien decided to make some charms for sale in aid of the Japan relief effort, and I thought it would be better to post about that instead. She has made some lovely sakura-blossom shaped silver charms stamped with a leaf pattern, suitable for wearing as a pendant or a bracelet or phone charm, or as earrings if you get two. They’re available for £14, which is not much for a handmade piece of jewellery from an up and coming designer. Of that, £4 is the price of the silver, and £10 will go to Japan. So you can buy yourself (or someone else) something nice while also doing a good deed. Win/win 🙂
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I am interviewed on Sharita Lira’s blog
It’s been a long time since I did an interview, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing this one, as Sharita’s questions were very interesting and up to the minute:
You can find that here
Thanks Sharita!
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UK Meet – 23rd July
Advance notice of the UK Meet – a con for writers and fans of GLBT Fiction, whether that’s M/M romance, F/F romance or any other genre featuring GLBTQ characters. That’s being held on the 23rd of July in Milton Keynes. You can find details of the venue and booking information on the UK Meet website. If you know anyone who you think would want to come, do pass the info on. Thanks!
When I say “con”, mind you, what I mean is “it’s a meeting with a few talks, and you can stay for dinner afterwards if you like.” We’re not promising anything huge and highly polished, so much as a chance to come and meet some of the UK authors and hang out 🙂
I started this diary of the tattoo healing process because I assumed there would be something to report. I’d googled it a bit and I was aware of horror stories such as waking up the first morning after with the tattoo stuck to the sheets and pulling out half the ink trying to get it off. I thought there would be something of interest to report every day.
However, one of the things I did notice on Googling was that there were large amounts of people telling tattoo newbies to take the clingfilm off at once, OMG! So perhaps it’s of some use that I can provide an alternative opinion. Read the rest of this entry »
Really nothing to report at all. The inflammation has gone altogether, it’s still slightly dampish at the very thickest parts of the ends of the cross, but dry everywhere else. No scabbing, no itching, no nothing. Thankfully the micropore tape does not give me the allergic reaction the zinc-oxide tape did, so I’m on course for keeping the clingfilm on for the full four days. But tomorrow will be the fourth day, and surely it should have started scabbing/itching if it was going to?
(Or maybe the first full one? I’m not sure.) Anyway, this is what I was worried about last time I posted:
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Today I went for my first ever tattoo. It was a big deal for me, made bigger by the fact that I’m the sort of person who worries about every single thing that could go wrong as if all of them could happen at once. But it was also a big deal because I’d wanted one for so long and had begun to think I’d die before I ever got my nerve up.
So, I hit my interim target on the diet and used that as an excuse to book myself in at the studio I’d had recommended. I chose a design of a small black cross, thinking I would test out my reaction on something small and work my way up. Very appropriately, I got the appointment on Ash Wednesday, which felt right – to be marked with a painful black cross on a day of penance.
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I appear to have completely failed to tell anyone about this guest blog that I did on Julia Knight’s blog.
so I thought I would link it now. I do, in fact, try to keep up with Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Livejournal and my list of blogs I read in Google Reader, but the post is the fruits of the fact that I started out keeping up with them more and ended up being too depressed and hassled to write.
And on a completely different subject, what is probably the coolest thing ever (if you’re me). False Colors is being taught by Eric Selinger as part of the upper-division (advanced undergraduate) course on popular romance fiction at DePaul university. I was terribly curious to know what kind of things the students would be asked about it, and thrilled when Eric posted about that very thing on the Teach Me Tonight blog.
The “is penetrative sex considered by women to be the apex of sex?” question is of course something that’s been discussed in slash-writing communities for some time. It’s therefore something I actually thought about when writing the book. But I am surprised to find that the violence in the book is a talking point. I suppose there is a lot of it, but I hadn’t really thought of it as a notable feature before.
I just can’t say how much I’m thrilled to think False Colors can stand up to being subjected to sustained intellectual study. (At least, I hope it can. I don’t know what the students actually think of it!)
Just a quick update to say that my ancient computer has become so hesitant and arthritic that it’s going to have to be rebuilt with a new hard drive. That’s going to take most of the weekend, so I won’t be around for a day or so. If I don’t answer your emails in that time, it’s not because I’m ignoring you, it’s just because I have no way of seeing them 🙂
Well, given how much the diet has slowed down, I don’t see myself hitting my final target weight in April any more. So I’m rethinking the whole tattoo schedule, along the lines of “I’ve already lost 2 stone, do I not get a reward for that?!” and “I’ve got an interim target coming up which I only have to lose 1.5lb to hit. I could lose that by next week. How about I get the tattoo to celebrate hitting that instead?”
Impatient, moi? Well, yes. I’m not getting any younger, you know 😉
But at any rate, I’m continuing to browse the tattoo sites and I just happened on this one: The Word Made Flesh
which has a whole load of photos of tattoos which are quotes from people’s favourite books. Why on earth – as a writer – did it not occur to me before this that I could have words rather than pictures inked in? You would have thought that was an obvious thing to think of. Not to me!
On the other hand, I’m having difficulties coming up with a single quote that means as much to me as a cross or a vine scroll. I suspect that this is a situation in which a picture is worth a thousand words. All that leaps to mind is
“If this is the Royal Music, no wonder the Kings of Karhide are all mad.”
From Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness.
A moment’s Googling, mind you, turns up a treasure trove of quotes from Tolkien. I’ve always admired not only the way he wrote but also the things he had to say about writing, and here he is talking about the happy ending and why it’s a good thing:
“The consolation of fairy stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly, the good catastrophe, the sudden, joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to a fairy tale); this joy, which is one of the things that fairy stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially escapist or fugitive. In it’s fairy tale or other world setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace, never to be counted on to reoccur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, or sorrow and failure, the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies, (in the face of much evidence if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien
I could see
“Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”
making a good tattoo.
How about you? If you had to choose a quote to have tattooed upon your person, what would it be and why?
