This morning I got an email from someone on Facebook inviting me to join a cover-art group. I thought this was a fantastic idea – we could swap techniques and ideas, share brushes and textures and maybe even club together to occasionally employ a photographer for a cover shoot.
Unfortunately, when I clicked on the link, it turned out that it was a cover artist who was inviting me to join her group so that I knew where to come when I was looking for my next cover – which was less useful to me, particularly as she seems to specialize in heroines. So, it seems if I want to join a group for cover artists, I will have to find it elsewhere. Does anyone know of a cover artists’ group I could join? Or alternatively, if I started my own, would any other cover artists fancy joining it?
~*~
On the Boys of Summer front, I’ve written 2,000 words of sex scene and still faded to black at the end, so I’m thinking this is my muse trying to tell me something and I’m going to leave it at that.
I’ve had Rose at home for two days feeling ill, so I’ve got less done than I might have liked. But tomorrow I tackle Darren’s family and try to make the dynamics there a bit clearer. I gave one reader the impression that Darren had an abusive childhood – which was not an impression I meant to give. Kyle (Darren’s brother) suffered from neglect and emotional abuse (where emotional abuse = constant belittlement) and the occasional smack around the head – which is why he’s now a complete mess – but Darren, raised by his grandmother, did not. Which is why he’s really pretty together by comparison.
So, the girls are back in school, Andrew is back at work, and so am I. I’ve started serious edits on Boys of Summer. Unfortunately this means actually writing the sex scenes that I faded to black on during the first draft. And that involves thinking way more deeply about the emotional states of both characters. For me, a sex scene is primarily a way of exploring the character’s feelings about each other and the relationship, and I fudged it in the first draft by simply not having the sex scene.
This time around I’m having to think not only about Martin’s (aka Tony’s) first time nerves – which appear to have so completely disappeared that I’m thinking his mother may be right about him being far too trusting for his own good – but also Darren’s angst.
Darren is doing this knowing that in the morning he’s going to betray Martin’s trust in a big way. So I’m trying to show him battling his conscience and see-sawing between lust, despair and thinking he’s a total bastard, while still trying to give Martin the kind of experience he hopes will be worth £2000. And I’m trying to do that from Martin’s POV, so that Martin doesn’t have a clue what’s going on now, but it will all be obvious when he looks back on it.
Maybe that is a good reason why I only did a little over 700 words today! It’s horribly complicated. At least no-one should say it’s all gratuitious tab A in slot B – though I’m sure they will.
When I posted the picture of Captain’s Surrender’s new cover, a couple of people said “Oh no, I really like that, but I’ve got the old version!” So I thought that it might be nice to make a dust-cover for the old version, using the new cover art.
You can find it here: http://alexbeecroft.com/freebies/
and the idea is that it will fit on a piece of A4 (or the USA equivalent) size paper. Just print it out, cut off the white bits of paper left on the top and bottom, and fold over the bits left at the sides, and that should do the trick! (I hope!)
Eeeeeee! When I decided to stick with Samhain as the publisher for CS, it was partially because I really liked their covers, and I was hoping for something a bit more tasteful than the one it had previously. I was given the usual cover art questionnaire thing, and I filled it in exhaustively, hoping that would make a difference. I said I would like something that looked as though it was similar to False Colors. I would absolutely love a cover by Anne Cain because she was my cover art idol. I really wanted at least one man to be in uniform. Hair colour was important to me. If there had to be a naked torso, then I preferred the backs of men to their chests. I wanted a tall ship. And I hated overly muscular men and would like to make it clear that neither of my heroes had ever been inside a gym in their lives.
Read the rest of this entry »
I had a lovely, though strenuous, fortnight’s holiday over the past two weeks, but now I’m home. We went to Cornwall for the first week and I reminded myself of all the settings in Boys of Summer, and adopted a baby lobster. I also went bodyboarding in the rain, when the surf felt verging on downright dangerous, and decided that next year I get surfboarding lessons.
After that, we went up North to visit my Dad and Andrew’s parents. And after that we went down to Kent to spend the three days of the bank holiday weekend at the Detling Military Odyssey which was smaller than it has been in the past, and featured scarcely any Napoleonic groups, and far too many Nazi reenactors for my tastes. I can see the point of not glossing over any part of history, but to me it all looked too much like an unhealthy fascination, and I’m not sure if I want to be associated with it again. Jan Ellen, who is an amazing lady who knows all about Anglo-Saxon music and makes her own replica instruments from pictures in manuscripts, said that the presence of a large number of Confederate (American Civil War) reenactors made her feel the same way. She is from the South herself and associated the flags with the same sort of BNP/fascism. So… I enjoyed doing something with Regia again, but I wasn’t very happy with the company we were keeping.
However, I am now back, and glad to be home. I’ve spent today putting things away and making a website for my Regia group. Regia is a national society which is organized into numerous local groups, and the group I belong to is called the Sceaftesige Garrison. I’ve made them a snazzy new website, but it currently has no content:
Sceaftesige Garrison
Tell me again: Why did I decide I had the time to do this? 😉
And as a result I have children at home for the summer holidays and no time for writing. I had meant to fill this time with research on the early Anglo-Norman period in Britain, for my planned Herewardish m/m historical novel, Dragon of the Fen. But I find myself researching the history of Morris Dancing instead.
Did you know that women have always morrissed? Right from the earliest records, where we find a gloriously entertaining condemnation of the dance by one Christopher Fetherston in 1582:
I myself have seene in a may gaime a troupe, the greater part wherof have been men, and yet have they been attyred so like unto women, that theyr faces being hidde (as they were indeede) a man coulde not discerne them from women. What an horrible abuse was this? What abhominable sinnes might have hereupon ensued?
The second abuse, which of all other is the greatest, is this, that it hath been toulde that your morice dauncers have daunced naked in nettes: what greater entisement unto naughtines could have been devised?
Sorry, I included that second paragraph not because it had anything to do with women dancing morris but just because it made my mind boggle. There are some traditions I find I’m happy to allow to gently lapse 😯
It’s relatively well known that in 1600, William Kemp, (a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s men along with one William Shakespeare) morris danced from London to Norwich as a sort of early publicity stunt. It’s less well known that he was joined by a different female dancer at two separate points along the way.
And in 1769 Thomas Blount published an account of some village customs which included the following:
At Kidlington in Oxfordshire, the custom is that on Monday after Whitson Week, there is a fat live Lamb provided, and the Maids of the Town, having their Thumbs tied behind them, run after it, and she that with her Mouth takes and holds the Lamb is declared ‘Lady of the Lamb’, which being dressed with the Skin hanging on, is carried on a long Pole before the Lady and her Companions to the Green, attended with Music, and a Morisco Dance of Men, and another of Women,
John Cutting, from whose book ‘History and the Morris Dance’ I have lifted these quotes, thinks that the village in question was actually Kirtlington – which had a Lamb Ale up until 1858 – rather than Kidlington, which didn’t.
But that aside, given that our earliest piece of evidence for the existence of Morris dancing in the UK at all is in 1448, and our evidence for women dancing comes only a century later, I think it’s pretty conclusive that this Victorian insistence that women shouldn’t morris is in truth something made up by the Victorians, in the same way they made up the idea of horns on Viking helmets and many other modern myths.
There is also zero evidence that Morris is a survival of ancient pagan ritual dance, other than the fact that the first collector of the dances, Cecil Sharp, was a bit of a fan of The Golden Bough, and inclined to see survivals of ancient pagan traditions all over the place. From what I have seen so far, morris is inconveniently silly, and serious minded people have a tendency to try and turn it into something more important and more folklory than it is. Witness this:
The Abbot’s Bromley Horn dance is a dance that can claim to be older than morris, and to have been danced in Abbot’s Bromley for over 1000 years. Surely if any dance is a pagan survival, this is it. Now this is a modern reinvention of the Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXe0QL2t6Bk
and it is eerie and unsettling and easy to believe that it’s a survival of something mystical. But in fact, this is a version specially slowed down and folked-up for the popular imagination. This is the real thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJVC7ZocNjI
I read an article just yesterday in The Times Online, AA Gill meets the morris dancers that seemed to reflect this. After exercising his wit in order to prove just how much he is above all of this, for one brief moment he finds himself enjoying himself. Oh noes! How could a man so sophisticated as himself possibly enjoy such a stupid pastime exercised by such lumpen, ugly, beer-drinking proles? It can’t possibly be because ordinary people dancing and having a drink or two is an entertaining thing to do. It must be because he was feeling from afar the influence of the deeply hidden ancient spiritual meaning of the thing! Well, thank goodness for that!
To prove where I stand on the whole thing, here I am dancing Padnall with the Ely and Littleport Riot women’s Border morris side. Not naked in a net, you’ll be glad to hear.
Join us today at Speak Its Name http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpeakItsName/ for a celebration of the relaunch of some popular m/m historical titles and a sneak preview of a new m/m historical anthology. We’ll have interviews, chats, excerpts, and prizes! If you don’t want to join another egroup, the interviews are also mirrored on the Macaronis blog here
After Linden Bay Romance’s buy-out by Samhain, some authors decided to take their books to a smaller press that focuses solely on GLBT fiction.
Cheyenne Publications, helmed by publisher and author Mark Probst, will be publishing the print versions of Erastes’ Frost Fair, Lee Rowan’s Royal Navy series (formerly the Articles of War series), and Speak its Name, a trilogy that includes Charlie Cochrane’s first published work, Aftermath. Leslie Nichol, head of Bristle Cone Pine Press, will handle the e-book editions. Both publishers will be on hand to answer questions, so if you have questions about the nuts-and-bolts, here’s your chance!
I got to do the cover art for all of these, so I’m as proud as if they were my own books. It’s not often you get the chance to make your favourite novels look pretty 🙂 And Cheyenne Publishing is going down the unusual road of not having any ubiquitous naked torsos in its cover art! This is actually proving to be quite a challenge!
Tuesday Publisher interviews, Author chats with Erastes and Lee Rowan and excerpts from the three releases: Frost Fair, Ransom, and Winds of Change.
Wednesday Spotlights on Eye of the Storm, and Speak Its Name Trilogy, coming September 14 and October 26.
Friday What else is coming from Cheyenne Publishing and Bristlecone Pine Press — Hidden Conflict: Tales of Lost Voices from Battle.
* * * *
The lineup from Cheyenne and BCPP (and yes, print and e-books on the same schedule!)
August 1, 2009: Frost Fair, Ransom and Winds of Change (Royal Navy series)
September 14, 2009 Eye of the Storm (Royal Navy series)
October 26 2009 Speak Its Name Trilogy
November 11: Hidden Conflict: Tales of Lost Voices from Battle
December 7, 2009 Walking Wounded
January 1, 2010 Home is the Sailor (NEW Royal Navy novel!)
March 1, 2010 Sail Away (anthology, Royal Navy series)
One week into our story, I thought I would summarize what had happened so far, and extend another invitation to come and join the fun. So… the story so far:
It was a dark and stormy night, and the mysterious Phillip Hunt was signalling from a bedroom window to a ship out in the harbour below, when a scream rang out. The master of the house, Septimus Hambley, was found lying in his bed, beheaded, the curtains behind him a waterfall of blood.
Meanwhile, down in the cellar, Septimus’ son, William, choosing wine for his guests’ dinner, came upon a strange bundle. He opened it and was confronted with his father’s head. He swooned, bashing his own head on the wine-rack as he fell. Shock horror! Fortunately a famous (famous in the vicinity of the local pub, at least) French detective, Pepin Leveque is on hand, in the local pub, and is called for. He amazes the company with his forceful command of the situation and remarkable turns of phrase, deducing from the splatter patterns on the curtains that the murder was done by a left handed man.
William, revived from his swoon, is tended to by his best friend, Andrew, whom he loves with a passion that dare not speak its name. Andrew, who is in very much the same situation but vice versa, is moved by his friend’s accident to dare a quick kiss to the back of the neck. But just as they pondering the meaning of this action, Philip bursts in and makes some very knowing remarks that discomfort them both.
Philip seems to be about some mysterious business out on the docks, so Andrew follows him to see what he’s up to, while William steels himself to confront his father’s dead body. Gasp! But what is this? This man has calloused hands and tattoos! This is not William’s father at all. There must have been two beheadings!
But William is a smart cookie, and it occurs to him, as he’s walking down the family portrait gallery how very waxy and strange the skin of the dead head had looked, how he hadn’t looked close enough to see the severed neck. OMG! Could it be a waxwork head?
Rather than put his master through the potential anguish of handling his dead father’s head the family retainer, Hastings, picks up the grisly object and reveals that it is indeed a wax head. Maybe Septimus is still alive after all?
William thanks Hastings, little realizing that the man harbours more than a professional affection for him.
Meanwhile, Andrew (who is a nice lad, but a little blond) having lost Philip in the rainy dark decides it is a good idea to walk up to a group of rough looking sailors and say ‘excuse me, gentlemen?’ Knocked out by a two by four to the head, he is hauled into the presence of the man in charge and wakes up for long enough to realize it is Septimus Hambley, William’s supposedly dead father, before darkness takes him once more.
~*~*~*~
LOL! Allow me to say OH MY GOD! This is fantastic fun, and I have to thank in particular Jordan Taylor and MaineWriter for creating this powerhouse of twisty goth mystery. But please, if you think you could complicate this further, or make sudden blinding sense of everything, please do chip in. There are no limits – a single paragraph is as welcome as a whole scene – and the sense of mad inventiveness is delightful, and can only be improved by more people joining in.
So come and swap a salty smuggling scene today! http://tinyurl.com/kkwjzx
Hurray! The Mysterious (the anthology in which ‘The Wages of Sin’ appears) is now official, as it’s just been added to MLR Press’s ‘coming soon’ page: Upcoming Releases
Due out October the 10th 2009
And Hidden Conflict (the anthology in which ‘Blessed Isle’ appears) has had its release date brought forward to Veterans Day/Remembrance Sunday, November 11th 2009.
LOL! They do say ‘the best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley’. There I was, congratulating myself that I had a nice spread of releases into next year, and now I’ve got them both clumped together in a single month. Better get cracking with Boys of Summer, then, to fill that ‘haven’t had anything new out in a while’ hole that’s just opened up in 2010 🙂
Hurray! The Mysterious (the anthology in which ‘The Wages of Sin’ appears) is now official, as it’s just been added to MLR Press’s ‘coming soon’ page: Upcoming Releases
Due out October the 10th 2009
And Hidden Conflict (the anthology in which ‘Blessed Isle’ appears) has had its release date brought forward to Veterans Day/Remembrance Sunday, November 11th 2009.
LOL! They do say ‘the best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley’. There I was, congratulating myself that I had a nice spread of releases into next year, and now I’ve got them both clumped together in a single month. Better get cracking with Boys of Summer, then, to fill that ‘haven’t had anything new out in a while’ hole that’s just opened up in 2010 🙂
