A little over 1,700 words today
http://picometer.writertopia.com/words=15624&target=20000
Of course, this means that I may end up writing more than 20,000 words to get to the place where I want to get to with this, but that’s nothing new. I can trim afterwards. It’s kind of reassuring to know that after I’ve done this one I don’t have to write anything new for a while. I should be getting edits in on “The Wages of Sin” soon, but that’s a ‘change is as good as a rest thing’ I hope! Read the rest of this entry »
So I got horribly sunburned on Sunday, dancing out for four hours on a blazing sunshiny day, with a cold sea breeze that meant I didn’t even feel it happen. My neck and chest are so burned that the skin has swollen and is so painful I can’t go out in the sun at all today. This made me think that I badly need a morris dancing hat to go with my outfit. Elriot have a job lot of red woolen hats for the winter, so I’m hoping I can start a trend of getting them to wear straw hats for the summer.
I have a canvas hat that I normally wear in the summer, and I bought it to replace this straw hat, Read the rest of this entry »
The Macaronis are doing a month long appearance at the Coffee Time Romance boards this month. Just introducing ourselves today, but tomorrow we’ll be chatting amongst ourselves, and then there’ll be individual author’s days throughout the month.
Click on the picture to get to the forum 🙂
And in not at all related news, if you missed that episode of Michael Wood (as Charlie Cochrane says, “the thinking woman’s crumpet”) being enthusiastic about Beowulf on BBC4, while attending a reading of the poem at Wychurst (the longhall I helped build), fret not, you can see a repeat of it here:
Beowulf on the BBC iPlayer
Well worth seeing if only to find out what a fantastically entertaining thing the poem is. It’s rather cool that the oldest piece of literature in the English language is a potboiler of a historical fantasy that would make a gripping movie. (As well as a dialogue between pagan and christian world-views, the definition of what it means to be a good king, a reflection on the futility of all accomplishment in this world, and a flattering legendary geneology of the East Anglian kings.)
But that’s about all I can say for it. I’ve just got home from an all day dance-out in Woodbridge, for the Suffolk Folk Festival
Well, when I say all day, I mean we danced from 11-12 in front of one pub, then we walked to another pub and danced from 12-1pm. Then we had lunch in the pub garden (plus a free jug of beer for each side). Then we walked to another pub on the quayside and danced from 2pm-2.45pm.
This was really rather nice at the time. The newbies on the side are all starting to learn our starter set of 5 dances to the point where we can do them without too much anxiety, though I still can’t do Goose Green without getting so dizzy that I end up going the wrong way in the final chorus. And there were other sides at all three spots, so we got to watch some dances we didn’t know, and listen to all sorts of different music. There was even a guy with a set of English bagpipes. I think the live music is a big part of the attraction.
Also it was fun seeing the outfits of all the different sides. There was a great mixed side who wore undertakers’ frock coats and top hats and were masked. They also carried clubs instead of sticks 🙂 We are not that cool!
We were by the side of a tidal estuary; lots of mud and boats, and thankfully a stiff breeze blowing which prevented us from getting too overheated. However, I got horribly sunburned, and now that I’m at home I’ve also stiffened up to the point where walking is painful. I imagine that in the long run this will be good for me, but in the short run it hurts! And I just want to go to sleep now.
Despite being ‘mum’s taxi service’ for my daughters, and therefore having to go into Cambridge (a three quarters of an hour drive there, and then another back) every single day this week, it’s been a surprisingly productive week.
I’ve done some cover art, which I’m not yet able to say anything about. I’ve also done a banner for Cheyenne Publishing, the small press publisher responsible for Mark R. Probst’s lovely YA western “The Filly”, and P.A Brown’s “LA Mischief”.
This is especially cool, as I have just signed a contract with Cheyenne Publishing for my novella “Blessed Isle”, which will be appearing in “Hidden Conflict,” an anthology of m/m romance containing four stories, spanning three centuries of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. Read the rest of this entry »
Quick! Go to Channel 4 at the moment. Michael Woods is talking about Beowulf, and much of the filming was done at Wychurst. I helped build that hall! My handprints are in its walls 🙂 And it looks fantastic!
Copied from my LBGT Anglicans yahoo group:
Integrity / National has offered the following statement:
LOS ANGELES--Integrity joins with those around the nation who express profound
disappointment in the California Supreme Court's abdication of its
responsibility to offer equal protection to all California citizens in today's
decision regarding Proposition 8. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s an interesting new project being started up here GLBT Bookshelf by Mel Keegan.
It’s a wiki for everyone involved in the production of GBLT books, where you can add yourself and all your books with buy links and reviews, and the aim is to become a one stop (or at least a first stop) for anyone who’s looking for GBLT fiction.
There are already quite a few authors on there, and an agent and cover artist and publisher. It could easily turn into a great resource for the whole genre. So if you fancy adding yourself, please do! The more the merrier!
Cover art is one of the things that unites writers of m/m fiction (in so far as we can be united at all). We all hope to have a cover that reflects the story we’ve written. We’d like to have something different, maybe sexy, maybe moody, something tasteful that we won’t feel ashamed about reading in public. If we’re historical authors we’d really like our book covers to reflect that. Maybe it would be nice to have our characters in the appropriate clothing for the time, en déshabillé, their poet-shirts undone and their cravats scattered across the bedroom floor. Read the rest of this entry »
Finally got to see the new Star Trek film on Sunday and spent most of Monday reading fanfic because it was just that good 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w4vk5OZmn8
Seriously, looking at that trailer, you’d want to watch it anyway, even if it wasn’t Star Trek: TOS given new life. It’s got explosions and battles in space and mad baddies with tattoos and police droids on flying motorbikes. This counts as pretty damn cool already in my book. Read the rest of this entry »
