The historical gay romance review site, Speak Its Name is doing its awards competition at the moment. I understand that all books which received 4-5 star reviews are entrants. Erastes says They are quite simple: Best book, best cover, best author. I’d like to add a “Reader’s Choice” for the readers favourite novels…
That branding exercise was a good exercise to do, I think, even if nothing comes of it on the ‘finding your readers’ front. It certainly helped with the ancient Greek principle of “know thyself.” One thing I did notice was that several people said my fictional worlds felt grounded and real in a way that…
A bit of a round-up post today, mainly consisting of things which I think of as good news. First of all, thanks to everyone who commented on my branding questionnaire post. I’ve thought about it over the week and decided that I can’t really handle historical and fantasy under completely different pen names, because there…
So, it’s worth thinking about light, if you’re writing a historical novel, particularly if you live and/or were brought up in a city. We moderns are as unaware of light as a fish is of water. We switch it on where we need it, and the night goes away in an even wash of colourless…
And my characters stare back. Sometimes when I’m starting a project with all new characters and setting, and I don’t know much about either, I will sit down and ask my heroes to talk to me. Usually they say something along the lines of “Sod off! Don’t be nosy.” And they look at me as…
As November draws to a close, and all over the internet come the cries of NaNoWriMo participants reaching their 50K goal for the month, I have achieved my In2.5NoEdMo. My individual month of editing two and a half books – if a novella counts as a half book – turned out to be almost as…
In the good news category, I have a lovely interview up on the RNA blog (the RNA being the British equivalent of the RWA.) http://romanticnovelistsassociationblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/interview-with-alex-beecroft.html And in other good news, I found a backup of my website (done in August!) which has enabled me to get it back up on its different server in days…
(Previous parts available under the ‘Wildfire’ tag.) I thought I’d wait until LJ was back before carrying on posting this, but – fingers crossed – it seems to be OK this morning. Moral of the story so far – when a suspicious stranger comes to the door immediately after your aged grandad tells you a…
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…
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,…
