Do come over to Jessewave’s Blog and join me in my weekly column where today I’m blogging about Class differences and the way that English men are represented in m/m fiction.
cheese egg!
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For some reason I have never been able to ascertain, The Dog’s Bollocks is a euphemism for The Best THING EVAH. Perhaps it is because they can lick their own, and men have to have ribs removed (or to have a lifetime of contortionist training) to do so.
Anyway. With that lovely image in your mind – Great Yarmouth Library is the definitely brilliant. For a start off it’s SELF SERVICE which I have no clue how that works. So freaking cool and excellent for grumpy misanthropes. All you do is put your books into a cupboard and somehow it recognises all the titles. So no disapproving arseholes complaining about a cat hair caught in between the pages.
PLUS they have a teeny tiny gay section (knowingly called “Loud and Proud” and I found PA Brown’s LA Heat there, which of course I had to borrow, just for solidarity. I mean how cool is that, to have someone’s book in a local library who is on one’s friends list? very! that’s how cool. I shall be ordering as many gay books as i can to make the section bigger.
And they have a cafe!! cake!
My book haul, apart from LA Heat is “Lord John and the Hand of Devils” which I’m fairly sure I’ve read but LJ is so bloody bland I can’t remember a word of it. “Mr Midshipman Fury” by GS Beard (Age of sail)(I doubt if there’s any sailor snoggage) Buccaneer by Tim Severin (piratey goodness) and Obelisk by EM Forster.
Still no Spring though.
I am sure there are some, or at least one or two.
I’ve just applied to join the East Anglian Writers – always nervous to do that kind of thing, and got an email back straight away from them saying that they are really interested in what I write! 
So if there’s anyone else out there in Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex or Bedfordshire – do join! It would be great to meet you. Apparently there’s a Broadland event this summer which will be excellent and CLOSE. They might have ideas on how to get to speak at literary fests and the like, which will be useful.
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Last week I sent a query letter to an agent, once again. He surprised me by emailing within a few hours and asking to see the full manuscript so I sent it off with a cheer (because getting to that stage is great enough) – and then yesterday I got an offer of representation.
I’m stunned. Three years I’ve been looking for an agent and admittedly most of the time I’ve been “doin’ it rong.” I tried to get an agent for Standish (after it was published – D’OH, aren’t you glad it was me making these egregious errors and not you?) and then Transgressions. (before, thank goodness!) I am not surprised that Transgressions didn’t get picked up, because it’s very genre, and at the time, it was still going to be viewed as “OMG Gay historical? What the hell is that?” So I finished Junction X and started trying to get that represented—and being that it’s sort of literary, and non-romance I had hopes.
And yay!
Of course this doesn’t mean a sale, it’s an agent, not a publisher. But it’s an agent! He really likes the book (obviously, I suppose) and I’m really quite excited.
Watch this space!
Rather nice news too!
Noble Romance have officially accepted my 1930’s novella “Tributary” – it will appear in a four-author anthology of gay historical romance called “The Last Gasp.” No release date yet, but I’m assuming Summer. I’m HUGELY proud of this anthology, as Noble Romance commissioned me to put it together, find the stories etc and the range of stories/talented writing I’ve got are simply amazing. And they aren’t any of them what I expected.
The Last Gasp refers to a way of life that has now gone forever, so all the stories reflect that:
Authors: Charlie Cochrane, Jordan Taylor, Erastes, and introducing Chris Smith
Blurbs under the cut.
Been to Dad’s – weather absolutely filthy. Seems he’s happy enough without a dog, and I’m happy if he’s happy. It was terribly sad at lunch – there was a man and his wife sitting at the next table and she was in a later stage of Alzheimer’s than Dad – he forgets details but she really didn’t know where she was, laughing softly to herself and kept trying to tell me how her husband was horrible to her. It broke my heart. Alzheimer’s is a foul disease, and the sufferer isn’t the one who suffers most.
In happier news – “Muffled Drum” is moving along—I’m actually inspired by this, and for the first time since Junction X I find myself speaking the scenes aloud when I’m in the car and am getting ideas for pertinent scenes, and slowly the story is gaining an outline. I know that jigsaw puzzle doesn’t work for everyone but it definitely works for me – I may not know what is going on most of the time, but if i have various scenes in my head then I have somewhere to aim for.
Why doesn’t facebook have a “dislike” button. Or better still a “punch in the nose” button? I don’t like being given a smile from God.
Early night tonight I think. Vitamin C overdose and then writing tomorrow or else. Night all.
Got a lot of reviews posted and scheduled for Speak Its Name (feels accomplished) Mostly good, some – all right, two dreadful. I noticed that I was accused recently (once again) of only reviewing my friends well. This is a completely ludicrous accusation, to be frank. I don’t review my friends well – but I seek out and I associate more readily with the people whose writing I like. Don’t we all?? Makes sense to me. I’m hardly likely to seek out a writer I don’t like the style of am I? So when Alex Beecroft writes a crappy plot, Charlie Cochrane’s characterisation drops like a lead balloon, Lee Rowan’s adventures fail to excite me – then I’ll give my thoughts on that. *looks for pigs in the sky *
Talking of reviews—I read a great book this week “It Takes Two” by Elliott Mackle which I’ll be waving my hands excitedly about on the 7th March. It really is worth reading, and I encourage anyone who likes the genre to seek it out and read it. I can’t stop thinking about it. He also has one of the best websites I’ve ever seen.
I’ve been watching “White Collar” which is brain-gum enjoyable. And the Caffrey actor is so pretty it’s hard to dislike anything he’s in.
Hilarious Beaker Youtube short. I love how the Muppets are using Youtube as a medium. Beaker’s my favourite.
The marvellous yaoi artist Chris Smith has honoured me by taking my humble book, and with a skill I can only compare to Alan Moore, has done – entirely without me asking for it – a graphic novel of Standish.
SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the book. beware.
I’m on a bit of a military uniform kick at the moment. This has no reference to anything but…
Some REALLY needs to write a book called “Here be Dragoons” with this cover. *ovaries exploding* WOOF!!!!
Yes, I know I was writing “Blackguards!” about Fleury but it sort of ground to a halt and I need to think about it a lot more, and I was suddenly aware that it was nearly March and I had about 3k words to the year, I thought I’d better write SOMETHING. So it’s The Muffled Drum and starts at the battle of Battle of Jena-Auerstedt. Unsurprisingly, if you’ve been following the blog for the last couple of day, it includes Hussars.
Gratutious Hussar.
<<<This picture is from an earlier time, though – medieval Hussars actually went to battle wearing WINGS. Can you believe it?
This is more the kind of thing I’m doing, though.>>> HUSSAR!
For those who are interested – I got the title…
from this Napoleonic War Poem by John Mayne from 1805.
If war poetry is your thing, this is a great resource – poems from 1793-1815.