Alex Beecroft's Blog, page 61
July 15, 2010
If you think you're a terrible writer…
it may be a sign that you're not.
I was discussing this with Mirien the other day, both of us observing that we'd known some really poor writers who were convinced they were geniuses, and some really wonderful writers who needed to be encouraged every step of the way, and were always on the verge of giving up, because they thought they were rubbish.
Nathan Bransford is discussing this phenomenon on his blog today: You tell me – why is it so hard to tell if our writing is good? And one of the c...
July 13, 2010
Apparently
I write like
Stephen King
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
Which is a bit of a bummer as I don't really like Stephen King's books. (Too modern for me.)
July 11, 2010
Ely folk festival
Clearly Ely is the cultural centre of the UK, because not only does it host photoshoots in the tearooms and the m/m meet happening here in September, but this weekend was the Ely folk festival.
Despite a lot of improvement in my shoulders, I'm still not up to dancing yet, so I went along as one of the Riot's musicians, and now sport a lovely bruise in the crook of my elbow from a full weekend of bodhran playing.
(You get a bruise because you use your left hand on the back of the skin to create ...
July 9, 2010
Fame! (Still no fortune, though.)
Much to my surprise, about a month ago the editor of Out magazine contacted me to say "how do you fancy doing an interview? We'd send someone over to talk to you. And can you find us some other female authors of m/m fiction who could come along too?"
After being duly gobsmacked and panicking about what a stylish New York reporter would think of the state of my house, I emailed the authors in the UK I knew about, and asked whether they'd like to come and be interviewed too. Whereupon Out...
July 7, 2010
All About Romance votes "Shining in the Sun" a Desert Island Keeper
LOL! I got the entire contents of this post into the subject line 
But yes, after a day spent entirely on getting Rose ready for her Prom, and finally waving her off about a half hour ago, it's just marvellous to come home to such a wonderful review as this:
July 5, 2010
UtH is driving me mad
How long is this novel going to take? It's 82,500 words long already and only on chapter 12 of 20. It is the giant life-sucking project of DOOM. How many times must the characters explain to each other what the other characters explained to them? How many times must Sumala and Flynn break out of the same prison, only to be thwarted in their plans of escape before they actually decide to do something other than just go home? Why must I be so acutely conscious of the amount of editing...
July 4, 2010
New Ely_meet LJ community
I've set up a community on LJ where we can discuss all the things that might be involved in the m/m authors and readers meeting in Ely. Hopefully it can be used to arrange car shares and anything else that needs to be arranged. If you think you're going to be coming, please join the community at http://community.livejournal.com/ely_meet/ and chip in with suggestions for things we can do to fill 4 hours.
I've never been to a con, so I don't know what people are expecting, and currently we...
July 3, 2010
If you're interested in coming to the m/m meet-up
please visit my Live Journal where I am running a poll to decide the best date. The choices are Saturday 7th August 12-4, or Sunday 12th September 12-4.
Judging from my last entry, there's plenty of interest – more than enough to make this worth while. Quite a few people, however, have pointed out that August is a bad month due to holidays. That's true for me too! So I've provisionally booked the venue for two dates, one in August and one in September, with a promise to come back and ...
July 2, 2010
So how about that UK m/m con, then?
On the grounds that I might be paying for the venue and nibbles, I reckoned that I could get away with looking for somewhere near me. So I've just come back from Ely library, where I discovered that I can hire a large function room with chairs for 50 people, a large table to sit around and a kitchen where we can make tea and coffee for £5 an hour.
My thoughts are – lets set a date in August for all the m/m authors, aspiring authors and fans who live in Britain and fancy a get together to...
June 30, 2010
Dear Author talks about authenticity in historical romance
In a very interesting post here
Why Accuracy in Historical Romance Matters
and then tops it up by interviewing Erastes, Lee Rowan, Charlie Cochrane, Josh Lanyon, Kate Rothwell, Bonnie Dee and me over here.
In which I successfully occupy the middle ground again. And why not? I happen to be one of those people who like both PotC and Master and Commander for different reasons. As long as you know what you're getting when you go in, why not have two different forms of pleasure instead of one?
I w...
