Alex Beecroft's Blog, page 64

Must get down to work, but first

I thought I'd post a link to my entry for Bearing Witness.  We had a great line-up of posts yesterday, and I hope that it turns out to be the start of something rather than the end.  I'd like to see the comm thrive

Anyway, my post is here: Freedom by Faith.  It's a bit autobiographical, but I thought "what the heck, isn't talking about yourself what LJ is all about?"

Eee!  Other good news is that Captain's Surrender is now available on Amazon for pre-order in print with the beautiful new...

Women writing men

I can't remember if I posted this before.  I know I meant to.  But look what I came across in a book of short essays by Dorothy L.Sayers, the author of the Lord Peter Wimsey books:

A man once asked me…how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves.  Was I, by any chance, a member of a large, mixed family with a lot of male friends?  I replied that, on the contrary, I was an only child and had practically never seen or spoken to any men of...

Shining in the Sun trailer

I do believe I'm starting to get the hang of this book trailer lark.  Though that might just be the usual ridiculous enthusiasm brought about by having finished it without the computer crashing more than three times in the process.

I was going to wait until Shining in the Sun was out before posting the trailer, but then I found out that I simply couldn't wait.  Ah well, it's not long now.  Due out on 8th of June!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I'm still trying new things to get around t...

Wow!

There aren't many people who make me feel effortlessly outclassed, but this lady is one.  Clever, beautiful, faster than a speeding puma, and – by the sound of it – soon to be able to fly:

io9.com – Portraits in Posthumanity

Petition to save the life of Kiana Firouz

Kiana Firouz, 27 years old, is an outspoken Iranian LGBT rights activist, filmmaker, and actress. When clips of her video documentary work featuring the struggle and persecution of gays and lesbians in her country were acquired by Iranian intelligence, agents began to follow Firouz around Tehran, harassing and intimidating her. She fled for England where she could safely continue her work and studies.

Firouz, understandably, has requested asylum from the British government. Much to...

Another book rec post

I should make a regular thing of this, though more than half of my reading at the moment is research.   I can always include a quick run down on my research books too

My big news for this week is the Last Gasp anthology featuring stories by Erastes, Chris Smith, Charlie Cochrane and Jordan Taylor.  It was pretty much guaranteed to be good right from the start, given that line up, and it didn't disappoint.

Erastes' story, Tributary, is set between world wars and features an angry young...

Different genre tie-in – good idea or not?

So, I'm 61K into "Under the Hill", and I'm now completely sure that I have a Fantasy novel on my hands, not a romance.  This is all well and good, except that two of the characters (George and Chris) have backstory together – massive, massive backstory.  I find myself really wanting to write their massive backstory as a m/m romance novel.

The trouble is – can I write a Fantasy, sell it to a Fantasy publisher, and then use two of the characters in that book for a Romance, which I would...

Fantastic site for ebook readers

How cool is this: http://girlebooks.com/about-us/

It's a site which takes public domain books from Project Gutenberg, reformats them to read properly on an e-reader, gives them an excellent cover made from public domain art, and then lets you download the end product for free.  Free books!

I've been and grabbed The Mystery of Udolfo, The Scarlet Pimpernel, a couple of Agatha Christies and The War Workers already, and will probably go back for more later   Yay for free ebooks!

Couple of brief thumbs up

I'm having one of those years where I seem to be doing nothing, while standing in bemusement and watching the time fleet past me.  How did it get to be May already?  Rose is on study leave as of this time next week, and then she'll have a couple of weeks of exams in June and be off for the rest of academic year.  Whoever thinks of these things doesn't spare a thought for a poor author who's looking for some time alone to write.

I did do over 2,000 words on Under the Hill today, and though I...

Spring Showers

All this month over at Coffee Time Romance, authors published by Samhain are doing a mass posting of excerpts, plus a mass give-away of books.  For every excerpt posted, all you have to do is comment on it and you could win that book.

It's going on here:

http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=1264

I've got an excerpt of Captain's Surrender up here:

http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/showthread.php?t=12601&page=2

and later in the month there will be one of Shining in the...