(no subject)

[erastes]

OK - the big fat list of m/m historical fiction(TM) has been expanded by about 30 titles since I started it and will only be updated on my website. The link, for those like me, who want to own them ALL is here.

I heard back from the publisher I queried Transgressions with - it's made it past the Slush Pile and "has been passed along to one of our book program editors, who is an expert in this field."

EEK!!! I hope they don't mean an expert in the field of English Civil War history, because it's not a big serious tome of 17th Century fiction. It's a gay love affair between two very different young men, one mendacious and as shifting as a summer beach, and one serious, puritanical and riddled with guilt. The fact that the English Civil War is happening is almost incidental. Although my boys are swept into it, almost by accident, it's not the focus of the book and any re-enactor buying it for that might be dissapointed.

However, they've only got a sample and a synopsis, so I should be pleased that it's got that far.

That's the trouble with the English Civil War though, there's a TON of stuff about the war, available online and in books. The library shelves groan with books on Cromwell, Charles, Fairfax, the regiments, the guns, the uniforms, the battles the fortifications the politics blah blah blah but you try and find out how a smallholding operated, what people ate, what their houses looked like, how much they earned, it's quite quite difficult.(even the re-enactor admit this) The thing is that two young men, yeoman stock, from the depths of Warwickshire were going to have to have NO IDEA as to what the politics of the day were, and that's how I've tried to write it. It's a bit like Sharpe (in that respect, I don't compare myself to Cornwell who GOES to India to research his battles....) that things happen to Richard, he's just THERE.

Anyway, 17th century research sucks. Just sayin'.

Anyway, fingers crossed please.

As to the Soppy reference? I've never written to an author to say thanks for a book I've enjoyed. Partially because most of them are dead and to write and ask Dickens for a sequel would be a bit daft, but since I started getting emails and letters from people all over the world regarding Standish I made a vow to always try and write to authors if I could. I've already made some good friends this way, Ruth Sims now has a Live Journal, bless her, and Lee Rowan and I exchange Amazon places with glee. James Lear is an email penpal and Micheal Jensen too. Etc etc. But yesterday I approached my all time hero, Jamie O'Neill.

I really only wanted to write a few lines to say how much At Swim Two Boys had meant to me but it grew and grew like Topsy in the writing and I probably came over as this sobbing stalker at the end. I hope he gets it, that book means so much to me, and is the sort of book I hope that I can write one day, something that resonates with the reader. I can only dream. I may never be strong enough to read it again (just emailing him I had tears pouring down my face) but I'll never ever part with it.

Work is busy, we are four instead of nine - and as it's friday (completion day in the conveyancing world) it's a tad fraght around here today!

Plans for the weekend? Edit Edit Edit. How about you lot?

Comments

[sm-malfoys.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if you knew of any books wrote in the Victorian age homoerotica? My collage friend needs them for a essay.

Plus I would love to read them my self. : )

[rmanley.livejournal.com]

You can't get any more Victorian and erotic as Teleny. Oscar Wilde is the author who's named as the book's creator, but scholarship shows that it was a collaborative effort between him and a number of unknown writers.

[sm-malfoys.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes there are several there from that era - the link is fixed now, go and see! I'll be adding some more this evening, too.

[sm-malfoys.livejournal.com]

TY!!

[cheshyre]

Borken link;
BTW, does your list include stuff where m/m is central to the plot (historical romances), because otherwise, much of the Marlowe fic would probably qualify...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Link now fixed!

And yes, it's about m/m historical fiction, with homosexual characters being the main focus - but which Marlowe fic are you referring to? *am ignorant*

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Plans for the weekend? Edit Edit Edit. How about you lot?

Tonight and tomorrow, relax and recharge my batteries. Tomorrow night, dinner with a friend. Sunday, run around like a crazed monkey on errands and other stuff, then dinner with another friend.

I'll then need a weekend to recover from my weekend. :-)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I'm getting like that these days, that I need the weekend, just to recharge...

:(

[katjak.livejournal.com]

Even 18th century research is a real pain in the arse if you intend to draw what the world looked like back then. >_< You end up going through the weirdest books just to find a little glimpse of what a specific item might have looked like.

Weekend... draw like there's no tomorrow, hopefully.

I wish you didn't find my entry on Standish very dumb or mistaken? I have wondered if I should perhaps have emailed you first, instead of just putting it in my journal.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I think it comes down to artistic licence in a lot of ways, no-one can really know what it was actually like, so you just need to try and get inside someone's head and hope it works!

And no - it was a nice review, well balances, as I said in my mail. Will comment over there later.

xxx

[marquesate.livejournal.com]

Anyway, 17th century research sucks. Just sayin'.

No it doesn't! It's the best and most fascinating period ever. I should know, I've been researching it for over 10 years. Alas, only between 1660 and 1714, of course, the late Stuart period. Sod the earlier stuff. ;-)

[alankria.livejournal.com]

Best of luck with the book. My fingers and toes are crossed for you.

My weekend will involve revising for upcoming exams and putting the final polish on my BA dissertation. Yay...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Everyone has such cool historical icons. *sulks*

Thank you! I'm not being optimistic, because that never works...

ick to dissertation, but at least you are on the final straight, good luck!

[schmoo999.livejournal.com]

Sobbing stalker? You are so cute:)

I have to clean my house and have my father and stepmom up tomorrow since they could not come last weekend for the twins' B-day so my kids get even more stuff. *sigh*

I need to go get pet food...and just enjoy the warmth and sunshine too. It is finally warm here...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I'll twinsit and you can come and clean my place up - and it's stupidly warm for April, you'd love it!

[rwday.livejournal.com]

*fingers still crossed*

Weekend plans. Tonight would be the usual geekfest at the hotdog place and comic shop, then possibly going to see Hot Fuzz. Sanding and painting some pavilion poles, practicing piano, studying math for the GRE as I'm up against some hard deadlines for grad school applications.

Editing a couple of stories and maybe beginning to poke Ashes. Finishing Zombies and hopefully getting my mystery outline completed and the diagrams and maps done. Chatting with you, I hope.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Wah - that sounds like a damn good night! Wish I was there!

Busy RW!!

[rwday.livejournal.com]

That's the whole weekend, not just one night! Would kill myself trying to do all that in one night.

Wish you were here too!

[rmanley.livejournal.com]

Working on my ghost story and avoiding any and all reminders that my own novel is currently under consideration as well. :D

Of course, your post just shattered my calm. I need some comfort chocolate now.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I have so many fingers crossed for you and me I can't walk or type.

This is being done by my nose.

[rmanley.livejournal.com]

...

I'm sure the shift key's a bit of a challenge.

[fiona-glass.livejournal.com]

I should really contact my favourite authors more often (the ones who aren't beyond the grave) but I'm too nervous. Jamie O'Neill wrote to us at Forbidden Fruit after we ran a (highly positive) review of At Swim, Two Boys. I nearly fainted. :)

oh

[girluknow.livejournal.com]

I think I know who you submitted to, because I got a very similar response with my submission, and I suspect they don't mean an expert on the history but (at least from what I could glean after reading all their PDFs for submissions at the site) that it means since you're submitting fiction (as opposed to many of their non-fic categories and subsequent experts in many fields) that your sub is going to the main fic editor(s).

Talking to another writer who just went through this process with the same publisher sort of confirmed that idea for me--but I could be wrong. :)
Anyway, about a month after, they asked to see the whole manuscript (yay) so I'm hoping it's as good a sign for you. Fingers muchly crossed.
Mara

Re: oh

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh - yay for you, Mara (and nice to meet you!) I hope you get accepted!

The publisher begins with an H... and omg I've really got to tidy the MSS up.....

Thank you!

xxx