It's always a

[erastes]

nice boost when a reader says "I can't wait for your next book", because it's hugely flattering that anyone thinks of one like that, but when an author who you like and respect says the same, it's pretty gob-smacking. Lynn Flewelling actually said that to me yesterday. I'm still glowing. *glows* /namedropping

a conversation about Romance on the Lambda Site. Interesting, but very Lambda! http://bit.ly/iwqI8g

Day off tomorrow, so am very much looking to getting home, buying some pink fizzy and celebrating my new sale. I remember reading some author always had traditional celebrations when he sold a book—can't remember who it was, but I think he had a bottle of champagne and a Cuban cigar. His advances are a bazillion times the size of mine e.g. none with Carina(!) so a couple of bottles of pink Cava and a bumper packet of Quavers will have to do me.  Ah the high life. The glamour. No one can say I have champagne tastes and beer money. eta: pink cava and quavers at the ready! Is it cavaoclock?

I've just finished Chapter 14 of I Knew Him and it's been a real bugger to do. A lot of people popping in and out of rooms and one particularly character left a room and then had a conversation within the room so I'm going to have to go over it very carefully to make sure everyone is where they are supposed to be! There's also a lot of 1922 forensics I need to research, and a lot about substances of a certain sort as Iknow that mystery buffs (and this is SO not a mystery, but they have ze knowledge) are going to point and snigger if I describe symptoms of one thing that don't actually produce those symptoms at all. This experience has not spurred me into wanting to be a murder mystery writer. At All.

Talking of gaffes—I really should have got someone else to proofread Muffled Drum before dispatch as a German pre-reader has pointed out that a street I mention isn't in Berlin at all, but in Hamburg. Ooops!  Thank GOD i only mention it once, as Carina are unable to change it at such a late stage, but it's a real lesson learned. I remember doing the research on that street, too—I was delighted it was such a red light district that went back several hundred years…it's just that I didn't pay enough attention as to which bloody city it was in. I was researching Berlin and Hamburg at the time, you see, so must have got muddled. Ho Hum. We live and learn! But apologies in advance, you know how hard I try to avoid this kind of blunder.

Overcast today and NO BLOODY RAIN STILL. but worse than that (from my perspective,) no blooming connection at Dad's! eta: rain!!!

I know it's early days, but we are getting towards 400 reviews in Speak Its Name. Would like to have a 500 review celebration. If we continue with a review every 2nd day that could happen around Christmas. Any ideas? Another giveaway simply isn't fair on the authors. Seems a bit pointless to have anniversaries because any mug can keep a blog open for several years, but 500 reviews is a big number and the next one will not be for at least another couple of years before we get to 1000. So what would you like to see? Short stories in existing universes written by the authors? legitimate fanfic from out of copyright books, or books that we can get permission to write fanfic about? or something else? My brain is a little dead.

Comments

[cassiopaya.livejournal.com]

::jealous::

[erastes.livejournal.com]

:)

[londonronnie.livejournal.com]

Lynn Flewelling actually said that to me yesterday. I'm still glowing.

Oh, wow! That's certainly something worth shouting about!

You deserve to glow all you want - and a bit more besides!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you, dear

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Something to remember when you're the eminence and you enjoy the chance to say something nice to an eager up-and-coming writer, huh?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It's something I try and make a point of--not that I'm an eminence by any means, but I do seek out unpubbed authors and help them however I can.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

How about various authors trading fics of each other's stories? Charlie has done a short Will-Davy piece for the upcoming Sail Away anthology...

Or maybe taking our own serious characters and putting them in absurd situations -- everyone contribute the situations and authors get the luck of the draw?

It's late, and this has been the first week I had time, energy, and weather for gardening, and I HAVE PUT IN ASPARAGUS! (as well as beans, peppers, tomatoes, and Brussels sprouts And the asparagus trench was every bit as much work as I'd expected.

Plus--it won't be producing edible shoots until 2014, so to hell with the Mayan calendar.

I'm not surprised people look forward to your books -- I do. Not going to read the Lambda thing, because I'm quite sure it's "them damn wimmen get it all wrong." Pfui, to quote one of my favorite fictional detectives.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

thank you - good ideas, all - and congratulations with the garden!

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Lots of good stuff there, except possibly the Lambda piece which seems very focussed on binary definitions. Sometimes I want to thwap people over the head with a Klein Orientation Grid (or possibly a three-dimensional version with an extra axis for gender-identity), and I do worry that it's all cis-gendered white blokes wanting to read stories by and about cis-gendered white blokes (but they're gay! and therefore get at least one point on the oppression scale!). I just want to write about people, although I should really post a beta request on writing_cocs in the run up to writing 'Hawks and Dragon'.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

i am afraid I lost any respect for Lambda when someone posted that romance needed to be killed--or at least that having white guys having happy endings--and antonio who is one of the main players there, commented with a hear hear. colour issue aside, the main drive of most people is to have that hea, or at least be settled. taking the poc into consideration, I agree that most people are writing white guys, but can you imagine the crap we'd take if white women were writing about black men--although I know some do. we cant win when it comes to Lambda, I've learned, and I'm trying not to let it irritate me anymore.