*snort*

1. I think the right person got voted off on Strictly Come Dancing this week.( Read more... )

2. I have water on the knee. Or bustitis, or gout. or something. it’s red, hot and painful. No point yelling at me to see the doctor. There’s very little he can do and he’ll automatically blame my weight (which will be right) – but he has no intention of helping me with that, so what’s the point of just going for more pills to placate? If I was a drug addict or a smoker or an alcoholic, he’d HAVE to put me in a programme to help me, but fat people are still treated like pariahs. (see the “I still haven’t had an MRI despite this heart problem” issue…)

3. Just finished COLD DAYS by Jim Butcher and wow wow wow!  Enjoyed it hugely. ( Read more... )

4. Decided to put “Gentleman of Fortune” away for the moment and get on with the gardening thingy because GOFortune needs mapping out. It’s not a mystery as in “whodunnit” so much, but more of a “follow the trail” and if I need to scatter red herrings and chekov guns in, it’s going to need more than “make it up as you go along.” So I’m aiming for 1000 words on The Gardening One today. or bust.

I’ve been tagged by Fiona Glass to do this meme. Her post was on the 6th and can be found here – well worth checking out, as are all the others, so follow the chain! I was thrilled to be tagged, too!

What is the working title of your book?

Gentleman of Fortune – although I’m not won over by it. It seemed right to start with, but now I’m seeing that title might suit a medieval mercenary sleuth rather than one in the era I’ve chosen to write in. I hope something else comes to me. I doubt Gentleman of Fortune will be its published title, to be frank!

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I’m not really sure! I’ve been wanting to write something set in WW2 for a while, but the research put me off (let’s be honest, the research always puts me off and yet I still refuse to write contemporaries!) and then the character of Douglas Foster popped into my head—my books usually begin with a character rather than any idea of plot. Some say they stay that way, too. *guffaw*

What genre does your book fall under?

Er… WW2 espionage adventure?

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?

I have NO idea about this, as frankly, only really Douglas has emerged semi-formed and I’m still nebulous as to who he’s going to find attractive, as it’s not really a romance, it’s an adventure story starring gay men in wartime so there may be relationship forming, but not hard and fast HEA.  I am not planning any more tragedy endings, though.

Hmm. *thinks* Michael Fassbender would be smashing, particularly as he is in this portrait by Barry McCall

The POSSIBLE love interest, I sort of see looking a bit like wossit.. out of you.. know… gah. *googles*

Ok – a cross between a younger Peter Wingfield than he is here…

and Michael Wincott as portrayed here!

I think you get the idea, here. Vivian, Douglas’s faithful secretary, is modelled shamelessly on Honeysuckle Week’s character Samantha in Foyles War. *loves her with a passion*

I think that will do to be going on with!

What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?

Oh dear, I suck at this, don’t I? No, no, that’s not the sentence!

*gravelly voice* Against the explosive background of the London Blitz, Douglas Foster starts his day with a seemingly routine case of blackmail, little knowing it will drag him into places even he hasn’t been before”

I think that’s suitably vague…

Will your book be self published or represented by an agency?

That’s an odd question. There is the option of having it published without an agent, you know. I do have an agent, Professor James Schiavione, and he will be handling it. I won’t self publish, not until there’s no option left on God’s Green earth. But this isn’t the place to tout my opinions of self publishing!

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It worries me that most of my answers are “I don’t know.”  I haven’t finished it yet. I’m thinking it will get done by Spring 2013. But it’s bloody freezing right now and I can’t function well in the cold…

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre.

If you take the genre as “ WW2 espionage gay adventure?” there aren't that many to compare it with. I think Josh Lanyon’s done one, Aleksandr Voinov’s Skybound is one, I can only hope it will be as good as those.  It won’t be as popular with the m/m readers (see how good I am at promotion?) as many books because of the “not actually a romance more an adventure story” but I hope that people enjoy it anyway. When I’ve worked out what actually happens. I’d like it to be more mainstream than my previous books—after all, there are “adventure books with gay protagonists” out there, even if there are still quite rare—but if I can’t sell it to a mainstream publisher, then it doesn’t really matter.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

As usual, the answer is “my mother” for the most part – even though she’s been dead for six years (and no, don’t worry, she’s not living with me in ectoplasmic form) she still has a huge influence over my writing, she had so many ideas when I started to write, and a WW2 one was just one of them, I doubt I’ll live long enough to write out all of her themes! Gay men were a little more out in this time, not in any large way of course, but clubs were well established, although still very illegal and they still took a risk – we hadn’t quite reached the paranoiac heights of the Blackmailer’s Charter as detailed in that wonderful film “Victim.”

What else about your book might interest the reader?

I hope that I can pull off a book about a gay man doing a job, having an adventure, living his life without the homosexuality being the driving force behind it – that’s the sort of book I enjoy reading, so I hope I can write one, too.

I am becoming more and more disillusioned and bored with Downton Abbey. I’ll probably continue to watch it for the rest of its natural life, but I wonder, quite honestly, how much of a life it has left because the plot element is almost zero.

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This is actually an action shot, and she’s running quite fast but she looks like she’s standing still. I’ve been trying to get her catching the frisbee but the shutter speed is so slow that by the time i take it she’s long gone and all there is to see is grass.

The frisbee is great, it’s soft rubber and although it doesn’t fly as well as a solid one, it’s safe for her to snatch out of the air no matter what position it’s in and it won’t hurt her mouth. click on the pic to get the really cheeky expression on her face.

Been AWOL a bit recently, and I apologise for that. I really admire people who can “blog” about subjects on a regular basis. It’s as much as I can do to scrawl down a few thoughts. Guess I won’t be a famous diarist when I’m dead.

Healthwise - I’m over the anaemia, thank goodness, although it’s taken it’s time and OMG I really really don’t want to go through that again. I live in fear of another period so I need to get down the Family Planning Clinic asap. I am forcing myself to walk small distances each day, even if it’s only to the next bench in the park.

Writing wise, I’m editing Standish for re-release, and working on the WIP and looking forward to the edits on “I Knew Him.” Busy busy!

I’ve joined “m/m sprint” a nice little Facebook group where you say “hello, I’m writing, anyone want to join me,” give yourself a target and others can write or edit at the same time. I’ve long been aware that I don’t really fall into the Writer in a Garrett mode and that I prefer someone to be along for the ride – that’s my fanfic roots showing I think – plus the very telling fact that as a toddler I refused to walk unless people were applauding. So nothing much has changed. Anyway, I’ve done over 2k of “Gentleman of Fortune” this week which is now around the 14k mark, which is a nice respectable – “you can’t give up now” percentage of around 18%. Which is nearly a fifth! Doesn’t sound so daunting when you put it like that. I have absolutely NO CLUE what’s going to happen, but for me that’s all part of the fun. It’s when I know what’s going to happen that i find the process boring and want someone else to write it for me.

Haven’t spoken much about Sasha recently, but she continues to be a delight. she’s matured into a beautiful, solid dog with muscles where I don’t even have places and she’s incredibly clever. Too much so really, because when we do training she usually anticipates what I want (we are working on “crawl” at the moment) and she’ll do ALL her tricks at once just to make me happy, all at once hoping that one of them is the right one. She’s also become a bit of a “helping hands” dog recently and has learned to pick stuff up that I drop, which is quite useful. Amusing this morning as I was arranging a bookshelf and she was passing up the books from the floor!

Anyway, here’s a recent pic. She was asleep and snoring. *snort*

1. Or as near to normal as I ever am! I’m still “out of puff” but that’s a matter of stamina now, because of weight and because of being knocked off my feet for a month. I went into the shop and back to the car and I was puffing afterwards, but believe me that’s a hell of a different proposition from “I don’t have enough oxygen in my body for this shit.” and it’s hard to explain the difference unless you’ve experienced it. The out of breathness I can work on, and I will, I’m going to walk a little every day, even if it’s only around Dad’s garden a couple of times. I went (finally, after being told a sneaky place to park close to the back of the hosp) to get my blood tested yesterday and seriously it was like running a marathon even with the reduced distance. My legs were like JELLY. I need to do some walking even if it’s only marching on the spot while I’m watching the TV.

2. Took Sasha to the beach yesterday which was glorious a lovely azure September day with a warm breeze. She adores it, but she’s hugely embarrassing because she won’t get her paws wet. I’d like to paddle and see if I can encourage her, but I’m not fit enough for that yet. I threw the ball into the sea twice and she just ran up and down the edge getting ever more desperate until some bloke who was paddling rescued the ball. Twice. Then he laughed and said “Are you sure she’s not a cat?” Oh, the shame, particularly when the spaniels, and yorkshire terriers, and labradors all came past, sploshing around in the shallows and getting wet over their ears.

3. Bought Sasha a Kong frisbee with my Amazon US vouchers and she’s sulking that I won’t let her play with it in the house. I’m meeeeen, apparently.

4. I’m hosting the Carina Press Twitter Feed (@Carinapress) this week and there’s a competition running there until this evening in celebration of yesterday’s Talk Like A Pirate Day (my 8th I believe…) – give me your Spoof Pirate Titles and the funniest will win an ebook of either of my Carina Press Titles. Don’t do it here, do it on the twitter feed.

5. It’s COLD today. Spring to Autumn this year. I blame Spring and Autumn Watch.

How you lot? Missed me?

Why part four I hear you ask? Well, you’ll have to ask Ian that one…

Going to post a reason on a regular basis – hope you’ll share your reasons.

Batman Parodies: Brilliant and a much needed laugh http://www.empireonline.com/features/batman-parody-sketches/p11

Listen, authors. You need an agent for one thing. To get you in the doors of publishers which say “no unsolicited manscripts” or “agency representation only”. In fact the former statement does NOT, despite what people think, mean you must have an agent, it just means they don’t want you to send your book to them, either in partial or in full to them without being ASKED. What they’d like you to do with this statement is to send a QUERY LETTER – and that’s what you should do. You don’t need an agent to do that for you, believe me.( Read more... )