erastes

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 read an excellent post the other day by Alan Chin where he talks about how he creates his characters and how well he knows them. He knows everything from their political persuasion to what hand they use to do what and it was a wonderful insight into how writes work.

I feel such a fraud at times, when I see this level of craft that authors use. I think that I should be working like this. Alex Beecroft has blogged about how she plots every chapter, every scene onto cards and ends up with a whole novel worked out in advance, and then I look at my PC screen and… well, all I have is a WIP which grows—or not—like Topsy.

I did try the character fact-sheet route. After Standish I sat down and started to map out character fact sheets for the two Space Opera merchants that I was planning a series of short stories for, but I only got a few lines down on the first guy before I came to a grinding halt. I DIDN’T know about the character. I knew—roughly—what he looked like: a disarming grin, tousled hair, dark-brown eyes, but that was about it. I had no idea what he’d do in a pinch, because I hadn’t actually created that pinch in which he’d have to do anything. I didn’t know what he thought about puppies and rainbows or whether he got space-sick or whether he’d had sex with women, or anything at all.

I looked at the character sheet, and as so often happens, I felt inadequate. Like I was playing at this, and wasn’t prepared to put the work in. Then I wrote the story anyway and found out more than I ever would have done by giving the character his traits in advance.

You see, to me, writing (and reading) a novel is like making a friend (or getting to know a foe) in real life. When you first meet what MIGHT become your significant other, or your next bosom buddy or the bane of your life, you know little about them. You may have some third hand knowledge from another friend, perhaps they’ve arranged the meeting and you’ll know what they look like, or that he’s vegetarian, but until you’re out together on your own it’s all hearsay, and anyway, how he acts with other people isn’t going to be exactly how he’s going to act with you. Each time you meet you’ll get to know a little more and a little more—and you’ll never get to know the whole package, even if you kid yourself that you will.

So writing is like that for me. I don’t know that person as he hits the page. He might be running (and I don’t even know from what, or where to) – he might be sitting at a desk, he might be in the middle of an argument, he might be lying naked by a river. All I see is the image and as he continues to run, lies thinking in the grass, muses about his poverty, or stops his car at a hotel – until he starts to think and interact with his environment I know as little about him as the reader who is reading it faster than I can write it. Until I throw caltrops in his path I haven’t got a clue how he’ll cope—whether he’s brave or cowardly, whether he knows any kind of fighting, whether he’s corrupt  or has a good soul.

I know this probably sounds like madness to those organised and hard-working authors out there, but it’s unthinkable for me any other way. I’ve found that once I DO KNOW what’s going on with my plot I find it difficult to write, because as far as I’m concerned it’s already happened and I wish someone else would write it down. Same with characters – they’ve got to keep part of their mystery for me, all the way through, even to the end, or I just lose interest in them, which – *laughs * – probably explains many of my endings….

OK – I can shout about it now!  I’ve had the contract, and signed and returned, for MERE MORTALS! 

The lovely, shiny Lethe Press snapped it up earlier this year, and I had the contract this morning which has been duly signed, scanned, emailed, and stuffed into an envelope ready to moulder on my mantlepiece for months. (Only kidding, Lethe)

I’ve been told it will be out “Early 2011” so watch this space.  Now I have to think about WORKING ON IT again. Argh.  I don’t even have a blurb.

It’s a full-sized novel by the way.

But here’s a rough blurb, until I do a proper one:

In Victorian England, life is cheap, and young men with no prospects or protection can vanish off the map without anyone even noticing.

The orphaned Crispin Thorne has been made ward of court to Philip Smallwood, a man he’s never met, whose home is the mysterious “Bittern’s Reach” in the depths of the Norfolk Broads, on Horsey Mere. There he meets two other young men, Jude and Myles, and he soon finds that not only does he have more in common with them than he ever would have imagined, but it is that shared trait puts them all in more danger than they could possibly foresee.

I’m hugely excited about this novel, and I hope you will like it.

- - - -

I always get the wrong date for at least a month... Dad has phoned three times to know what the date is. I didn't make sure he had a new diary, bad me.  Still, it's good that he now relies on it. 

We had snow last night, but only a dusting, then it went under the sunshine - but now it's snowing again. Nothing much on the menu for today, other than updating Speak Its Name (done) and waiting for the new Doctor Who. 

I need to get my novella FINISHED so I can get on with the next novel--the subject of which is still very much in abeyance. 

I was inspired to write Mere Mortals, and the previous ones, but although I'm constantly bunnied every time I see a film or read a book and think "hmm. this era needs a gay story" I still haven't had anything PING me with a character or a plot.  Bah. Perhaps I should just start writing something, and hope for the best.  I do have an "in"- if you get my meaning - for Fleury's adventures, so perhaps I'll attempt that. It's the research behind it that's putting me off, though - America in the 1820's was not only hugely different from England in the 1820's but EACH AREA was different from the other - Boston would be nothing like New Orleans, New Orleans vitally different from California.... etc etc.  And he's going to travel around and get in and out of bed with nubile men mischief. as it won't be as much fun to set it in one place, as if he gets into young men's undergarments trouble as often as he's planning to do, he'll need to be moving from place to place.

Lucius is fine, he would send his thanks for your kind thoughts but he considers it his due, so he's not grateful at all. I am, though. At present he's sulking because Lili has requisitioned the "other" storage heater. She has (as I've mentioned before) a cat platform next to the main storage heater (up this end of the room) but when it gets really cold I'm forced to turn the other one on, which pumps out my heat and she decamps. However that chair is usually Lucius's - and he's too well-bred to chuck her off. I would. And no, he won't sit on her vacant seat either, because it's HERS.  I despair. He's twice her size. I should be happy he's so gentle, I suppose.  Both of the boys let her beat them up, too. Which is "playing" by her standards.  They lie flat on the floor and wave their paws at her, and she attempts to whack them on the head.

Typical.  I put a second chair by the radiator. Lili promptly gets off and goes back to her original spot.

CATS!!!! Can't eat 'em, can't put them in the blender.

Jessewave has an interesting discussion going (I love Jessewave's Blog because she so often has interesting discussions) about "m/m" and the level of sex and emotional impact within them. E.g. what do people like? When is too much? Etc etc. Pop along and add your two cents.

What interested me was the promiscuity section. I've seen this discussed on many a het romance forum and I am gobsmacked that most people don't want promiscuity in their book, or unfaithfulness at least. They don't want any unfaithfulness at all from their heroes once they've met "the one."  I find this baffling, really.  Unfaithfulness (as I said in the discussion) is a standard romance trope.

I mean - look at Gone with the Wind (to pull one title from the ether) if Scarlett had remained "true" to either Ashley or Rhett it would have been a much smaller, and a much lesser book. She wouldn't have got married twice for a start.

In these discussions of both types (m/f and m/m) people say they won't read on if someone is unfaithful--they'd certainly not have got far with Standish then, with Rafe and his brain in his breeches.

Do you agree?  Do you think it's because people think--deep down--that a Rake can't ever be reformed and that the HEA won't last?

So after you've commented on Wave's discussion, pop back and talk to me about unfaithfulness, will ya?

ETA: R W Day is also discussing this, purely co-incidentally, so go and chat to her too!!

Well the car has been picked up by a Neanderthal in a wife-beater. And so I'll expect a bill for a squillion pounds any time soon as they allegedly replace every moving part in the car. No faith in the motor trade? Moi?

Not that I ever would be, but there's no way I could ever be a singer. Certain songs just make me burst into tears in the first few notes. "I'll get by as long as I have you." for example, many arias. How do singers sing without crying?

Rainbow Reviews has an interview with me. Please ignore the male biography, I have asked them to change it!

The Borrowers have stolen an entire bottle of lemon squash. How the hell did they carry it?

I'm struggling with doing Mere Mortals as a Third person. It seems to want to be first person...I don't know if this is a good idea as I know many people say "i can't read those" but then I don't write for what people want, it's the story telling me what it wants - as a mystery it might work better to make the MC as clueless as he needs to be, and to not see what's going on around him. I don't know. I'll keep going a bit longer and see where it takes me. I don't think I'll be switching POV, so I don't see the point of doing it in the 3rd. *ponders* And I've suddenly realised I haven't mentioned windpumps once yet. *stabs self*

    

After Elton have a poll for the best gay books ever, my five? The Charioteer, At Swim Two Boys, As Meat Loves Salt, Swordspoint, Wicked Gentlemen. Perhaps the latter two aren't in the EVAH category, but the best I've read for a while - and ones that stick in my head, which is the point. Belimah sticks with me just as hard as Laurie for example.

I've bitten the bullet and told my editor that she'll have the rewrite done of Transgressions done by Sunday.  This means I need to do 50 pages a day starting today.  I'm hugely impressed with her work, actually - after the bad time I had with the edit of Standish - she's not done an historical before but she's working bloody hard to get her knowledge up to snuff - reading about the time period and - get this - checking just about every word for etymological correctness. (!!!)

Words that she's queried under the cut.

( You can't say that! )

Now this is an interesting dilemma because how far does one draw that line in historical fiction? I've seen this argued over and over again on the Historical Novelists Society. One can't actually write the speech in the exact manner that the people of the time really used because it would be 1. pretty impossible, due to dialects and boring the reader so how far does one really go in using anachronistic words?

Granted the term Adam's Apple wasn't around when my Cavalier is kissing his lover's AA - so does one erase it? Is it ok to use it in narrative but not in speech? Such as "The sweat glistened on David's skin, and his Adam's Apple jumped as he nervously contemplated what Tobias had in mind." but not in direct thought/speech? Such as: "The hollow of his throat and that lump is adorable" Hmmm. One must have had SOME kind of word for these concepts even if the word wasn't used. Plus of course, etymology uses the first written record of these terms, so perhaps we can give some ideas the benefit of the doubt.

Stuff like Draconian, mesmerism and sadism though - she's bang on target and I am slapping my hands for even putting these words in, but I find it fascinating, because I'm a word geek, that these words and concept are so much a part of our speech that I can call my Witchfinder a sadist (which he SO is) without even questioning where the word came from even though I know where it did.

'Tis a puzzlement. However - I'm going to try and winnow out as many of these words as I can - I don't think stuff like "presumably" is necessary - but most of them can be replaced.

What do you think? How far would you go?  What about further back? Step back from the 17th century and the language becomes even more obscure.. I'm planning to do an Elizabethan one at one point - and I'm certainly not going to be writing the entire thing in nonnys and nuncles.

In other news, the cover is done and I should have it soon. I'm crossing EVERYTHING for a good one.

I've just spotted this over on Dear Author

Ann Herendeen’s originally self-published first novel PHYLLIDA AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF PHILANDER, a “bisexual Victorian Regency romance” that marries camp and erotica to humorous effect, to Rakesh Satyal at Harper Perennial (world)

Typo about the Victorian Regency, as you can't have both at once - but I hope this is Good News and that Ms Herendeen's book is the thin end of the Wedge.  We've had F/F making mainstream, and although I haven't yet read it, I've skipped it and there's graphic gay sex in it.

I shall be watching the release of this with interest, to see if they've made her edit it in any way.  But WOOT - after this week, this is GOOD NEWS.

i hope.

gacked from musesfool.
( Ooo - is it a blank page? say the critics.... )