Elin Gregory

I have been tagged to do this twice 🙂 by two very sweet ladies – M L Falconer and Jess Schira – so I might even do it twice Once this week and once next.

Here goes:

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1) Answer the 10 questions below.
2) Spread the fun and tag 5 more awesome people to participate.

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Everything is coming together beautifully for UK Meet 2012.

This – our very own British readers/authors/fans convention for LGBQTT fiction –  will take place on 15th September at the Mercure Hotel in Brighton.

We are planning a full day of entertainment on Saturday 15th with optional events on Friday evening and Sunday morning. Click on the picture for the website and full details.

The keynote speaker will be Jordan Castillo-Price, of Psycop fame though those wonderfully plotted stories are only part of the good stuff she has written.

There will be panels, signings, a book stall, swag bags and competitions plus a brilliant chance to meet with friends and heroes. I plan to spend a good part of my weekend being a very respectful fan girl. 🙂

Oh – I mentioned prizes! One of the sponsors – Silver Publishing – has kindly donated no less than three [three!] Kindle Touches, one of which will be raffled in support of our charity of choice The Albert Kennedy Trust. The other two? Big secret. I guess we’ll all find out on the day.

There’s still time to book.

Just click that picture up there and have a look at what’s on offer. It will be FUN. Come and join us.

Also – just for fun, comment here at Jesseswave for a chance to win a copy of Lashings of Sauce.

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Earlier in the week Sue Roebuck suggested we do some kind of writing challenge and I followed her into a collaborative writing challenge to write a story for Jennifer M Eaton’s blogiversary.

I have done this kind of thing before but only with a set structure – ie we knew in advance that we’d be writing something about vampires or motor racing. To have a completely open ended story is a real challenge. I for instance never thought in a million years I would write anything about fairies. 🙂

Here are the previous instalments:

Part One – Jennifer M Eaton

Part Two – Jenny Keller Ford

Part Three – Susan Roebuck

And here’s my bit:

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I forgot to register again *facepalm* but then I’ve a lot on my mind at the moment not all of which is bad, thank goodness.

Six Sentence Sunday is a fun way to read other authors work.  It takes a long time but it very much worth doing because there are some terrific stories out there.

Ideally one is sensible enough to register with the website here  then on the following Sunday post exactly six sentences taken from one of your works. Some people do lots of different books, taking the opportunity for a bit of promo,  others are [brave souls] writing a story six sentences a week! It’s great fun to read all the different styles.

I, of course, remembered on Tuesday, but it was before the new post went up and I forgot to return. So instead of six sentences here’s an excerpt that I haven’t counted that follows on directly from last weeks.

“The Misbegotten” have been out for some training. It has  been very hard, cold, miserable and annoying work.

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It’s never too late to fact check and in the past couple of days I’ve had some surprises.  For instance I arbitrarily chose the Helston area for the home of my character Lt. Christopher Penrose, RN, in On A Lee Shore. I was fiddling round with maps yesterday and discovered that there’s a National Trust property called the Penrose Estate just to the south east of the town. I’m assuming that I sort of knew that but it’s so deeply buried in my internal hard drive that I didn’t know I knew it, if you know what I mean.

The other thing I know I didn’t know! 🙂 Another character in the story is a Spanish lieutenant called De Torres who falls foul of the pirates, is rescued by the navy and repatriated. That’s in 1718/1719. I like to conjecture what happens to characters after I’ve done with them and in De Torres’ case he must have done pretty well for himself. In 1733, a Rodrigo De Torres was a Lientenant General and was put in charge of the returning treasure fleet. Not his fault at all that it most of it was wrecked on the Florida Keys on the way home. Poor De Torres, what a rough life.

Speaking of maps I was amused by the one below, and in particular by the description of the men of Cornwall in the legend at the bottom.

“The Men are Strong and boifterous, great Wreftlers & Healthy” Click to embiggen.

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My guest today is J L Merrow, a British author perhaps most renowned for her knack of combining seriously sexy stories with a generous sprinkling of humour.

She is also on the organising committee for the UK Meet, a little convention for British writers of LGBTTQ fiction that is rapidly growing into something much bigger.

Hi, JL, thanks so much for joining me today.

Thank you for having me! *settles into chair* My, that is comfy. *looks suspiciously at host* It’s not going to tip up like the one on the Graham Norton show, is it? 😉

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Am getting quite excited about Lashings of Sauce, which will be released on July 22nd, 2012, by JMS Books.

Here’s the blurb:

Lashings of Sauce – an anthology of LGBT stories by authors attending the 2012 UK Meet.

We Brits love our sauce, whether it’s what we lash on our food, read on our seaside postcards, or write in our stories. Come and enjoy a buffet of tasty LGBTQ treats!

From marriages to reunions, via practical jokes and football matches, to weresloths and possibly the oddest Tarts and Vicars party in the world, join us as we celebrate the UK Meet in the best way we know: telling the story.

As a follow-up to the critically acclaimed British Flash and Tea and Crumpet anthologies, our talented writers bring you sixteen stories about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and genderqueer characters enjoying what Britain and mainland Europe have to offer, with their wonderfully diverse range of cultures and landscapes and some incredibly colourful and quirky people.

Contributors include: Tam Ames, Becky Black, Anne Brooke, Charlie Cochrane, Rebecca Cohen, Lillian Francis, Elin Gregory, Clare London, Sandra Lindsey, JL Merrow, Emily Moreton, Josephine Myles, Zahra Owens, Jordan Castillo Price, Elyan Smith and Robbie Whyte. Edited by: UK MAT (UK Meet Acquisitions Team: Alex Beecroft, Charlie Cochrane, Clare London, JL Merrow and Josephine Myles).

Just look at that list of authors! I’m so proud, and just a bit scared, to be in amongst them. wheeee!

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I’ve made a couple more Torch Relay posts: Aberdeen to Dundee here and Edinburgh to Alnwick here

Part of the fun is supposed to be adding excerpts and links to published or soon to be published stories set in the areas we write about. Since I don’t have any of those, though I have plenty of WIPs I’m posting the beginning of my story A Fierce Reaping.

Cynfal, doubly bereft and down on his luck, heads north to join the war band of King Marro of Din Eidin. First impressions count so he sets about making one.

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I’m deep in edits of my novel set in the early 18th century and keep coming across the same problem. I look up a term or a word to see if it’s reasonable for a character to use it and discover that either it didn’t exist or that it has replaced an earlier similar term with just enough difference to look odd.

For instance today I wanted my 1718 protagonist to describe someone as a ‘cat’s paw’. A quick check with Etymonline proved that cat’s paw didn’t appear in print until 1790 and it may not have been used at all in 1718. Instead my protagonist, Kit, would say ‘cat’s foot’ – which just looks wierd.

I consulted the oracle [Erastes :)] and have used cat’s paw in the interests of clarity. What would you do? What do you do? Which is better? Accuracy at all costs or an easier experience on the reader?

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