Elin Gregory

🙂 I’ve got a new story coming out next month from Etopia Press. It will be in an anthology of Hallowe’en stories, title to be confirmed and features this amazing erection:

Sorry, I couldn’t resist it.

Set in Stone is my first piece of erotica. Never let it said I won’t rise to a challenge! It’s also my first attempt at writing in first person, mostly because of how confused I got with the pronouns.

More about it when I know more. 🙂

Another day, another dollar. Or rather, another Sunday, another six sentences.

You know the drill – here’s the link – click it to find loads of snippets of new published and unpubl;ished works by people you may never have heard of YET but who will certainly be making their mark in the months to come.

Meanwhile, here’s my bit from A Fierce Reaping, showing another side to Cynfal’s character.

~

Cynfal hesitated for one moment then stooped to duck under the lintel and step into Gwion’s home. He blinked, trying to make out the shapes in the dimness within, then Gwion threw back the doorflap to let the wintery light stream in to reveal a floor well strewn with oat straw and a couple of hides for seating.
There was another stool, a couple of oat bins, a painted chest with a saddle and bridle on top of it, a general lived in clutter of which Cynfal approved and a broad bed at the back of the building of which he approved even more.
Even with the covers thrown back to allow it to air he could imagine how warm and comfortable it would be – far more comfortable, his inner bastard murmured, than a cloak and a blanket with Aeddan and the others snoring in his ear.
More interesting still was the dark mass beside the wall, highlit with the soft gleam of well tended leather and the spark of bronze buckles, that was surely too big to be just one set of body armour.
“Snug place,” Cynfal said and grinned to see Gwion’s pleased smile.

~

Won’t be about much at the weekend because I’m going to Uk Meet – a mini convention for writers and readers of LGBTTQ lit. However I will try to catch up on everyone’s sixes on Monday.

Our lovely flat coat died suddenly in June, devastating all of us. This weekend we decided that we had been without a dog long enough and yesterday Wilfred came to join us.

He’s 9 weeks old, about the same size as a fully grown Jack Russell and his fur is silky soft. Look at those paws!!

 Another Sunday, another six sentences!

Click on the picture for the list of other participating authors. You’ll find dystopian futures,  utopian pasts, speculative possibles, steampunks, fairies, vampires and dragons and masses of erotica.

However,  here you get a bit of Dark Ages angst with another snippet from my story “A Fierce Reaping” – a story of the Gododdin, the tribe of northern welsh who lived in the Edinburgh area of Scotland in the 6th and 7th centuries AD. Their King sent 300 carefully chosen warriors south to push the Saxons back into the sea. Rather more than 300 Saxons pushed back.

We pick it up when Troop Three is returning to Dun Eidin after a long and uncomfortable patrol.

~

They arrived in sight of Din Eidin, soaked to the skin with snow just beginning to stick again to the sodden and icy ground.
“Miserable weather,” Aeddan said, ” but at least the rain runs off our leathers. I don’t know how you stand it.”
“Neither do I,” Cynfal agreed, teeth chattering, as his soaked shirts moulded to his chest. “I’m going to have to get some.” And there was only one way he could think of doing that.

~

Yes that’s what I’m doing! I’m blogging, like millions of other people. There are bloggers who write about their kids, or their cats. Other who post baby animal photos that are so cute they make your teeth ache. There are the bluff no-nonsense tech bloggers, men of few words and absolutely no sympathy for anyone who doesn’t speak their own particular esoteric language. Then there are the entrepreneurial types whose blogs sound as though they were written using this interesting little gizmo.  But of all the bloggers I have read I think that writers are the most interesting and definitely the most anxious.

What I’m getting at is this – if you are a writer, anyone who reads your blog posts will be be doing so with “Hmmm, if I enjoy the blog post, would I enjoy the fiction?” somewhere in the back of their minds. So unlike almost any other blogger, we can’t really afford to let our hair down and just rant, or post when we are halfway through our second bottle of Chablis and are really really happy, or when we’re ill and our fingers are uncooperative. Because readers judge our professional writing by what they see on our blogs, our comments, our Goodreads accounts, etc.

Honestly, thinking about that constant scrutiny, I’m astonished any of us blog at all ever.

So I’m going to ignore it and thank Kenra Daniels for tagging me in the One Lovely Blogger meme, which i will continue after the cut.

Continue Reading »

Using the traditional method [scraps of paper and pirate hat] I have chosen a winner from the commenters to my post for the above hop.  Kaylyn Davis I’ll be emailing you a .pdf of Alike As Two Bees. I hope you enjoy it.

And to resume normal service – well I thought I’d seen all kinds of armour but this really takes the Bonio:

All I can say is, it would have to be a very well trained dog.

Composite armour – wood, chain mail, rawhide and fabric – probably made around 1800 for the dog of a high ranking samurai. I think it looks quite jolly, bearing in mind how annoyed and aggressive the masks attached to human armour usually are.

But it’s still not a patch on the Royal Armouries elephant armour. I plan to make a trip to see that sometime soon.

Here we go again with another short and frustrating snippet for Six Sentence Sunday.

Six Sunday is a weekly blog hop where close to 200 authors post bits of published stories or WIPs as tasters. A few brave souls are even writing stories six sentences at a time! Go here for the linky list. It’s really good fun to see all the different styles and genres and awesome to contemplate the sheer amount of effort and talent boiling away there providing new works for the reading public.

Anyhow, if you’re here you aren’t here to hear me blether.

Last Six Sunday, or near equivalent, I asked whether I should post banter, battle, or UST this week, and had a resounding vote of one for UST! If you’re not sure what UST is, it stands for Unresolved Sexual Tension – those moments when both parties are beginning to know what they want but for some perfectly valid reason are unable to commit to doing anything about it.

To get to the UST I’ve had to miss out a heck of a lot of banter and a battle.  Moried challenges Gwion and they fight. Cyfal is asked to see Gwion safely home, where he offers to see if his ribs are broken.

He pressed the bruised ribs firmly with the ball of his thumb, listening for the tell tale grate of breakage, but all he heard was a soft indrawn breath from Gwion that didn’t, quite, sound like a gasp of pain.  Cynfal leaned a little closer until his breath warmed the cold flesh, and stroked with his thumb again. Gwion stood still but Cynfal felt the quiver that ran through him.
He had one brief glimpse of the swell at the front of Gwion’s breeks before he flinched away, dropping the shirt’s hem back to mid thigh, and reached for his belt.
Cynfal got up and kept his voice light as he said, “Not much harm done, I don’t think.”
Gwion didn’t answer — he was fastening his belt with sharp angry gestures — so Cynfal went to the door to wait for the rest of his bothy to arrive.

 I think any discussion of Romance has to begin with some kind of definition and where better than that font of all knowledge Wikipedia?

Romantic love is a relative term, but generally accepted as a definition that distinguishes moments and situations within interpersonal relationships to an individual as contributing to a significant relationship connection.

So far so good. Ah but it’s a term that has a considerable historical pedigree and as a historical writer that has to be taken into consideration.

Historians believe that the actual English word “romance” developed from a vernacular dialect within the French language meaning “verse narrative”—referring to the style of speech, writing, and artistic talents within elite classes. The word was originally an adverb of the Latin origin “Romanicus,” meaning “of the Roman style.” The connecting notion is that European medieval vernacular tales were usually about chivalric adventure, not combining the idea of love until late into the seventeenth century.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci – she teases but won’t put out

So until the 1600s ‘romance’ had nothing to do with love but had everything to do with adventure? But where does that leave the concepts of courtly love as laid down in the 12th century in De Arte Honeste Amandi by Andreas Capellanus. The idea of courtly love – that of a true knight for a lady immeasurably his superior – was been taken as a blueprint for how a loving relationship should be initiated, conducted and consummated, along in Capellanus’ work consummation was never the aim.

The most ennobling love is generally secret (i.e., not public), extremely difficult to obtain and unconsummated, serving as a means for inspiring men to great deeds.

It seemed to work at the time but it’s not particularly satisfying by modern standards. I need a modern definition so for that I suppose I’d best go to the well-head again – the Romance Writers of America [there’s a UK branch but one might as well deal with head office]. Here is what they have to say about it:

Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally-satisfying and optimistic ending.
A Central Love Story: The main plot centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work. A writer can include as many subplots as he/she wants as long as the love story is the main focus of the novel.
An Emotionally-Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love.

Ah. Okay then. I don’t write romance novels. My heroes always have other things on their minds and fit in love if they can. Also blind and unconditional love seems much less satisfying to me than love bestowed in the full knowledge that the loved one has many flaws and needs a firm hand to keep them in check.

The Game of Kings – where it starts.

However I do love a massive series of stories that manage to combine the essence of both the classic ideal of courtly love at least part of  the RWAs guidelines.

The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett combine high romance with deliciously detailed historical settings, action sequences, humour,  pathos, atrocity and a slow build love story [the heroine is 10 when the tale begins] that is heart in mouth angsty by the final volume.

It’s not at all your usual eyes meet across a crowded room to wedding bells in 150 pages type of story but ticks every possible box for me.

Who could forget the delicious Mikal, the Geomancer, in his purple silk ‘garment’. Or Jerrott Blythe. Or smart mouthed Danny Hislop. Or Turkey Matt.

Then there’s Ivan the Terrible. Mary Tudor. Suleiman the Magnificent. Nostradamus. John Dee. All the great personalities of the 16th century.

If you like your romance to arrive on horseback, cap a pied, sword in hand with a rapier wit and a devastating intellect, Francis Crawford of Lymond is the hero for you.

A blog hop wouldn’t be a blog hop without a giveaway and boy, oh boy, does Carrie Ann have a giveaway for you.

 THREE grand prizes. You as a reader can go to EACH blog and comment with your email address and be entered to win. Yep, you can enter over 100 times!

Now what are those prizes?

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet

2nd Grand Prize: A $130 Amazon or B&N Gift Card

3rd Grand Prize: The following Swag Pack!

Anyhow, click on the picture at the top or the picture of the swag to get to Carrie Ann’s blog where all the action is or comment below and I’ll do a draw – the winner to recieve a copy of Alike As Two Bees, which is at least a little romantic even if it doesn’t entirely follow the RWA’s rules. Please note: the relationship is m/m and it’s not erotic.

To find more blogs to hop to click here.