Elin Gregory

Sadly this is necessary again this year, what with Eastern European countries refusing to pass laws against violence to women for fear that it might benefit lesbians, Uganda set on a return to the Middle Ages, religious groups tearing each other and themselves apart over the vexed question of how equal does equality mean, others railing against same sex marriage as an attack on the sanctity of increasingly short lived, adulterous and leading to divorce traditional marriage and what seems to be increasing attacks on transgender people everywhere.

I am taking part again with a post on homelessness about LGBT youth. Just click on the picture below to be directed to my blog where you can comment for a chance to have a donation made to the Albert Kennedy Trust in your name plus win a title from my back catalogue.

Nearly 200 authors, book bloggers and publishers are taking part. Click the picture below to reach the hop.

I’m so delighted and relieved that some reviews are finally coming in for On A Lee Shore. It’s always an edgy waiting period. The publisher handles the lists of reviewers and authors are warned not to bother them, not to duplicate submissions, so there’s nothing at all one can do other than wait. And worry.

Will they hate it? Might they like it?

Mrs Condit Reads: On a Lee Shore is rich in period detail, full of wonderful characters, not just Kit and Le Griffe, but also of the vast array of secondary characters. The book is very well researched; I felt I was living the pirate life along with Kit. The story pulled me in and wouldn’t let me go.

Manic Readers: If you love pirates, and hot guys loving each other, you’ll find it in On a Lee Shore. Read this now! You won’t be disappointed.

So far, thank goodness, they seem to like it.

On with the WIPs!

Only 3 days now until my latest release is available in a Halloween themed anthology from Etopia Press. “Halloween Heat IV” also contains stories by Tara Lain and A C Fox.

“Set in Stone” tells what happens the night that Joe, the newest member of the Brecon Mountain Rescue team, is sent by his team mates to spend the night alone high in the hills. Beside a standing stone he dreams of times past and wonders what bearing it might have for his future.

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.

I see a lot of  How To Be A Writer posts and they always cheer me up.

The internet is full of other people who seem just as anxious as I am to nail down the process into a series of simple instructions. Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t it be super if you could buy “On Writing” by Stephen King, follow it page by page and end up with a novel, very much as one might follow a recipe to make apple crumble [peach cobbler if you come from a place where apple crumble does not exist].

Sadly it doesn’t work like that. There are two many variables. Every single writer has something about themselves that nobody else can quite manage to emulate. Every single writer NEEDS to work in their own particular, unique and sometimes peculiar way.

• Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
• Submissive to everything, open, listening
• Try never get drunk outside yr own house
• Be in love with yr life
• Something that you feel will find its own form
• Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
• Blow as deep as you want to blow
• Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
• The unspeakable visions of the individual
• No time for poetry but exactly what is
• Visionary tics shivering in the chest
• In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
• Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
• Like Proust be an old teahead of time
• Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
• The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
• Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
• Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
• Accept loss forever
• Believe in the holy contour of life
• Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
• Don’t think of words when you stop but to see picture better
• Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
• No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
• Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
• Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
• In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
• Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
• You’re a Genius all the time
• Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Elmore Leonard’s “10 Rules for Writing”

So now you know! I bet that’s a sure fire recipe for writing something that looks a bit similar to Jack Kerouac.

Sure you can follow Elmore Leonard’s advice and that will be fine if you want to write stuff set in the same kind of places and periods as Elmore Leonard  enjoys writing about. But the tight terse laconic style that is fine for hard bitten PIs investigating contemporary crime capers is going to look a bit odd if you apply it to Regency romances.

I’d be inclined to read the advice – some of Elmore’s ten are spot on – but how the hell do you guess which bits readers skip? I know that I often skip the bits that other readers say are the best parts.  What do you think?  Sing in your own voice or try and lip synch to one of the great operatic tenors who write ‘how to’ books?

Ben Ainslie, Olympic gold medallist, the first of the relay runners with his newly lit torch.

Some of the British LGBT authors have got together to write their own Relay. As the Torch is carried through the country a daily post will be made featuring information about the area and, where possible, excerpts of stories that are set there. These posts may be found here and my first offering went up on Saturday. I wrote about the things everyone knows about south east Wales – miners, castles and rugby – and posted a link to a section of a WIP on my own blog [since it's nowhere near ready for publication].

I’m really enjoying the relay posts and I think the other authors are doing a cracking job of showcasing the country.