elingregory | UK Meet and stuff :)

A week has gone by since Uk Meet and I've just about had a chance to think every thing through and come to the conclusion that 10 months is a very long time to wait to be with such an excellent bunch of people again.

However, there is no help for it so roll on July 2013.

I travelled to Brighton on the train which was easier than expected, since I chickened out of London [I LOATHE the tube] and used the Southampton route instead. The hotel was comfortable and the staff were very patient. Ten out of ten for the Mercure.
Ten out of ten also for the entertainment the following day. I didn't volunteer to be a panellist - I don't have the credentials to take anything I say seriously so why should anyone else? - and that was good because it meant I could concentrate on listening to other people.
The novel openings were terrific. Kudos to the brave volunteers - my TBR list boomed. Then I had a choice between a panel on how to get ideas for stories and how to adapt fanfic. It's years since I last wrote fanfic but I decided to listen to that because getting ideas for stories is about the only writing problem I don't have. I've always felt that fan fic is a terrific means of learning the craft of writing [it was what introduced me to the idea of beta readers - best thing since sliced bread and much better for the waist line] and that seemed to be born out by the panel who also confirmed that it's perfectly possible to adapt fanfic into good original fiction with ingenuity and scrupulous attention to detail. After that I listened to a panel on L, B, T, and Q characters in stories and why are there so far fewer of them.
Lunch was very good!
I really enjoyed the panel about Tropes. I went in thinking that they were things to be avoided at all costs but now know that a trope is as much a component of fiction as a noun is. It's just poorly written tropes that need to be avoided. Thanks to Ariel Tachna for explaining sotto voce that cowboys don't necessarily have to have anything to do with cows.
There was plenty of food for thought in the "where next for publishing" section, which left me with the feeling that I'm completely unqualified for self pubbing work so I'll carry on with subbing to the epublishers.
After a tea break Jordan Castillo Price wowed us all with her account of the evolution in epublishing since the early days when an ebook arrived on a Cd.
All in all I felt entertained, educated and stimulated. But the best thing, as everyone has said, was to be able to talk to people about subjects I feel strongly about and that I love without the usual pauses to explain WHY, to justify my interest and in many cases to apologise for not conforming to what other perceive to be my type.
I missed the meal on Saturday night because it wasn't long before I realised that seating myself in a cramped corner in such a crowded noisy place was almost as bad as being on the tube. I made as graceful an exit as I could and loped off back to the hotel for tea and biscuits and a long chat with

jess_lansdel until her lift arrived. Thanks, Jess, it was fun. After that it seemed a bit sad to just go to bed so I gradually joined a group of people chatting in the reception area of the hotel - including

charliecochrane,

stevie_carroll,

cayendi and

vashtan - thanks guys, you were brill too.
Many many thanks to the organisers - Alex Beecroft, Clare London, Charlie Cochrane, J L Merrow and Jo Myles, and Cathy - you done brilliant, and it was good to meet and chat to so many luminaries of the genre's firmament.
I have come away with the conviction that it should be possible to find a market for action adventure type novels - something along the lines of Bernard Cornwell or Joe Abercrombie only with heroes who happen to be gay - that are neither erotic nor particularly romantic. That was a comforting feeling.

Now I just need to fit time for writing between work, family life and puppy minding! I have managed 8 pages since himself retired but they, astonishingly, have sold. I exchanged contracts earlier this week for a very short story to appear in an anthology of Hallowe'en stories. It's called Set in Stone [at the moment], I'd post a snippet only it's too short, and it's my first attempt at OMG erotica. It may be my last. :)