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The Sisterhood

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I’m so thrilled to announce that ‘The Sisterhood’, my historical lesbian novel, is out! And I have received my author copies and this is a picture of me looking suitably delighted 🙂

 

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“The simple fact was that Charity Bellingham should have been born a boy.”

 

But she wasn’t, and when she meets the beautiful, kind Isobelle Greenaway, she gets the opportunity to learn a lot about herself and London society, not to mention getting involved in the movement for the abolition of slavery and being introduced to ‘The Sisterhood’, a secret society of ladies…

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The SSS celebrates six things that have gone well, or at least okay, in the past week. It is the creation of Terry Egan, who is all things wonderful.

  1. Novella out today – hurray hurray hurray! My novella, Loving My Lady has been republished by eXcessica today. It’s the first long lesbian Regency story I wrote, and although it’s a few years old now, I’m still rather fond of it.
  2. I also signed a contract this week for an anthology of three stories to come out later this year with Nine Star Press, so look out for an interesting selection of gay erotica at some point. Lots of edits to do first, but I’m really pleased to be working with the company – they seem both friendly and very professional, which is an excellent combination.
  3. This week was lovely because I had a friend staying until Wednesday. I haven’t been as well as I might have been, so we didn’t exactly do a lot, but much fun was had nonetheless, and it was really excellent to spend time with her.
  4. I had a parent consultation with Splendid Son’s teacher this week, in which I was informed that he’s doing extremely well at school and on target to exceed expectations in his main subjects, which is very pleasing. Best of all, though, the teacher was very pleased about his love of learning, which I hope he will keep throughout his life.
  5. After a massive upset with my editing and computers last week (one broke, and the temporary replacements failed to allow me to edit my novel), I am back on track with a new-to-me laptop and am two thirds of the way through the first round of edits on The Sisterhood, which is excellent. (The fact that I am two thirds of the way through is excellent; I don’t speak for the quality of the novel itself, though I don’t think it’s too bad, actually.) And look – it’s being trailed on Amazon already 🙂
  6. I’ve finished the first draft of another of the novellas which have been occupying my mind since January. That’s two now completed, and I have quite a lot more writing on the subject of the characters as well. It’s a case of working out how to put it together which is occupying my mind at the moment – or those bits of my mind not taken up with everything else I’m doing, anyway!

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The SSS celebrates six things that have gone well, or at least okay, in the past week. It is the creation of Terry Egan, who is all things wonderful.

  1. I got an acceptance of a story/possible short anthology this week, which is very exciting. Still working on the details so I can’t say more than that, but it’s lovely news.
  2. Meanwhile, the edits have come through for The Sisterhood so I’m going to be working manically on that for the next couple of weeks. It looks like there might be a publication date of June or thereabouts – I’ll keep you posted on that one!
  3. Although I’ve not been feeling at my brightest and best, I’ve managed to get quite a lot done without leaving bed for all that long. Which has a pleasing sense of achievement to it!
  4. I also finalised arrangements with a very good friend about her coming to visit at the end of next week (hurrah!) and confirmed with some other good friends that Splendid Son and I are hoping to visit them over the Easter holidays as well. I find People-in-general a bit terrifying as I’m somewhat socially awkward, but specific people (who know about my weirdnesses and make allowances) are a very different matter so I’m feeling quite bouncy!
  5. Oh, still ploughing on with my contemporary gay threesome story. I’m still not entirely sure how it’s going to pan out in terms of whether it wants to be a novel, a set of novellas, or something else entirely, but I’m just going with it at the moment and writing what seems to need to be written. I’ll worry about the details in due course, I’m sure. (But they’re lovely. I do love these characters particularly much. I don’t know why, but I do.)
  6. I braved visiting the doctor to talk about medication woes. The brief version is that I’m going to have to continue for another month with my current medicine in the hope that things may improve. But I’m glad to have been and checked (he seemed to think it was reasonable to have done so, too). It’s not something I enjoy doing (I usually take someone with me because I find it that difficult, but owing to Reasons that wasn’t possible on this occasion) so I feel I can give myself credit for having done it.

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The SSS celebrates six things that have gone well, or at least okay, in the past week. It is the creation of Terry Egan, who is all things wonderful.

 

  1. I have been involved with Scope’s “End The Awkward” Valentine’s Campaign which owes thanks to Mills and Boon for their agreement to pastiche their covers, and it has been great fun.
  2. In fact, I wrote a little bit about it on the Huffington Post yesterday 🙂
  3. I also wrote a couple of poems this week, which is the first time for a while. I’m not very good at sticking to one genre.
  4. The first suggestions for covers for my novel The Sisterhood came through this week. OMG, there are brilliant cover artists out there! They are very and extremely talented, and apparently all working for Bella Books. It was very exciting.
  5. Meantime, I have been writing an article on ‘Kept Men’ in the Regency: I now know more than you do about marrying for money if you’re a bloke. And other things, but I haven’t got to that part of the article yet…
  6. Oh, and the ‘probably not wildly publishable but extremely enjoyable’ fiction writing is still going on. I have managed to write a disconcertingly large amount of words in the last month and have discovered that I am vaguely in love with one of my characters, which never usually happens at all. I am quite shocked by myself!

 

(It’s fairly obvious that I haven’t had much of an actual personal life this week, given that this is all about writing related things. This is slightly embarrassing, but you know – sometimes there are weeks like that. On other weeks, I’ve done practically nothing writing-related, so you gain some, you lose some!)

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The SSS celebrates six things that have gone well, or at least okay, in the past week. It is the creation of Terry Egan, who is all things wonderful.

^ I forgot to post this heading last week: huge apologies to Terry for that.

  1. It was my lovely son’s 10th birthday on Monday, which was quite the most important thing which happened this week. Double figures and everything – he’s getting very grown up!
  2. I met Rachael Hale, the History Magpie, this week for a chat, which was ever so pleasing! She’s writing a piece about local writers with an interest in history, and I was gabbling on at top speed about Georgian and Regency things. It’ll be amazing if she caught a single word, but it was really great to talk to her.
  3. Ooh, ooh, ooh, Thrace has been republished this week!  It’s a sci fi anthology of 3 novellas, each between 10,000 and 15,000 words and I consider it one of the best things I’ve written (as do the reviewers who have commented on Good Reads about it). Sadly it got very little sales first time around so I’m hoping for better this time. If you’re in to non-gendered aliens with tails (and if you aren’t, why on earth not?!), take a look at it. (More on this in a different post soon, I hope.)
  4. I also managed to type up a whole screed of the new novel, The Sisterhood, and write another couple of thousand words this week. I keep finding more things I need to research, but I am enjoying the story very much! I know I’m not writing for ‘me’ exactly, but it doesn’t half help confidence if I feel happy about what I’m writing.
  5. I went to the bookshops at the two universities local to me (Kent University, at which I studied many moons ago, and Christ Church University, at which I worked for more than a decade until I became too ill this year) and they’ve both agreed to stock Petticoats and Promises, which is splendid news.
  6. We’ve had a couple of days of sunny weather, which is lovely when we’re on the cusp of autumn.

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The SSS celebrates six things that have gone well, or at least okay, in the past week. It is the creation of Terry Egan, who is all things wonderful.

1. The school summer holidays have started! Six weeks of no school run, no panicked “oh no, what about your homework?” conversations and no “Mum, we need an Ancient Greek costume for tomorrow!”

2. My contract for The Sisterhood came through: a new lesbian historical romance. I haven’t finished it yet (nowhere near, to be honest!) but I got 2.5k written this week. I’m hoping to get going with it. I’m full of inspiration at the moment 🙂

3. I hit my first weight-loss goal last Tuesday. I rather suspect that I’ve drifted away from it already this week (but hey, I have a couple of days to reel myself back in) but it’s encouraging to know I CAN do it.

4. I would invite everyone to look at http://www.pledge15.org.uk and consider joining up. (There’s a twitter and a Facebook as well.) Making a little difference can sometimes make a big difference.

5. A  friend of mine inadvertently gave me the best laugh of the week on Thursday. Writing to his boss, he sent an email saying “I just want you to look a tit.” Not, you might think, the most tactful or appropriate thing of which to inform your boss (even if – or perhaps especially if – true). Unfortunately for my friend, he had intended the considerably less inflammatory “I just want you to look at it.” Oops?

6. I met Child’s teacher for next academic year on Monday, and asked him what I could do to help Child transition into a much more academically focused year. He said something along the lines of “Not much, really – give him a break so he comes back fresh.” That’s very much something I want to hear from a teacher. (The fact that Child actively WANTS to do maths over the summer is a different matter, and something I’ll just have to cope with myself!)

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The SSS celebrates six things that have gone well, or at least okay, in the past week. It is the creation of Terry Egan, who is all things wonderful.

1. I had a very sociable Sunday last week, with Lovely Friend staying. We went out for a meal with her family, who are most splendid.

2. Ooh, Bella are potentially interested in the new novel. All I have to do now is write the remaining two thirds of it… Oh, and edit. And edit and edit and edit.

3. Goodness, I can’t believe it took me until point #3 to mention that Child – who is, of course, brilliant in every single way – chose to be brilliant at art and managed to be one of ten winners of a competition to have his artwork on a big banner in the local city centre.

4. A local friend of mine, whose son is one of Child’s best friends, very very kindly offered to take him to and from football practice today, and then hang on to him for a while as I had a choir rehearsal this morning. I thought I was going to have to make Child come to the rehearsal with me instead, which would not have been joyous for either of us, especially as Child informed me that the music we’re singing makes him want to cry. (I think it’s the music not my interpretation of it, as we’ve had the CDs on in the car and I haven’t been singing audibly along. Just in case you were wondering 😉 )

5. I accidentally managed to buy some books this week. A charity shop leapt out and forced me into its depths, refusing to let me out again until I’d bought five books. It’s terribly sad, but what choice did I have?

6. I’ve been working with a friend on a project for the last few days. Hopefully I will be able to tell you about it shortly 🙂 Anyway, I think it’s a Good Thing.