#PennedPossibilities — MC POV: Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like there?
Alfie: I grew up on the Endsleigh estate down in Dorset, and even after my father inherited the earldom, my parents chose to remain there. The house is comfortable & compact with none of the big show rooms you find at other grand estates. We've never had a ball at Endsleigh, instead, when my parents host a small party, we roll up the carpet in the sitting room and somebody sits down at the piano.
The house is surrounded by rambling gardens. We've got some formal flower gardens and then the park beyond, with a small wood covering the hill. We've got a maze and a lake with a fake ruin on an artificial island and a small grotto. There's a duck pond, too, with the Artist's Cottage, a rather indecent well, and our ice house is a pyramid. As children, we had splendid adventures in the park. In the summer months, you can swim in the lake, and in winter, it's perfect for ice-skating.
It was basically a 50% chance, with almost 600 submissions and 300 books in the running.
I'm very excited. Of course, we will wait for the finalized list, and then we'll wait even longer for the reviews to trickle in. Eventually, each reviewer will list three favorites, and the final winner will be chosen from those 30 books.
I doubt South will be among those, but one can dream.
#WordWeavers - Do you have an irrepressibly good-humoured character? How do others react to them?
Not in my Victorian WIPs, but there is always Damianus from Gladiator's Passion (and there will be a few more Roman stories in the future!). Damianus is basically a Golden Retriever in human form. 😊
I'm not quite sure yet. Perhaps a shorter story? I have so many stories I want to write! I just wish I had a bit more time for writing. And more energy.
#WritersCoffeeClub - Do you write standalone stories, series, or both? Which do you prefer?
I started out writing standalone novels, then tried my hand at series because series was / is the way to go, but looking at my Roman series, I'm probably pretty sh*te at writing series because after getting the first 2 books done according to plan, the plan started to sideways, I eventually unpublished one of the two books, and now I'm writing this series backwards and outwards. :blobcatpeek:
And all books in all of my series can be read as standalones, too. So... ::shrug::
But this is how I like my books.
In addition, all of my stories are set in a shared universe (okay, perhaps not Bewitched) which becomes perhaps most obvious in my Victorian stories and especially in my Victorian newsletter goodies. They're full of Easter eggs! 😊
As Allan's Miscellany (series about Victorian magazine) will turn 10 this year, watch this space for announcements of some really fun extras!
#PennedPossibilities 294 — What, to you, are the most important elements of good writing?
When I think of the authors whose work I most admire - Roaemary Sutcliff and Dorothy Dunnett -, then I'd say the ability to create compelling characters and vivid settings. In addition, both Sutcliff and Dunnett were excellent at bringing the past to life, and Sutcliff in particular had a knack of creating these small timeless moments that stay with you for many years after reading her books.
#WritersCoffeeClub April 1 - What's your favourite easter egg in your own work and/or another work of fiction?
I love putting Easter eggs into my work - sometimes, the Easter egg is self-referential (e.g., in the Valentine's bonus story to Yuletide Truce, Aigee & Kit comes across various characters from my other books in Hyde Park) and sometimes it refers to another author's work (e.g., in Castle of the Wolf, Cissy finds a German edition of one of Pratchett's books in the castle library) 😊
One of my favorite Easter Eggs in my very early books was putting a reference to St. George and the dragon because I was working on my PhD thesis on dragonslaying at the time. 😄
One of my favorite Easter Eggs in Gladiator's Passion is a mention of Maius super grumpy little nephew - and this little thundercloud of a toddler will grow up to become the grumpy centurion in The Centurion's Choice. 😄😄😄
Good news for one of my problems - it is now solved and I can check it off my list.
Family problem persists. I'm trying to see it as a chance to shift a difficult relationship. (Yeah. Who am I kidding?) But I'll take whatever joy I can get.
No writing. Today, it took everything I had to keep it together. Plus the support of quite a few gentle souls in my life. Grateful for that.
Tomorrow, I'll prep for my vacation. And writing retreat.
@LMWStuttgart@museum Naja, man muss aber auch dazu sagen, dass es in Deutschland gerade Mode ist, kritische und progressive jüdische Stimmen mundtot zu machen und als antisemitisch zu diffaminieren. Es sind ja bereits genügend Ausstellungen von jüdischen Künstler:innen, die nach Ansicht von dt. Politik und kulturellen Institutionen nicht "auf Spur" sind, abgesagt worden.
#WritersCoffeeClub Do you invent places in your work? Are any based on real locations?
The country estates in my Regency and Victorian stories are fictional (except for Eglinton Castle in The Bride Prize!), though they tend to be based on real estates or are cobbled together with bits and pieces of real estates.
Most of the towns and cities in my stories are real locations - heck, in my Victorian stories, I even let busses and trains run according to real timetables! 😄
Most of the forts, fortresses, and towns in my Roman stories are also real locations, e.g., Vetera and Traiana in The Gladiator's Passion (I even timed myself walking around the archaeological park in Xanten in order to get the distances right!), and the reconstructed Roman auxiliary fort Saalburg (Roman name unknown) became Saalensium in The Centurion's Choice and Eagle's Honor: Ravished.