Fun on the South Coast

Hi all, I’m back from my trip to Brighton for the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet. Both Brighton and the Meet were fabulous, and I’m still recovering from lots of travel and a bulging inbox. I’ve now sorted out photos, etc, and am now ready to blog!

So, here goes:

The UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet

The reason I was in Brighton in the first place, the UK Meet was a place for readers and writers of GLBTQ fiction to meet, exchange ideas, show off their work and skills, and so on. I took part in three events: a reading of 150 words from the beginning of a story, a panel on LBTQ fiction and a talk on marketing. All were fun, but I must admit to being relieved when my last panel was finished so I could just relax and enjoy the day.

Also, as a result of being involved in three sessions, I didn’t get to sit in on many panels. However, over the course of the day I got some questions answered, was asked some questions, met some cool people, talked to people I already knew and just generally had fun. I was also paid a very high compliment about my work. A person who shall remain unnamed came up and said that they never read lesbian fiction, it wasn’t their thing,  but when I read my 150 words out, they got goosebumps. I was silent for a second, then said thank you about a dozen times because I just didn’t know what else to say. It was a massive compliment and put a silly grin on my face!

Overall, it was a very worthwhile day. Fun, informative, well-organised (thanks, organisers – you did a super job!) and definitely worth attending. Happy news is that next year’s meet will be in Manchester, which is easier for me to get to. Plus, hopefully I’ll be able to drag my buddy Victoria Blisse along with me! 😉

Brighton

Gorgeous seaside town. I didn’t see nearly as much of it as I would have liked, but I saw enough to make me want to go back. The town is big and quite spread out, so there’s plenty of walking to be done. I’m not much of a shopper, but it’s a good place for shopping. I visited my usual haunts, i.e. Waterstones, Paperchase, sex shops, chocolate

shops. But I also did the seaside thing of visiting the pier (but I don’t look down. Hate it!!), eating candy floss, playing on 2p machines, eating fish and chips, and so on. I even took a photo of the dodgems as a nod to my story, Dodging, which appears in Smut by the Sea. And if we do a second volume, I have some inspiration, too! 😉

The road between the campsite we used and the town took us straight past Devil’s Dyke, which is part of the South Downs Way – another reason I want to go back. That, with the town and the close vicinity of lots of country houses and the like, mean Brighton is definitely on my list for a longer visit in the future.

Other

I also sneaked in some novel research on the way home. I visited Cliveden (albeit briefly) to go in the maze. I have a maze scene planned into my novel and wanted to get some ideas. It proved fruitful! 🙂 I took plenty of photos and had a good think about the scene – hopefully it’ll be as fun to write as it was to visit the maze!

In other news, I have a new release in two days! My first m/m erotic story, Ditched, is released on Wednesday by Resplendence Publishing. I can’t wait to see what people think – I hope they like it!