Ally – Page 37 – A. L. Lester

What happens when it’s over?

This week I’m back in the saddle with Sylvia Marks. This has meant a lot of reading about early women doctors and the ways women served in the First World War and generally immersing myself in the world of 1920. I’m not quite talking in the slang of the era, but it’s a near thing.

Cover, Elsie and Mairi Go to War by Diane Atkinson

One of the things I’ve been reading is Elsie and Mairi go to War, the story of Mairi Chisholm and Elsie Knocker, who met at a motorcycling club in 1912 and when the war began joined a private ambulance service and shipped out to Belgium. They spent four years so close to the front that they could hear the men in the trenches talking, running a first aid post in the basement of a ruined house in a destroyed village.

Elsie was quite a bit older than Mairi and I took an instant dislike to her…she was clearly an adventuress who thrived on adrenaline. She lied about being a divorcee and having a child to the Belgian nobleman she went on to marry during the war. Afterwards when he found out and they parted, she flitted from one thing to another…for example setting up a first aid post in the East End of London during the General Strike and actually causing more problems than she solved.

Mairi on the other hand settled back to post-war life with comparative ease. She, a close friend and a couple of other women opened a chicken-breeding farm in Scotland, temporarily moved the whole shebang to Guernsey and from thence back to Scotland again.

It made me think about a conversation I had with a friend when I first began to kick this story around. My grandmother had memories of Dr Fox, a lady doctor from Wellington in Somerset in the years before the First World War. She used to come round and visit my Great-Grandmother and sit on the kitchen table with her skirts hitched up, smoking and swinging her legs as they chatted. My friend is part of the Fox family and says that her husband can remember Dr Fox from when he was a child, probably the 1950s/60s? A tough old bird and smoked like a chimney are the two things that most stood out to him then. My friend also has a vague memory of another woman who was a doctor in France between 1914 and 1918 and then came home, got married and left medicine. I am hoping she’ll be able to find her name so I can do some more research about her.

I knew when I began writing about Sylvia…at the urging of Loukie*, who fell in love with her bit-part in Inheritance of Shadows…that whatever I was going to be writing would have elements of lesbian romance. But it’s also turning out to be a story…three different stories, because it’s a trilogy…about what you do when the thing that defined you really strongly for a long time suddenly stops.

That’s the thing I’ve taken away from Elsie and Mairi go to War—the way some people can throw dreadful, traumatic things off to an extent and settle back into what passes for ‘normal’. And other people, like Elsie Knocker, simply can’t.

*Editor Extraordinaire

#AmReading

I’m so behind on these, I’m very sorry! This time I have queer sci-fi!

A Matter of Oaths by Helen S. Wright

I loved this. It’s a brilliant plotty space-opera with additional gay romance. The characters are beautifully realised, there’s a middle-aged female space-ship captain with a trick hip as a main character and the world-building is drip-drip-dripped in rather than delivered in a big ‘here is my universe’ clump. Identity-wipe, political machinations, mysterious enemies and big guns. What’s not to like?

Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen

So this was weird and complicated. I really liked it. It follows someone who is initially a child and then has their growth accelerated to make them an adult for /complicated plot reasons/. It’s got a racing story and some extremely gruesome bits which I found heart-wrenching, so be warned. However it also has brane-like universe bubbles that have different rules of physics and-or existence, an extremely cool selection of aliens and different technologies and a plot that twisted my tiny mind n the best way. I should add…it has genderfluid and enby characters and the main character is ace.

Taji from Beyond the Rings by R. Cooper

This is my first R. Cooper book and I am now wondering why I waited so long to start. It’s a ‘queer human in a world of genderfluid aliens’ story and the dislocation and loneliness of the main character really resonated with me in this dislocated and lonely covid-time.

Taji, the human embassy translator, is an academic who’s been subbed in to cover for the murdered previous incumbent. He’s in love with one of the Shavian embassy guards. There’s a mismatch of cultural knowledge and expectations and failed communication between them that interweaves with a fantastic, exciting political-machinations plot that I loved. A lot of the plot is based around a minority of the Shavian’s tendency to ‘go shehzha’ for their lover…to become mindlessly desirous of them during the first phase of a relationship. It was interesting and I thought done really well–it had a cultural and political impact on the story and the relationship between Taji and his lover.

That’s it for this time!

interview: Chris Quinton

Today I’m happy to welcome Chris Quinton to the blog to answer my intrusive questions! Welcome Chris! It’s lovely to have you here. First question, as always, what persuaded you to come and visit?

Why? A combination of reasons – last year, my publisher started their close-down process, and the copyrights to eleven of my titles returned to me. Since then, after the inevitable procrastination, I have read them through, tweaked, edited, and made/bought/was gifted new covers for them all. They are now all released to the wild, spread wide across umpteen platforms. So, too, are all my other titles, which were previously only on Kindle Unlimited, and I’m hoping to spread the word.

Also, interviews are fun, and you’re a good friend that Lockdown has prevented us from meeting up for a coffee/tea and a chat.

What started you writing?

Good Grief, that’s so long ago I can’t remember when it started. I have a vague memory of telling my toys [dolls, racing cars, horses/ponies] stories – adventures we all went on. That sort of naturally segued into writing them. Then, at eleven, I went to South Wilts Grammar School for Girls, and discovered the Greek and Roman myths, and History, so they joined the story population. I was the archetypal Brit pre-teen: crazy about horses, ballet, and reading anything I could get my paws on, especially historicals and science-fiction. My parents, bless ‘em forever, gave me their library cards, so I had free rein in the adult sections as well as the children’s. By then, my English teacher would only mark the first two and half pages of my free-writing essays… What do you expect when you tell someone like me, “Write two and a half pages on the title, Sunrise.” She got about five pages on a Native American meeting a palomino pony for the first time.

Where do you write?

My desktop is in my bedroom, so mostly, I write there. Pre-Pandemic, and soon Post-Lockdown, I also write in a coffee shop. When I can travel to visit friends, I write during the train journeys, thanking the gods for iPads. No matter where I go, I always have a paper notepad and pens with me, as well as my iPad. I should add a qualifier to that – I try to write. The Dreaded Writer’s Block is only too real.

What do you like to read?

Most of my reading preferences have a mix of genres. I love science-fiction, fantasy, mysteries, historicals, contemporary, with or without some romance. I also read a lot of fanfics, currently I’m hooked on the Marvel Cinematic Universe fics…

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I enjoy making lap quilts partly by machine, and doing the actual quilting by hand while listening to audio books, or podfics of my favourite MCU authors’ works. We have three dogs here at Chez Chris, and while I don’t help walk them – my Bloody Back won’t let me – they are great company. As soon as Lockdown ends, I’ll walk to the shops along the river most days, taking photos, keeping an eye on the River Mafia [the local swan family], and hoping to catch a glimpse of other wildlife. Otters have been seen occasionally, despite being in the middle of a [small] city.

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

All but one of my stories have been rereleases, and the only new title for ages is Duet. It was originally intended to be a Christmas novella, but… Procrastination… Writer’s Block… Anyhow, it took me way too long to finish it.

The idea was Christmas carols sung for charity at the annual Christmas market here in Salisbury, my home city, giving the family a chance at the big time via an impresario who was blown away by their talents, and how that would impact on their lives. But that got a little derailed by ghost music and an old harpsichord. I loved that the story let me use one of my favourite pieces of opera – usually, not at all my preferred thing. Also, I fell down the research rabbit hole hunting down harpsichords, their history, their makers, and their sounds. I hated that my writing had stalled completely before the ghost music theme hit me. Once it did, the story took off.

Duet is told from the point of view of John King, one of four brothers, and all the family are singers. John is a tenor, and he connects with Simon, a baritone, and they become close. He is fascinated by the story of an old harpsichord in Simon’s family, and by the melody he keeps catching on the edge of his hearing.

Duet

Once burned, twice shy, John hasn’t dared to act on his attraction to Simon, until the chance to sing a famous duet sets their friendship on fire.

The echo of a centuries-old love, unheard by most, brightens Simon’s life. Then John picks up the melody and finds the words to their song. When music decides to write a love song, it’s a duet…

Buy Duet

Find Chris!

I have a website, but it is badly in need of a complete overhaul…

Facebook : Twitter

the week that was

I was going to write a post telling you all about my hydroponic lettuce growing set-up, because why not? But instead it’s been such a bloody stressful week that I’m going to moan about that because I need to get it off my chest.

These are the things we’ve had to deal with this week:

Decide whether to go ahead with Littlest’s elective surgery that is supposed to help with her curling-in feet. The hope is that she’ll be able to stand again. However, it’s been delayed for twelve months because #Covid and in all that time she has been without splints (more #Covid) and has not been standing. It is therefore likely that she doesn’t have enough strength left to regain where she was, even with lots of physio. But she might. Also, the anaesthetic is a bit dodgy, because of her breathing issues.
Still pushing for a vaccine for her. The local health service is only calling clinically extremely vulnerable 12-15 year olds who are in residential care at the moment. Other services nearby are calling all children in special schools. It was a bit of a blow, but it will be a matter of weeks apparently.
We needed to sign off her ‘Advanced Care Plan’, which used to be call her ‘End of Life Care Plan’, but they changed the name a couple of years ago to make it more fluffy and less brutal. It’s still brutal. We have decided we do not want resuscitation.
My mother has updated her own DNR paperwork. She’s done, pretty much, and is perfectly happy with her low intervention decision; as am I because it’s what she wants, but it’s my mum.
As the filling in the shit sandwich, one of our carer’s other clients has suspected Covid and she is therefore isolating until this person gets their test results back. It should have taken three days, but the test has been lost in the post. So we are managing without help.
Mr AL has put his back out. (Lifting a bloody piano. Don’t laugh). I can move her, but it’s a bit much for me and tends to mean I have a seizure afterwards, so as he’s recovered we’re double-handling her…she has a hoist for actually getting in and out of bed/her chair/the sofa etc, but still needs moving once she’s landed.
Talking Child has had another round of bullying at school. School sounds like half the student body have gone feral after three months of no real structure and a lot of staff are still off, shielding or whatever, and I wouldn’t be a teacher for all the money in the world at the moment. TC was disappointed that she missed a huge fight in the playground yesterday and when the head of year rang me, she sounded exhausted. If you are an educator, I applaud you, hang in there.

Anyway, all these things are why I’ve been quiet. I’m drained, I’m sad about my mum and the issues our kids are dealing with and I have been struggling to adult. I so want to get back on the writing horse in the mornings; and the last few days I have actually rolled out of bed and sat at my desk. But my brain hasn’t kicked in yet.

Eight Acts came out last weekend and As the Crows Fly is dropping on the 13^th April. Inheritance of Shadows is in the process of going wide in audio with a new cover. My slate is clear, but I feel completely uninspired about getting on with Sylvia Marks, although I know where I want the story to go.

I was talking to Littlest’s community nurse yesterday and she says that pretty much all her families have crashed in a similar fashion. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel finally being visible, I think.

So for #TheWeekThatWas, that is all.

interview: Leigh M. Lorien, #ISORoommates

Today we welcome Leigh M. Lorien, who’s here to chat about her new release #ISO Roommates! I’ve also included an excerpt right at the bottom after the interview after Leigh’s bio.

Hello and first of all, thank you for letting me stop by! I’m super grateful for the opportunity. (Ally: You are most welcome!)

For anyone who follows this blog regularly, you may have read the post in February featuring Nell Iris and Ofelia Grand discussing their recent releases for the #Love submission call from JMS Books. I’m here to talk about my release for that same series, titled #ISORoommates (for anyone who missed Nell & Ofelia’s post, the theme of the #Love submission call was “love in the age of social media” and the story had to include some form of social media, real or not, and the title of each story starts with a hashtag, thus my title, #ISORoommates, wherein ISO means “In Search Of”).

In #ISORoommates, Marc and Sora meet when they move in to a new house. They each have their own reasons for the move, but both expect the new situation to be better—and it is, until the two of them butt heads over shared work spaces and polar opposite organization techniques (if you can call “throwing things around” an organization technique).

The story came to me while on a six-hour drive with my sister. She and I are both creative souls. We hoard craft supplies. We hoard things that could be craft supplies, someday. We hoard shiny things, cool rocks, bits of wire, random junk we find on the ground. We hoard cardboard boxes because, you know, that’s a really good box! You can never have too many boxes.

But our ideas of organization could not be more different. I lose everything I touch. Sometimes I don’t even need to touch it. I just think about it, and it is spontaneously absorbed into the chaotic abyss of my house, never to be seen again. My sister, on the other hand, is an organization junkie. She loves order. She has drawers and shelves and cabinets, things are labelled neatly, and everything has a place.

While discussing artsy habits, the concept of an opposites attract story featuring a disastrous, disorganized artist and his tidy opponent crept into my mind.

When I started writing this lovely artist character, he let me know he’s also transgender.

Aaaaand autistic.

Cool buddy, no pressure.

Sora isn’t the first trans character I’ve written, and he definitely won’t be the last. He’s not the first autistic character I’ve written, either. He is, however, the first autistic transgender artist I’ve written, so it felt a good deal like ripping my own heart out and smearing it all over the page.

Autism presents differently depending on gender. Most [neurotypical] people’s understanding of autism comes from the symptoms typical to cisgender boys and men, which are diagnosed and portrayed far more often. Cisgender women, and those of us assigned female at birth, often go undiagnosed and unnoticed since our presentation is different than what society “expects” autism to look like. Since Sora isn’t a cis man, I was able to use my own experiences to inform his character. The lack of social interest, withdrawing, panicking, hyper-focus, and meltdowns are all things that I’ve experienced as an AFAB person on the spectrum.

Sora’s love interest-slash-opposite, Marc, comes off as quite a dick initially, but it was very important that he be anything but. If I’m writing a transgender or autistic character in a relationship, they’re going to have a healthy, supportive partner. There’s no other option in my mind. Marc is not perfect, but no one is. The important thing is that he doesn’t question or belittle any aspect of Sora’s identity.

Anyway, if that’s not enough to sell you, did I mention there’s car sex? Who doesn’t love some good car sex.

#ISORoommates

The only thing Sora wants is to be left alone to do his art. When he moves into a house with three other people, he knows he’ll have to make some adjustments, but he didn’t count on one of his roommates being a neat-freak with no regard for personal boundaries. If there’s one thing Sora can’t stand, it’s other people telling him how to live his life.

Marc is excited to move in with new people. After his last break-up, he’s keen on being independent and focusing on his own hobbies. His new house has a garage, so he’ll finally get to work on his car! But Marc’s enthusiasm falls apart when he realizes his disorganized artist roommate, Sora, intends to work on his projects in the garage, too.

The two men could not be more opposite… or more similar. They each do their best to ignore the other, but the longer they spend together, the harder it becomes. It’s only a matter of time before sparks start to fly—but their differences may be too much to overcome. Can two fiercely independent men learn to let another into their space, and into their hearts?

Buy #ISORoommates

Meet Leigh!

Leigh M. Lorien is a queer author who got her start at the tender age of five, writing and illustrating her own Sonic the Hedgehog stories. Fortunately, her writing has improved in the subsequent decades. Nowadays, Leigh’s stories primarily lean toward science fiction, fantasy, and urban fantasy, but she has had some contemporary pieces sneak out of her head. Regardless of genre, her books will usually include sarcasm, strong relationships (romantic and platonic), polyamory/non-monogamy, magic, music, animals, mental illness, and less-frequently-represented queer identities.

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Excerpt of #ISO Roommates

Within just a couple minutes, Marc had grouped the paints into the standard color categories in rainbow order, plus pink, black, white, and gray. It was still just a rough pile of mess on the floor, but it was one step closer to tidiness. Sora leaned over, shifting onto hands and knees so he could examine the blue and green groupings. The way he looked, the way he sifted through, was haphazard and frantic, with no logical process.

“Stop it,” Marc said. “You’re just making it worse. Go logically.”

“What?”

He couldn’t believe he was teaching a fully grown adult how to look for something. In quick, small groupings, he shifted tubes from right to left, eliminating some based on brand or bottle shape, pausing longer on ones that matched one category to determine if they were what Sora wanted. When he reached the end of the blues and greens and hadn’t found the right one, he straightened up.

“At least now you know for sure that it isn’t here.”

“But it was here! That’s what’s killing me. I swear, I remember seeing it in one of these boxes when I was carrying them in here.” He groaned and lay back on the cold concrete floor with his hands over his face. “Sorry, this is just really frustrating. I’m always losing things. I hate it.”

“Maybe you should keep your stuff more organized.”

“Thanks, Mom, that helps.”

Marc frowned at the sharp tone. “Hey, no need to be a jerk about it.”

“I don’t have the time or energy to organize. I work. I have deadlines. I barely have time to sleep.”

Something about the way he said it sent a twinge of sympathy through Marc’s chest. While he couldn’t imagine, personally, being able to function in the disaster that Sora worked with, he did know what it was like to run yourself ragged trying to be in three places at once.

“I could help, if you want.”

Sora lifted his hand from his face and looked up the great distance to meet Marc’s eyes… or, something thereabout. He never quite made eye contact, Marc had noticed. Sora’s eyes and cheeks were red from the pressure of his hand, or maybe from the frustration of losing the paint he needed.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’m okay though.” He sat up and started throwing the paints back in the box, just as haphazardly as they’d been before he’d dumped them—completely ignoring what Marc had tried to do to help him. Marc sighed and cast another glance at the disastrous workbench. There were a few bottles of paint sitting there among everything else, half hidden by a pile of canvases. Marc stepped over the mess on the floor and picked up each bottle in turn, checking the color. They were all blues and greens… and there, lying on its side behind all of them, was phthalo green.

“Hey,” he said. Sora looked up. “This what you need?”

“Holy shit!” The man sprang to his feet, wide-eyed. “Where was it?”

Marc gestured vaguely to the other paint bottles. “Behind stuff.”

“Jesus.” Sora took the bottle from Marc’s hand and held it to his chest like a precious item. “Thank you. Sorry.”

“Anything else you need help finding in this train wreck?”

“Not at the moment.”

“All right.” With a half-smile, Marc left the man to his devices and went back to his own project. This time, though, he couldn’t find the same deep concentration he’d had before. He kept glancing at Sora, though he wasn’t sure why. That one little comment about barely having time to sleep… the distress at the state of his workspace… An idea had crept into Marc’s head. He wasn’t sure if it was there for the right reasons, but it was there now and it wasn’t going away.

Buy #ISORoommates