Author Alex Beecroft

AUTHOR ALEX BEECROFT

I've written most of my life. I can't not write, or I get very cranky and bad tempered, as my family can attest. But it was only this year that I finally decided to try my hand at submitting something for publication. I've always enjoyed m/m romance and written it for my own pleasure, I just had no idea before March of this year that there was a market out there and other people like me, who would like to see it too. It's been a good year!

As for the rest, as Linden Bay put it:

Alex Beecroft currently lives in Great Britain with her husband and two daughters. Raised in Cheshire, Alex studied English and Philosophy before accepting employment with the Crown Court where she worked for a number of years. Alex will tell you that she's thrilled to be doing what she always wanted to do, living her dream of being a writer, and a soon to be published romance author.

Tell us a little bit about you outside of being an author.

I'm a mother of two girls, age 11 and 14. We live just outside Cambridge in a tiny village with not much to do, so at weekends we tend to be off at one national trust place or another doing historical re-enactment. We are members of two reenactment societies, Regia Anglorum, which reenacts the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans, and The Mannered Mob, which reenacts civilian 18th Century life.

What is your earliest writing memory?

My friends and I used to pretend to be characters out of The Lord of the Rings, and I was the only one who used to make up new dialog and new things that happened. I don't remember what the first thing I actually wrote down was, but it may have been a story about the rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer turning into deep space mercenaries and saving the universe with the power of music. LOL! What can I say, I was young :)

What feelings do you experience once you are satisfied with your completed manuscript(s)?

Relief and joy. It's a little bit like having a baby. It's been a long, tiring process getting there, and then you suddenly have this new, perfect thing. Of course, immediately afterwards you start worrying about whether it's good enough, whether anyone will like it, whether you could have done it better... But there is that blissful moment first.

In your upcoming release or newly released book, how did you come up with the idea of your main character(s)?

Peter and Joshua from 'Captain's Surrender' were inspired by the Naval characters in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Instead of falling in love with Jack Sparrow as I think everyone else did, I fell for the clean cut men of the navy. I wondered if there was any truth to the way the film portrayed them - so confident, so fearless, so clean ;) So I went away and started to read up about the 18th Century Navy, and Peter and Joshua were inspired by people like Nelson and Collingwood.

Tell us a little bit about your work in progress and/or your upcoming release.

My upcoming release is called 'False Colors'. It's due out in April 2009 from Running Press, but it's available on Amazon for pre-order already. I'm very excited about this one. It's a good meaty 240 pages long and packed with sea-faring adventure. Like Captain's Surrender, it's a gay historical romance set in the 18th Century Age of Sail, but this is more epic and more complex. This is the blurb:

~*~
For his first command, John Cavendish is given the elderly bomb
vessel HMS /Meteor/, and a crew as ugly as the ship. He’s determined to make a success of their first mission, and hopes the well-liked
lieutenant Alfie Donwell can pull the crew together before he has to
lead them into battle: stopping the slave trade off the coast of
Algiers.

Alfie knows that with a single ship, however well manned, their
mission is futile, and their superiors back in England are
hoping to use their demise as an excuse for war with the Ottoman
Empire. But the darker secret he keeps is his growing attraction for
his commanding officer---a secret punishable by death.

With the arrival of his former captain---and lover---on the scene, Alfie
is torn between the security of his past and the uncertain promise of a future with the straight-laced John.

Against a backdrop of war, intrigue, piracy and personal betrayal, the high
seas will carry these men through dangerous waters from England to
Africa, from the Arctic to the West Indies, in search of a safe harbor.

~*~

I’m a big believer that word of mouth creates more sales than advertisements. Let’s say I’ve never read any of your books before, how would you pitch the idea of your latest release to me?

I'd say 'think Master and Commander meets Brokeback Mountain.' It's forbidden love on the high seas; adventure, peril, pirates and romance.

I consider myself a tough critic when reviewing books. What do or would you do when you receive a mediocre or less than average rating from a reviewer or reader?

I would thank them for taking the time to review my book and make sure that I understood why the book didn't work for them. Then I would think about whether I ought to do whatever it was differently next time.

What authors influence your writing dreams, goals and aspirations?

Patrick O'Brian is my historical fiction writing god. I love the effortless way he combines his immense knowledge about the past with brilliant characters, gripping stories, and sometimes some frankly hilarious moments. But for writing style and original ideas I also idolize Ursula LeGuin, and Tolkien is my yardstick for authenticity in language and fabulous world-building.

What books would you recommend on writing?

'Steering the Craft' by Ursula LeGuin. See above, she really knows what she's talking about!

If you could change one thing you did during your road to publication, what would it be and what would you have done different?

I wouldn't have allowed myself to get discouraged so easily. When my first book, The Witch's Boy, got its fifteenth rejection, I decided to give up trying to be published and just write for fun. I did that for the next ten years. Then one day I thought 'well, let's just *try* to get Captain's Surrender accepted. What harm can it do?' and it was jumped on by the first publisher I sent it to. I wish now that I had carried on trying earlier, and not had that ten year gap.

What advice would you give an aspiring author?

Once you start a story, carry on until you reach the end. Don't start editing and rewriting before you've got a complete first draft, otherwise you'll end up with five perfect chapters and lose interest.

Always accept criticism and advice as a positive chance to learn to get better. Your deathless prose *can* be improved on.

Don't get discouraged. Sometimes it is too much like work, but then, if you want to be a professional writer, it *is* work. Keep plugging away at it and you will get there eventually.

Where can readers learn more about you and your books?

I have a website here:
http://www.alexbeecroft.com

I hang out mainly on my livejournal here:
http://alex-beecroft.livejournal.com/

and my Amazon profile is at this ridiculously long URL here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Alex%20Beecroft

Thank you ever so much for the chance to talk about me and my books!