I was tagged by the amazing Piper Vaughn.
What am I working on?
Ha! That kind of depends on the day? I have several (too
many?) projects going, so, have a list!
Ben and Gavin’s (untitled) first time is almost ready for beta. What was supposed to be a little 2K erotic scene to get me
writing again turned into a short story because letting those two talk to me was
A Bad Idea.
Irrevocable (working title) is Monty’s story. A lot of
readers loved to hate him and, well, I wanted to slap him too, but he’s not
such a bad guy once you get to know him. Skip liked him well enough to throw
away several years on him. And, I really like watching his new love (yes, love!)
interest rake his ass over the coals on a regular basis.
Breakthrough is a short story about an older man who finds love in an unexpected place. I’ve been polishing that one for a while now and
it’s nearly ready for a second round of beta.
Between Now and Never is a novella dealing with life in the closet, suicide, and second chances. The angst in that one pretty much guts me, so it’s slow going for now.
I’ve got a few others on the backburner, but those are the
ones I’m hoping to finish by the end of this year. Which means I'll be lucky to get them finished before the end of 2015. >_<
How does my work differ from others in its genre?
This is kind of a cheat answer, because it applies to
all the authors I’ve read in the M/M Romance genre, but I think (hope?) my
characters feel real and unique to readers and my dialogue seems natural. I
think we all take parts of our real life, or people we know or have met, and
weave bits and pieces of them into our stories, so each story and each
character is as different as the author writing them. It’s really one of the
most beautiful things about writing, or any art form for that matter. Give ten
authors the same prompt and you’re going to get back ten very different
stories. Shifters, BDSM, fluffy romance, full on erotica, mystery, time travel…
and every character would be different. That’s amazing, isn’t it?
Why do I write what I do?
My first thought is simply “because I love it” but I love
high fantasy novels and mysteries too. I couldn’t write one worth reading. I guess I write what I do because those are
the characters who speak to me. They pop into my head and tell me their
stories and I write them down. I’ve written a couple of (unpublished) het
stories too, but M/M Romance is simply where my heart is.
How does my writing process work?
Lol, when it’s working, it usually goes something like this:
I hear a song or see someone on the street corner or have a dream and I start
to see their story play in my head like a movie. I write down the scene, then
the characters start talking. I pound out 10K or so and then read it back and maybe don’t hate
it. Then I keep writing a few more days, get to the halfway point, start making
notes on what I’ve written and maybe a few points of what I think is going to
happen—because my first synopsis to a Dreamspinner nearly killed me. Seriously,
I had A Simple Romance FINISHED for over a year before I sent it in because of
the synopsis—then I usually take a break from it for a while. I come back to
it, look at my notes and read what I already have, then I write some more. I
almost never have a plan and pretty much everything you read is spontaneously
written in fits and starts. When I finish, I’ll send it off to beta, then pick
at it for a while. This is why it takes me roughly two years from spark of idea
to sending it in with a query. I’m trying to get better and really focus on one
project at a time, trying to get to a point where I can maybe send in a
manuscript every 3-4 months, but, uh, that goal is probably a long way off.
The free reads I’ve done for Don’t Read in the Closet are a
little different. I get two months for those. Nothing more. Two months. Which
is why they’re usually very short. The first time I signed up for that event, I
ended up getting horribly sick and then having to do a bunch of stuff for my
best friend’s wedding. I wrote Pillow Talk in roughly four days. Maybe I just
really need do-or-die deadlines?
Who’s next on the blog hop?
Kade Boehme, Hank Edwards, and RJ Scott! There were supposed to be five, but, uh, those three are fabulous enough to make up for the other two. >_>
Also, I was going to tag the wonderful Nico Jaye, but Piper got to her first. You can check out her answers here. :D
