Australian author Barry Lowe is a red hot new addition to loveyoudivine. I thought it would be good to find out more about him, so I pounced on him for a blog interview.

 Bryn: How would you describe your writing style?

 Barry: Horny humorous smut.

 Bryn: That’s some attention grabber! Have you always written that combination, or did you slide into it?

 Barry: I started out as a journalist and got into sex writing in the early 1980s when a local free gay paper, The Sydney Star, asked me to write a column which became Lowe-Life, about the wonderfully diverse sex/love life of me and my lover, Wally. From there I went on to write sex comedies for theatre, an independent romantic film called Violet’s Visit, and later short erotica for print anthologies. I’m back to writing about my sex life again for another gay bar rag in Sydney. So I’ve come full circle.

Bryn: Which form of writing do you enjoy most out of those?

Barry: It’s a real cliché but I love the immediacy of theatre. Sitting in an audience listening to people laugh out loud at what I’ve written or else groaning at the filth they didn’t think anyone would have the guts to put up on a stage. Not that all my plays are like that, any more than all my writing is. I also write film star biographies and McFarland published Atomic Blonde, my book on 1950s blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren two years ago and I have one coming out later this year on Deanna Durbin.

 Bryn: Who’s influenced you most?

Barry: I’d love to say Shakespeare, Moliere, Jean-Paul Sartre, Doris Day and all that pretentious bullshit but basically I’m a sponge and soak up an impression here, a feeling there, an emotion somewhere else. I can’t say I’m an original but what I was writing when I started was different to anything else that I knew of. Later I discovered people like William Burroughs and Jean Genet, and then the wonderful world of gay porn. So, I guess the easiest answer to that is everyone and no one, and anyone I’m reading or watching at the moment.

 Bryn: I have to ask, what are you reading and watching at the moment?

 Barry: Anything and everything Josh Lanyon writes, the crime novels of Arnaldur Indriđason, habu’s Death in Key West, Sarah Masters’ Grave Findings, and a travel guide to Iceland. Watching: a delightful English series called Ladies of Letters, the second season of Glee, the new Doctor Who, and the new season of Foyle’s War. And rewatching the films of Doris Day.

Bryn: You’re clearly very ecclectic in your tastes. Does that show through in the fiction writing as well?

Barry: Oh, I have my obsessions but it’s probably true, although it probably is for a lot of writers. My subject matter  ranges from steampunk, science fiction, Victoriana, exotic but real locations (I love travel being stuck here at the arse end of the world in Australia), mystery and detective fiction, and comic fiction while my style ranges from comedy through that icky feeling in the stomach romance through to sleaze. I’m a bower bird writer, I peck at whatever entertains me.

Bryn: What have you got coming out at lyd?

 Barry: Already in the schedule are the short M/M eroticas Carbon Dating [a young guy in lust with his best mate’s dad] followed by Marine Biology [a U.S. Marine gangbang], Let the Games Begin [What goes on at the Glory Hole Games after the main Olympic competition is over], and Stocks and Shared [bondage and revenge in the Wall Street financial sector]. Then there’s a few more in the queue that we haven’t started editing yet. Plus I’m working on, The Major and The Miners, a five-part series set in Sydney during the 1930s involving a doctor and two coal miners, and a cook book series that involves M/M erotica and recipes.

Bryn: Wow! And, where can people find you online?

Barry: Problem is that I’m Downunder and our online hours only coincide early morning when I’m not awake and late night when I’m tapping away at my computer trying to turn out the first eBook short story that earns $10 million. I’m on Facebook. And people can contact me via my website www.barrylowe.net. I’m happy to chat, I can procrastinate with the best of them.

 Barry’s first release at lyd is out now, so do have a look at Carbon Dating.

Much of the writing at loveyoudivine is cross genre. We do red hot erotica, but it frequently turns up in the context of murder mysteries, historicals, paranormals, science fiction, fantasy, romance, horror and soap opera!

Many of our regular authors dabble toes, if not more interesting body parts, into the strange, swirling waters of speculative fiction. Talking amongst ourselves, we felt it would be an interesting thing to explore. And this is what happened.

First I interviewed Max Griffin    - http://blogs.myspace.com/brynneth_n_colvin then he interviewed M. King - 

http://maxgriffin.blogspot.com/

At this point in the process it gets a wee bit complicated! M King interviewed Alex Morgan 

http://lavengra.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/alex-morgan/ and Nix Winter - 

http://lavengra.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/nix-winter/

Nix then wet on to interview Jon Michaelsen - 

http://www.jewlsthelucky.com/2010/02/interview-with-jon-michaelsen.html?zx=6fc015dc7cef3dc1

and he interviewed Adrianne Brennan – http://www.jonmichaelsen.net/?p=467

Now we get a bit of a hop, and we pick up with Melissa el-Hajjar who interviewed Dawne Dominique - http://blogspot.loveyoudivineinfo.com/?p=288 (which you may have spotted already as we put that one on this blog!)

Dawne interviews Jaime Samms – http://dawnedominique.blogspot.com  and then Jaime interviewed Crymsyn Hart -  http://dontkickmycane.livejournal.com/138383.html

This is not an exhaustive list of speculative ficiton writers at loveyoudivine, and it may in fact grow if more interviews are sparked. Do wander about a bit and have a read!

Kissa Starling is a new arrival at lyd, and part of the To Love and To Cherish project.

Bryn: Hi Kissa! What have you got coming out with lyd?

Kissa: I have a short story, Vegas Vixens 4Ever, in the To Love and To Cherish anthology.

Bryn: It’s an intriguing title, the sort to draw you in without giving much away… can you give much away about the story without spoiling it?

Kissa: Eboni and her roommate Tami have been friends forever. They’ve never connected sexually or spiritually until one cold, winter day when they both get dumped. After too many drinks and late night television they make the impulsive decision to fly to Vegas. They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but that doesn’t prove to be true with these two vixens. Wrong after wrong finally turns into something right.

Bryn:  What made you pick Vegas? Is it a place you have a personal connection with?

Kissa: I’ve always wanted to visit Vegas but never have. I’m a night owl by nature and the idea of a place that never sleeps appeals to me. I really chose Vegas because of the mass of weddings that take place there and it seemed like a great impulse place for two characters to get married. 

Bryn: I can see how that works! Do you write mostly at night then?

Kissa: Definitely. I love the night time. I do most of my writing when everyone else is asleep and everything else in the house has been cleaned, washed and picked up! It’s the mom syndrome. I’ve learned to live with less sleep and still fit most things in that I love. Family first, then friends and writing. Sometimes I actually find time for myself too.

Bryn: Are your family supportive of your writing?

Kissa: Great question. I may have to take them one by one to answer that. My husband is very supportive in his own way. He doesn’t read my work but then again it isn’t Consumer’s Digest. He does brainstorm titles with me once in a while. My son shakes his head and walks the other way when I mention my writing. I convinced my daughter in law to write a short story and she loved doing it but my son thinks I brainwashed her! haha My mother has read a few of my stories and even asked for an autographed book. She frequently asks for updates about my writing and loves hearing about how I come up with ideas. As far as pushing for time- hmm, time is a huge factor for me. I work full time, I write full time and take care of my family full time. That equals way too many ‘full times’. Writing has become my ‘me’ time. It’s when I relax and have fun. I hope to make more time for writing in the future but for now it’s vacations and evenings.

Bryn: That sounds familiar on the time front. What are you working on at the moment?

Kissa: I just finished the first draft of Chalan’s Story. It will, hopefully, be book #4 in the Lifestyle Series at Red Rose Publishing. Each of the Lifestyle books are written from the male point of view and they all feature a couple who is married and participates in the BDSM lifestyle in one way or another. A different fetish is touched upon in each story and they run about 5-7K words. Chalan’s Story delves into the art of pony play. I think it’s important for readers to realize that lifestyle couples have relationship problems just like any other couple. 

Bryn: Yeah, I’d agree with that, the people with fetishes need to be portrayed as people, first and foremost. Do you have a homepage people can browse? Or a blog?

 Kissa: I do have a website that I’m currently working on updating or should I say getting someone else to update. I so wish I knew more about how to do some of those technical things! My website is www.kissastarling.com and my blog is on my website. I’m all over the web at different sites and love to get mail; I think it may be a fetish of mine.

INTERVIEW WITH loveyoudivine’s MULTI TALENTED

s JAMIE SAMMS s

Hi, Jaime. Thank you for joining us today. What actually inspired you to become an author?

Really? I was poor. Not that writing nets me a very big paycheck, but at fifteen, before Internet—yes, I said before Internet, and those so inclined can do the math—I ran out of books to read. I had no money to buy more, or to pay my library fines, so my only option was to write my own. Turns out, I was pretty half decent at it. Of course, these early efforts were pretty bad as far as the craft goes, but the love of creating something from nothing but words got its claws into me and never really let go. Now I do it for kicks and giggles, and the occasional hard dollar.

 Can you describe how you felt when you received your first publishing contract, and what did you do?

It was pretty cool. I have to admit, and here’s where fellow authors might glare at me, but the first thing I ever subbed was accepted. I sent a short story to a now defunct Yaoi publisher called Iris Print, for their first anthology, “Connections”. I didn’t get a huge pay out for that story, but it was a pretty big rush, knowing I wasn’t the only one who wanted to read it. And before anyone gets too upset, the next thing I subbed to them was rejected, so it just goes to show, this industry is never a sure thing. I will say that rejection was also my first, and the story in question, after another sub and a re-write, is now safely and contractually in the hands of Drollerie Press, release date forthcoming.

 How would you describe yourself as a person?

 Wow. Talk about your blanket questions. Um…I guess busy and a little bit on the artsy/flaky side, which probably explains the pink hair and addiction to caffeine. I can be practical when it’s required, but it really is not my default setting. I like creating—stories, crafts and such. I’m pretty handy, so I guess in a word, I’m creative, and everything else kind of flows from there. My family has learned to live with the chaos and the cats, for the most part.

What genres do you write in and why?

I suppose most of my stories hinge around gay romances. Some of them are firmly told in the contemporary world we all know, and some are pretty fantastical, but the main thread is always what’s going on in the hearts and minds of a pair of lovers, or three. As for why, I honestly couldn’t tell you. I just know whenever I got around to writing about the heroine, she turned out to be a sister or a best friend, and the guys had eyes only for each other. It’s a mystery. Probably best explored by someone versed in ferreting out past lives.

What is your biggest fear?

And once again, no pulling punches. I suppose right now, finding myself alone with two kids would be a biggy. I don’t think I’m qualified to be that responsible. Luckily, I have a great husband, who happens to be a fully fantastic father.

 If you could have one wish, what would it be? And you’re not allowed to wish for unlimited wishes.

 Geez. Take all the fun out of it, why don’t you? I guess, first off, I’d like the world to be a safe place for my kids. Failing that, I ‘d see what could be done about having more hours in the day to get everything done, or at least, another couple a days just to read a good book.

You’re about to be stranded on a desert island, but you have just enough time to grab two books from the ship’s library. What two would you chose?

The practical side of me says grab the survival guide and the first aid book. The rest of me says something by Tanya Huff, because she always entertains, and the newest of Allie Blue’s Bay City Paranormal Series (and if it’s on an e-reader with a couple hundred other m/m romances, so much the better).

Immortal Fire is about to be released in print. Can you tell us a little bit about your two contributions to this wonderful anthology, Black Roses and Windblown. What inspired you to write them?

Hmmm…Black Roses. Actually, I was bored one day, and dwelling on some critiques of another story that demanded more and better descriptions. It’s always been a weak point in my writing. I don’t generally do description. If you’ve ever read Mercedes Lackey and her lavish and indepth descriptions of everything from palace ballrooms to someone’s lunch plate, well, I would be almost the anti-Lackey. So, I decided to just describe a garden as an exercise in stretching my abilities. I had no idea there was a soul-devouring immortal living in it at the time. Imagine my surprise…

As for WindBlown, I really was standing by the highway waiting for the bus on a cold, windy Saturday morning, watching the snow swirl and drift behind the cars. Once again, the immortal drifting with the wind came somewhat as a surprise. Most of my stories are like that though, starting from something very simple and growing in a very organic fashion.

 The cover art for Black Roses and Windblown is amazing. Who was the artist?

Nix Winter. She created all the covers in the Immortal Fire series, as well as the cover for the print Anthology. Not only is she a fantastic cover artist, but the photography on Black Roses is her own photography; the paintings on Timeless and the print cover are also her artistry, and all of the rendering on M. King’s cover was her work as well. And she can write a fiercely lyrical story, besides. The woman has talent.

What’s in the future, Jaime Samms? Is there a special project you’re working on? 

Well…I do have a release coming from lyd on Dec 11^th titled Muse’s Vacation. The cover is another of Nix’s photography creations. It’s a nice, heartwarming holiday story, which might also make you a bit hot under the collar. There will be a longer story, much darker and less sexy in the near future, but I hope still entertaining, and I have a few releases coming out with other publishers.

Thank you so much, Jaime. I’ve learned some wonderful things about you. We could be soulmates! We’ll definitely be looking forward to more wonderful tales from you. Now, who will you be interviewing next for lyd’s Authors Chain Reaction?

I’ll be interviewing Jen Hart, and you can find the interview at my blog:

http://jaimesamms.blogspot.com

JAMIE SAMMS

To learn more about Jaime, you can visit her at:

 www.loveyoudivine.com

 www.jaime-samms.net

 M. King writes predominantly for the His and His Kisses line, although she also has a short story – Whistlebait with Femerotica, and another – Filth, coming out with the TransFix line.

Bryn: You came to lyd with the Immortal Fire project… how did you get involved with that?

M King: Well, I was first approached by Nix Winter and Jaime Samms, who had the idea for a fantasy m/m anthology. It sounded great to me, especially as there are some pretty strong similarities in our writing styles. Nix suggested pitching the idea to loveyoudivine, so we did, and the rest was, as they say, history! 

From the first moment, lyd has been a lovely working environment. I can’t stress that enough. It’s clichéd to say it’s like a family, but that really is true. As the Immortal Fire project picked up speed, of course Clare London, Adrianne Brennan and, um, you came on board (*grin*), and the anthology really developed a distinctive feel that, I think, has carried through to the finished volume.

My copy is sitting on my shelf now, complete with Nix’s beautiful artwork, and it has been an unqualified pleasure, and a privilege, to be part of it.

Bryn: I get the impression from your website that you write as a number of people. How does that work, and do you ever get confused about who you’re being?

M King: Those who know me might suggest I’m always confused, but it probably doesn’t have much to do with pseudonyms….

It’s a fairly new thing, as a matter of fact. I’ve written anonymously or under different names for a long while, and M. King is the first pen name I’ve treated as a cohesive identity. It’s just a short version of my real name, after all. The idea behind using a set of different names came about because I’ve found a lot of readers identify M. King as a writer of gay and m/m fiction and little else, which isn’t really true. 

The plan might have been to break everything up into well-organised chunks that could be clearly identified – one name for horror, one for gay fiction, one for straight erotica – but of course I don’t find it that simple. Too much of my work cuts across various genres at once, and then there’s the whole issue of social media and networking. It’s one thing to list a webpage for a pseudonym, but I’m not sure I could hold down half a dozen different profiles as well!

Plus, frankly, I don’t think readers really need to be that mollycoddled. Sure, it helps to know that such-and-such author writes a particular kind of fiction, but I’m not sure how far readers expect them to do that and nothing else. I certainly don’t read just one genre, and I don’t write that way either. 

That said, there are probably issues of style in the different names I use. I’ve written very explicit erotica as Chastity Vicks that isn’t necessarily much like M. King erotica, while as E. A. Gray, I’m writing a series of mainstream medieval historical thrillers. And so on. It’s really about me trying to make everything I write as accessible as possible for as many readers as I can. 

Bryn: How much writing do you do in a typical day?

M King: In terms of ideas, I’m never off the clock, and I have a selection of notepads, backs of envelopes (and occasionally household bills, beer mats, napkins etc…) that I scribble notes down on to work up later.

Usually, I find time to clear a minimum of 1500-2000 words a day, in between the dreaded housework, doggy things, and various other stuff. But, if I have a deadline or something’s going really well, then barring accidents I’ll attach myself to the computer by an umbilical cord and just write until it’s done. That can mean anything from 5000-10,000 words…but sleep isn’t important, right?

Bryn: And you do covers as well… (gorgeous ones in fact). Do they take a lot of work?

M King: Thank you! It’s probably no secret that I learned most of my cover art skills from Emmy Ellis (http://emmyscovers.wordpress.com). I’ve always been a keen fiddler-about-with of artistic things, but she taught me a lot about adapting nebulous ideas into cover graphics that actually work!

Of course, loveyoudivine also boasts two other fab cover artists in the form of Nix Winter, who uses her own art and photography in her designs, and Dawne Dominique, who just topped the Pre-Editors’ and Editors’ Poll as best cover artist of 2009. They both produce awesome work, but probably the most difficult thing for me is filtering the first idea that I have into the final design. I’ll go through various different drafts to achieve the look I’m after, but that’s not always a bad thing.

Bryn: You and Emmy do have a similar look to your covers, but I’d not put that together at all. Ok, off at a tangent… you’ve just done a whole series of Gypsy tales, soon to be in paperback. I wondered what drew you to that theme?

M King: Mwah-hah! Yes, Travellers’ Tales. The stories are all inspired by traditional Romany folklore which–as readers may or may not know–is a wonderful, rich, intense oral tradition going back centuries in England and Europe. They only started to be written down in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and survived through people like John Hampden and John Sampson, who collected the tales as they were told by fascinating figures such as Matthew Wood, the famous Welsh Gypsy story-teller. I’d wanted to use these stories in some way for a long while, because folklore in all its forms is a passion of mine, and I’m also a strong advocate of Romani rights.  

Back in the Fifties, my mother spent her summers with a Romani family in Kent (South East England), learning to ride, listening to stories (and yes, eating baked hedgehog!) and she recalls how the Caravans Acts of the 1960s curtailed the traditional way of life for travelling families, leading up to the situation we have in England today, where there is not only a great lack of available permanent sites for travellers, but also an appalling degree of prejudice. I lived for some time in East Anglia, probably one of the worst areas for that kind of attitude, and it was terrible to see people actually having to box their horses and transport their vardoes (caravans) in plain trailers to avoid being stoned on the road. 

Obviously, my fiction has some pretty crucial differences from the original stories, which is why I’ve said ‘inspired by’. The fact the tales all feature gay characters wouldn’t have gone down well at the time they’re set (the first years of the twentieth century) and probably wouldn’t go down too well with many Roma communities today! The way of life, both for travellers and gaje (non-travellers, also known as gorgios, or various other forms of the word) described in the stories has changed a great deal since the time I’m writing about, and that’s really the point of the tales. Yes, they’re very much folk tale-inspired fantasy, but they’re also about the way society isolates people–whether by race, gender, orientation or culture–and how that can, and must, change. 

Bryn: And… where can people find you online?

M King: You can find full details on all my published titles, along with excerpts, free reads and more, at http://thenakednib.com, where you can now sign up for my monthly newsletter (exclusive freebies and special offers for subscribers!) 

 I also loiter on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/mkingauthor), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/originalcinnamon) and MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/originalcinnamon), and I love hearing from readers and fellow writers.

Thanks for having me.

Dalia Craig writes for the Femerotica line although she’s also made a forray into m/m/f with ‘Hold Me Tight’

Bryn: I gather you went all the way from Scotland to America for a book event last year. How did that work out?

Dalia: Last month actually.

It was a spur of the moment thing that actually started out as a bit of a joke…

When Cheri Crystal first publicized her Fresh Start reading at Bluestockings bookstore in New York I said something like “I would if I could but…” There’s this small pond called the Atlantic Ocean in the way.

Then the more I thought about it the more the idea grew on me. So I found a flight and a hotel and off I went. I’m a bit crazy like that.

Poor Cheri got such a shock; she didn’t know a thing about my plans until I arrived in New York.

I had a great time on my first visit to New York; walked miles, did all the touristy things and attended the reading. Sadly, my short stay ended all too quickly but I’m sure I’ll go back. I’m definitely going to Ptown in October and possibly to something else before that.

It was good to meet up with Cheri again; she’s a lot of fun.

The readings with Cheri Crystal, JD Glass and Rachel Kramer Bussel on Saturday were well attended despite the bitterly cold weather. Cheri, in particular, gave a show stopping performance with her excerpt from “Does The Butch Come With The Recipe?” I’ll never tire of hearing her read from that story; the humor comes over so well when read aloud–maybe she ought to think of doing an audio version.

 Bryn: That is a wonderful thing to do. I can see how that willingness to just go for it comes through in your characters too. What’s the wildest thing a character of yours has done on impulse?

Dalia: That’s a difficult question.

Possibly Bryana, in Taming Bryana.

Bryana meets Cassie, a total stranger, in the middle of nowhere and is persuaded to mount a horse and ride to Cassie’s home. However, when Bryana steps inside Auchtercairn, Cassie’s seventeenth-century castle, she soon finds there’s more to this sexy, rugged, butch than meets the eye. They share a common interest: a mutual love of bondage. This discovery leads Bryana to risk everything for one night of erotic pleasure at the hands of Cassie.

I want to write a sequel to Taming Bryana, when I have the time. I’m sure these two women have more to tell than just a one night stand. Who knows; they may be soul mates.

Bryn: That sounds well worth re-visiting. It’s always interesting to see how a relationship pans out over time. What defines a soul-mate relationship for you?

Dalia: You do ask some difficult questions.

I’ve yet to meet mine… I’ll try to answer as best I can. I believe it goes way above sex or being in love.

More a true meeting of minds where no words are needed and the couple are tuned into each other on a higher level.

Bryn: Let’s head in an easier direction then! Are you structured about your writing, or do you just work when the mood is upon you?

Dalia: I try to structure my days; I really do but too often life gets in the way.

My ideal day would be writing from 8am – 4pm then again from around 10pm ‘til midnight. Often, despite promising myself I’ll start writing first thing in the morning, it’s mid afternoon before I get anywhere near the computer.

As to setting myself targets–I do have a spreadsheet that calculates the words per day required to write a specific story length in x days. If you don’t meet your target for a particular day it recalculates the shortfall over the remaining days.

I suspect I’m not alone in having off days when everything I write reads like garbage. Thankfully I usually have several stories in various stages of production so if I’m struggling with one story I’ll put it aside for a day or so and work on something else. Also, I’m not a fast typist; my fingers rarely keep pace with my brain and by the time I catch up the perfect word, expression or whatever has evaporated.

 Bryn: I find hopping around helps, although these days I hop to other people’s stories and edit. Is there anything you particularly like to do when you aren’t writing?

Dalia: Yes, even working on other genres can help free the cogs. I for one find critting very stimulating, although these days I only work with one author on a regular basis.

Online, I help moderate both a busy crit group and a romance writing list where I also post a weekly talk prompt. I’m moderately active on various lists and social networking sites.

My spare time is pretty full though not particularly exciting…

Aside from being a carer; I love to both cook and garden. I grow a lot of fruit and vegetables for my own use. During the fruit season I also make jam (100 pounds last summer) to help feed a family of badgers, and five pine martens who’ve adopted me as their primary food source. They come to my patio each evening to eat homemade bread & jam, cake and biscuits.

If I could make a wish I would like to have more time to read but something has to give.

 Bryn: You have a badger family? That is so cool, and I’m deeply envious. Do you have any photos of them?

Dalia: I’m really lucky in addition to badgers and pine martens I’m surrounded by lots of interesting birds and small furry creatures. One night last summer the whole badger family came together, usually it’s just mom and the kids. Mr. Brock gave no quarter to his wife or children, hogging all the best food for himself even if it meant sitting on it. Sadly I didn’t have my laptop set up that night.

I do have videos of the pine martens and of Basil the female badger on MySpace. The picture quality isn’t marvelous as it’s filmed through glass on a laptop set up inside the patio doors.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=&release=103530073

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=&release=103530246

The badgers aren’t very active at this time of year but when they’re out & about in the spring I’ll try to get some more footage.

Bryn: That’s so cute!  So, where can people find you online?

Dalia: You can connect with me online at…

daliacraig.com

loveyoudivine

myspace

Facebook

erotic musings

sapphicplanet.com/

amazon.com

Dalia’s latest story – Weathering the Storm – will be out on the 26th February!

Jaime came to lyd as part of the Immortal Fire project. She contributed two very lovely stories – Windblown, and Black Roses to the collection. Since then she’s also released the erotic, seasonal story Muse’s Vacation.

Bryn: Jaime, you write m/m, pretty much exclusively. What made you decide to focus on this?

Jaime: When I first started writing, I naively set out to write a novel. (never did finish it). It had various familial relationships in it, a Prince, his cousin and best friend, and his sister, and their various love interests. In the beginning, the Prince’s love interest was a spy, who at first was mysterious enough to avoid being very gender specific. As the story progressed, it was revealed to me that he was a guy, and really, that relationship, rocky though it was, always rang the most true to me of the others on the story.

that was pre-Internet…

When I found Live journal, and the plethora of m/m slash and fan fiction, I found my home and my calling. It didn’t take long, less than a year, for me to branch away from fan fiction to writing about my own characters and their stories. They all, or mostly, seemed to be male. I suspect I have a strong affinity for the male mindset in some ways. I do find men easier to write than women, and I enjoy exploring relationships that explore power dynamics when those dynamics start out from equal, man to man, or, occasionally, woman to woman, and change because of influences other than gender.

Bryn: I find m/m relationships a lot more comfortable for power aggressive exchange. I know ‘Muse’s Vacation’ explores dominance and submission. Is that a theme we’re likely to see more of then?

Jaime: I would venture to say, yes, there will be more of that. While my men don’t tend to be very aggressive, in general, they do take on decidedly dominant or submissive roles lately. I tend to write blind, a pantser, some people call it. This lets stories and characters evolve very organically, and right now, the evolution of my writing seems to be leaning toward D/s relationships. I follow these trends in my writing, rather than lead them, taking things where the spirit moves me to go. that all sounds very esoteric and all, but really, it just means the characters write themselves and I listen. Right now, this dynamic intrigues me, and I’m willing to keep exploring it.

Bryn: Have you ever been really surprised by the direction a story has gone in?

Jaime: Usually, the surprise comes when I’m stuck, I get worked up and frustrated, and the surprise is how simple the solution turns out to be. I will say, though, that in the first novel I wrote, which I recently went back to re haul there was a great surprise in that one of the characters, who I blithely killed off near the end, turned out to be the love interest of the main character. I only figured this out after I decided he had to die, though. Now I’m troubled as to what to do. I could substitute in a red shirt for the death, and leave happy alone. Or I could reflect that in real life, sometimes, perfect couples are torn apart too soon. They are guards, and there is a war. Stands to reason…

In another story, the mc had sex with the wrong man. Out of spite. Not spite for his boyfriend, but spite for the man he fucked. Not pretty, but then broken characters rarely are. Fixing him is proving to be a challenge.

Come to think on it, a nice surprise would be fantastic… lol!

Bryn: I like dark and realistic, and the uncertainty as to what sort of an ending is likely. Do you have a clear sense of what your characters look like before you start?

Jaime: You’ll like the project I’m working on next for LYD, then. Dark, gritty, set in an alternate universe from our own, a very broken character, and uncertain love are all features of this next story. If the sun shines at the end, it will be through a crack in the overcast, I think. But it will shine. I require it to shine down on them, however uncertain it is to last.

Goodness. No. In some cases, I never get a really clear picture of what they look like. In one story on my website, Long Road Home (http://www.jaime-samms.net/), the characters don’t even have names. I don’t know what their names are, don’t really know what they look like. I just know they are meant to be together, however long it took them to get there.

Bryn: Ooh, this I very much like the sound of! Anywhere else online people can follow you?

Jaime: My Live Journal: http://dontkickmycane.livejournal.com/ has promo for fellow authors, book reviews, and sometimes, a personal rant or two. I also blog: http://jaimesamms.blogspot.com/?zx=767433e8e8796b26 though intermittently…

I’m a reviewer for Dark Diva Reviews, where we review romance nad erotica, and I tend to focus on gay romance, and at Kuriousity, where I review Yoai light novels.

http://ddrreviews.blogspot.com/

http://www.kuri-ousity.com/about/

I do love to spout my opinion about the books I read, which I read a lot of. I can’t get enough of the written word.

Bryn: Me too! I’m a total blog junky. Thanks for chatting Jaime.

Bryn: What started you writing fiction?

David: For decades I told and taught. Some subjects were the martial art Jujitsu, massage, relaxation and various subjects in police work. I had little interest in writing fiction. I retired from police work after almost 29 years in 2004. In early 2009 my first book, Wisdom is the Answer, Common Sense is the Way, was published. That’s about simple and relaxing tactics to live better. I was bragging to a friend about it. She had written a romance novel that was published by one of the big houses. She teased me. “Oh yeah, now try writing a romance.” 

Being a stoic American male, I took the challenge. 

Bryn: What kind of characters appeal to you?

David: Personality: Independent but not stubborn ones. Who can do things for themselves yet seek help from those close to them. No whiners or those who wallow in self pity and cry, “I can’t, I can’t.”

I like feminine women who are strong and can take charge. Men who are strong but can soften up and be in touch w/ their feelings.

Bisexuality is my theme in writing so men & women who go both ways, even if just a once in a blue moon event.

Physically: Slender to medium build men or women; athletic. A cute ass will lure me every time!

 Bryn: Are you comfortable writing bi women as well as men?

David: More than comfortable, I enjoy it. I’ve done little of it, but it’s fun to get into the heads of others. Try to learn their perspectives.

Bryn: What else do you particularly enjoy writing about?

David: I like writing commentary but with a moral, lesson or advice. I feel we are overloaded with information and left with, “Ok, now what do I do?” I take information from my first book, and inject it at the end of my commentary. So if there is a problem with ethics at a company that makes the news, instead of just bemoaning those corrupt people, I ask readers to look at their work situations, especially if they are supervisors or owners to see if they are ethical and fair. I present the question: “How Can I Be Better?”

Thus, I like to help people live better lives. Even in my fiction I add learning tools such as a troubled character learns the value of deep breathing, meditation, massage, acupuncture, etc.

 Bryn: Are you a very relaxed person in your own life then? Or have you learned these things in self defence?

David: I am relaxed but I had to learn it. I was born east-coast, hot-headed Italian.

I was such a schmuck that many people didn’t like me. When I was 28 I couldn’t stand living with myself and I asked myself to move out. GRIN.  I returned to the martial arts, that was a turning point for me. I had to learn to let the past go, keep the lesson, leave the pain.

For almost 30 years now, I am relaxed and in control. I keep an active child inside of me and let him out as much as possible.

As all authors we start with what we know. For me, one part of my life was being a police officer for almost 29 yr in San Jose, California, USA. Like the character in the story I was a pacifist who didn’t like guns and I thought the odds were I would never shoot anyone. I am bisexual and most police departments in the 1970s would not hire you if they thought you were gay. They didn’t note a difference between being bi or gay. Height discrimination was till a major issue. The legal standard of a minimum height was removed by the US Supreme Court but the predjudice lasted for decades. I am 5′4″. Good thing I had a good muscles build and had two years of Jujitsu under my belt when I was hired at the tender age of 22. Here is the blurb.

Sean Patton is a pacifist who doesn’t like guns but knows that statistically few law enforcement officers ever shoot anyone, so he plays the odds and loses. When a wife beater shoots him on a domestic-violence call, Sean is forced to shoot back. While his bulletproof vest saved Sean, it couldn’t shield him from the posttraumatic stress. His hidden bisexuality raises the stakes to risk his career and mental stability. As far as women go, he’s committed to being loyal to his loving and supportive girlfriend, Debbie. But can he swear off men? He’s knows the drive is inborn. How can he tell Debbie about his other side and still keep her? You’ll feel the heat when Sean makes love to his gay friend from college and later with his lawyer girlfriend in the shower. A tryst with his male supervisor furthers the adventures.

 Buy it here!

Bryn: What brought you to loveyoudivine?

Lara: I am one half of the editing/conception team that developed the “To Love and To Cherish” project. Beth Wylde is my partner in this. We brainstormed that we wanted to do something to support the marriage equality fight after the devastating passage of Prop 8 in California. We wanted to raise money. We came up with the idea of writing stories that celebrated women loving women and putting it together in a collection to sell and raise the money. We needed a publisher.

Beth had just worked with Claudia at loveyoudivine on a story in the new FemErotica division and so approached her on lyd’s possible interest in publishing the eventual collection. Claudia loved the idea and so To Love and To Cherish was born, and that’s how I came to loveyoudivine. Previously I’ve been published by PD Publishing, Torquere Press, and Logical Lust Publications.

I’ve done a lot of the promo copy for To Love and To Cherish including the back cover blurb, and the cover art is my art. I also did all the final edit checks on all the stories before they went to Claudia for typsetting/formatting.

I am a writer first and foremost so I do have a story titled “Traditional Values” in the collection, which will be in the very first e-book mini-collection “Volume 1: On Bended Knee” being released Jan. 29, 2010. And, though it wasn’t planned this way, it will lead off the entire collection. It’s a “sweet romance” level featuring a long-term dating couple. One asks the other the marriage question on Valentine’s Day.

Bryn: Do you write contemporary settings, or do you like to wander into other places?

Lara: My published work is all contemporary settings. I have several historicals set in other times that I haven’t quite finished yet. I really enjoy historicals as a reader and writing them too, but the contemporary setting stories seem to finish up a bit quicker. LOL.

Bryn: There’s a distinct advantage to not needing to do so much research! Do you have any preferred approaches for that with the historical stuff? Do you read around and write what you find, or think of situations and then hunt down the details?

Lara: I don’t mind research. I enjoy much of it. What tends to happen that siderails a project is that I lose the character “voice”; they stop “talking” to me, or their voice begins to sound too “modern” and I know it’s wrong, but I can’t focus right then — something in real life is usually a distraction — and I am delayed getting back to it, so finding the voice again becomes increasingly harder.

One of my favorite methods of research though is newspapers, movies, and books published in the time period in question. There’s nothing better at getting accurate “voice” than that, also there’s the esoteric setting things that are different from today’s world.

Bryn: How do you feel about trying to capture accents (thinking of voices)? Does that work for you on paper or would you rather just hear it in your head?

Lara: I try to stay away from extended dialect in my dialogue. Yes, dialect is dropping h’s, and g’s and contracting words, but something I learned in language classes. People with different backgrounds linguistically (parentage; region) actually construct their sentences differently. That conveys dialect very effectively without the constant need for my apostrophe key. I wish more writers were aware of that actually. Most I read have a poor grasp of how people really speak, or they all sound the same — like lazy speech overexcited 17 year olds, something I hear quite a lot every day as a substitute teacher.

Bryn: I agree wholeheartedly with that! Dialect words and phrasing are for more important, and a lot more readable. There’s also the issue of what constitutes ‘normal’ as well – that can get very politically charged.

Lara: Politically charged yes, but also misinterpreted. When you want to have a character with a particular mien, it’s an important thing to think about readers’ natural inclinations of classifying people by speech, income, etc. They do the same to characters, and it is always shaded by the readers’ personal experiences, which can be unknown, but which can be utilized to aid in giving characters depth if you can trigger the right impressions/reactions.

Bryn: So, what are you working on at the moment? Anything in the pipeline?

Lara: I was just invited to submit another short story to a publication planned for late 2010. I have a couple other short stories roughly drafted in the bisexual/lesbian romance and erotica categories.

The launch of To Love and To Cherish and the release of Turn for Home are keeping the editor/promoter side of me really busy, as is keeping up with scheduling guests and topics for my radio show Readings in Lesbian & Bisexual Women’s Fiction.

But I have found time to work on another novel. This time it’s more of a mystery with romantic tension than a purer romance plot. And while there’s a sexuality bent to my characters, it’s not about sexuality or sexual attraction. Deputy Kennedy McMasters (my heroine) isn’t interested in falling in love. She’s interested in finding the killer of her father’s best friend.

She’s a Sheriff’s Deputy in a rural Florida community (like the place where I grew up) and the case is complicated by the entanglements of a community that close-knit… where some people think they can be a law unto themselves.

I’ve had Kennedy’s story percolating in my mind for the last couple of years. Within the last few months though I’ve been getting the scenes onto the page, and have about 30,000 words of what eventually should be a novel of 80-90K words.

Real Life being the interfering thing that it can be at times for a writer, I’m going through a sort of rough patch right now. I do keep aiming to finish my draft by the end of March 2010. Then the really good work begins: editing. A half a dozen passes later, probably somewhere in late 2010, I hope to be sending it to publishers.

Bryn: Where else can readers find you online?

Lara: hank you for letting me share my thoughts! My website is http://www.lzfiction.net

My blog is linked from there, or direct at http://lzstuff.blogspot.com

Friend/Follow me on Facebook or Twitter (search “larazielinsky” on all three)

Add me on MySpace (larazielinsky) And subscribe via RSS or iTunes to my bi-weekly radio show: “Readings in Lesbian & Bisexual Women’s Fiction” http://blogtalkradio.com/Lara-Zielinsky