Salting nuts - My whet blog tour
First, let me send mad props to my girl La Kata for bringing me on this blog tour. 'Preciate ya! Y'all be sure to check out her amazing book of poetry, A Deeper Me —available now— and hit her on her blog.
My current release is Sake Bomb and it's book 3 in the Kizzie Baldwin series. Had a blast writing it (and spending the 3 months after I wrote it thinking about how I could have done it better, LOL) but now, four quick Q's to catch you up on the latest in the wonderful world of whet ink.
Q: What am I working on?
This is totally a loaded question. What am I not working on? At any given moment I have some four projects going…or at least four that are at the forefront of my mind. Right now, I’ve got the rewrite of Devil’s Flame —a love story I wrote right after Different Shades of Gray nearly five years ago.
And let me tell you, my writing has changed drastically since then, thank bacon. I’m stripping the plot and adding better, richer, smexier words. It’s been a rough road! And y’all already know I’m a stickler for being satisfied. I ain’t there yet.
At the same time, I’m knee deep in the next two installments of the Kizzie Baldwin series: On The Rocks, and the one that comes after that. LOL! Yes, I have a title for it but I’m not saying another word until OTR is o-u-t.
Then there’s a DARPA-level, super secret series that I’ve got in the works. I’m figuring out the best way to launch it, and since it’s sort of in a different-ish genre, I might come with a new identity? Dunno yet. My other ID is writing a straight up thriller, and did I mention I’m reworking my website…still? A girl’s mad busy!
Q: How does my work differ from others of its genre?
This is an easy one: It’s different ‘cause I wrote it. :)
Honestly, there’s only so many ways you can split thighs and buck hips, and we all know it ends with a bang, if you will. All erotica writers are essentially doing the same thing, just inserting our unique twist on the horizontal shimmy shammy.
In my case, you’re pretty much going to get snark and humor in every piece. And I’m trying to meld genres. I want thrillers and erotica and romance and aliens that kneel before ZOD all in one! Hahahaha! Listen, I’m not in the erotica genre to reinvent the dildo. I just want to Sinatra it, y'know? Do it my way. Make you vibrate at a higher frequency. *g*
Q: Why do I write what I do?
Well, first, 'cause I like-a da sex. It's sorta how I got here, and I want to pay homage to that. HA! Plus I'm all about the whet ink. The whetter the better and erotica has whet down pat, jack!
There’s wiggle room in erotica that I don’t ordinarily see in any other genre, aside from maybe sci-fi or fantasy. You’re freer to explore, to set up rules of the world and not have everything be so neat and tidy. Pure romance has a pretty strict guideline about what is and isn’t acceptable behavior—how the hero and heroine should respond, how they fall in love and all that shite. Pure thrillers are the same: there’s gonna be a bomb and somebody’s gotta stop it. Suspense: A bunny-loving gunman who wants to kill the president or something.
With erotica, I can add another element—an emotional element that really only comes from the complications of being in an intensely sexual relationship.
*ahem* Observe: Larry and Sally work side by side at the peanut factory—him shelling, her salting—and they have a falling out. Well, that's it: they just have a falling out. End of story. Who cares?
But if Larry and Sally are shtupping each other on the daily and have an argument, and then have to shuck and bag nuts eight hours a day side by side? Something's gonna go wrong. Now, if they have to do all this under the watchful eye of Gary, the peanut factory's controlling owner who has insanely vivid dreams about Sally, uh, "salting his nuts"? POW! Instant drama! (Sidebar: What does "salting his nuts" even mean though? LMAO!)
Q: How does your writing process work?
Another easy one! Here’s how I do it…in fact, I think this is how most authors do it.
I get an idea. I fall head over heels in love at first thought. Two weeks of wining and dining (or research and planning, however you want to call it) and then I decide Yes! This is the project I want to spend the rest of my quarter with! Where have you been all my life! We’re getting married—let's set a date!
We start hot and heavy, carving out time to be together. Sleep? Food? TV? Forget them. None of them compare to you, my darling!
But like all couples, we hit a bump in the road and I spend two months convincing myself we should have never started this affair. I mean, I love it so much, but it doesn't love me anymore. Why did I commit to this? Should we call off the wedding?
So I cheat to make my book jealous, spending hours with shinies like the internetz, chasing a random desire to learn how to swallow fire so I can do it next year at Burning Man, and didn’t I want to start a T-shirt company? I should so do that *googles how to start a t-shirt company...ends up watching tiny hamsters eat burritos* This goes on until about four weeks before the nuptials…er…deadline, at which point I start screaming
whenever I'm asked about dinner by my legit significant other. Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth—"Muse, oh Muse! Why hast thou forsaken me?"—and the subsequent deal making: God—wait, why are You laughing? I’m serious this time! If You’ll just let me get through this one I promise I’ll never, ever wait ‘til the last minute again. I’ll love my book and respect my book and promise to honor and obey and all that good shhhhhtuff. What? I was gonna say shtuff...Honest.
Roughly two weeks until the book’s due, we try to make it work and go to counseling; get real about where things went wrong and where I can change, 'cause, naturally, it’s my fault. And the therapist recommends I practice communicating via the BIC method: put my Butt In the Chair and write.
Write furiously.
Write madly.
Write dangerously.
Don’t stop until I get toThe End.
60 seconds until the deadline runs out, I kiss my book, hit PUBLISH, and start in with the congratulatory rice throwing and cake cutting.
And that, folks, is how books are made.
(Oh, and with wine. Lots and lots of wine…)
Thanks for stopping by my blog tour, and please don't forget to spread the love! Hit one of those nifty Facebook or G+ or Twitter buttons under this post and share this with your friends!
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