FAQ

These are actual questions I’ve received from readers. Oftentimes I get the same or similar questions over and over, so I decided to share some of the Q and As here. 

Last updated: March 6, 2013

Q:   ”Why would a straight woman want to write erotic stories about gay men?”

Well…because I find two men exploring their attraction for one another and falling in love very sexy and satisfying. :)  You might be surprised just how many straight women feel that way!  For me, love it beautiful no matter the pairing…m/f, f/f, m/m, polyamory, and any other mix between consenting adults.  As a reader, I like all kinds of romances, and so as an author I’ve never limited myself.

Q:  “As a gay man, I find it intriguing that a woman can capture the subtleties of m/m love so well.  How do you write so accurately from a gay man’s perspective?”

Q:  “Is there going to be a sequel to Falling? And if so, when?”

Yes.  It’s tentatively called Magic. I can’t tell you when it will happen as I always have numerous irons in the fire at any given time, but I definitely haven’t forgotten about Alec and Christian and I do, in fact, have copious notes about their sequel as well as the first chapter or so done.  So rest assured, I will eventually finish writing it.

Q: “How do you pronounce the unusual names of people and places you write about?”

–Jarrah (the vampire in Souls Deep) is pronounced Jer-ruh with the accent on the first syllable.
–Kellesborne (the castle in my Draegan Lord stories) is pronounced Kel-less-born (three syllables) with the accent on the first syllable.
–Draegan (the race of dragon/human shapeshifters) is pronounced dray-gun with the accent on the first syllable.
–m’aerlas (means beloved in the Draegan language) is meh-air-luhs with the accent on the second syllable.

If I’ve missed any others that are unusual and you aren’t sure about, email me and I’ll add them to this list!

Q:  “How do you come up with story ideas?”

Reading, thinking, watching TV, watching movies, listening to music, people watching, dreaming.  Seriously…story ideas come from everywhere.  Sometimes a complete story will come from some small kernal of inspiration, and other times just a character or characters will come to me, or a situation, or a title or piece of dialogue that I build a story around.  It’s kind of fascinating actually.  It never really happens the same way twice.

Q:  “I’m not into gay m/m stories.  Are you going to be writing any more “straight” m/f stories in the future?  And if so, when?”

The honest answer is, I’m not sure. But probably not anytime soon.  I’m very passionate about writing gay fiction, so I don’t foresee myself veering away from it anytime in the near future.  I have gay stories planned that will keep me busy for the next several years.

Please keep in mind that my m/f backlist is always available for purchase.  Everything’s still in print (or in ebook formats).

Q:  “Where can I buy your books?”

My books in various ebook formats are available at Amber Allure, All Romance Ebooks, Amazon.com and Amazon UK in Kindle format, Barnes & Noble ebook store, the Sony store, and Rainbow eBooks.

My paperbacks are all available at Amazon.com.

Q:  “I prefer paperbacks.  Which of your titles are available in paperback?

Currently, as of this writing these are my available paperback titles:

Gay (M/M) Erotic Romance…

- Falling (novel)
- Couplings (anthology containing The Professor’s Secret Passion & Souls Deep)
- Always (anthology containing Never Let Go and Hearts & Bones)
- The Draegan Lords (contains books 1 and 2 in the Draegan Lords series…True of Heart and Lords of Kellesborne)
-Under My Skin Books I & II (paperback anthology containing the first two stories in the series)
-The Vertigo Chronicles, Vol. I (paperback anthology containing Vertigo and Shattered–the first two stories in the series)
- The Elf and Shoemaker (short novel)
- Passion & Satisfaction (The title is probably self explanatory, but this anthology contains the two novellas Passion and Satisfaction )
-Into the Woods (novel)
-Familiar (novel)

Q:  “Are you a plotter or do you write by the seat of your pants?”

Mostly I write by the seat of my pants.  I often have bits and pieces of a story in my head before I start, or a vague general idea of the plot, and sometimes even some scribbled notes about my characters or the plot, but once I start typing, anything can (and often does!) happen. I live by Julia Cameron’s (author of The Artist’s Way) philosophy that if you leap, the net will appear.  I’ve been writing fiction for sixteen years and it’s never let me fall yet!  No matter how unexpectedly twisty-turny a story may get as I write, it always, always works itself out!

Q:  “How do you start a story?  Do you know anything at all about it before you begin, or do you just dive in?”

Keeping in mind that I am mostly a pantser…  <g>

Some stories come to me more or less full-blown, with characters and a plot.  It’s like wham…it hits me and the basic set-up is right there in my head.  Almost like a dream.  On those, where I know the basic plot and general characters before I start, then in the actual writing of the story, I flesh out the characters (their quirks and habits and backgrounds and personalities) and work out the plot details.  Because when I say I have a basic plot before I start, that usually means I know where the story begins, very generally how it will progress, and how it’ll end.  But I don’t know AT ALL what exactly ‘s going to be in each chapter or scene.  And oftentimes as I write, stories take interesting twists and turns I never would have expected, so I generally go with the flow.

Other times, I only have a vague idea before I start.  An example of that was when I wrote The Professor’s Secret Passion…I knew I wanted to write about a college professor and his graduate student.  That was it.  That’s all I knew when I sat down to start the story.    The characters themselves, the actual plot, the conflicts, story resolution, everything happened on the page as I wrote.  It just kind of unraveled like a ball of yarn.

Other times, and probably most often, it’s somewhere in between these two scenarios, where maybe I’ll know the characters I want to write, but don’t know the plot yet.  Or vice versa.  Or little bits of both.

Q:  “How long does it take you to write a story/book?”

It totally varies and usually just depends on the book.  Some stories write quickly, some write slowly.  Some I can write in just a few weeks, and others takes me months or even years.  Generally, however, if I’m on a roll and writing hard day after day as I push toward a deadline, I typically write between 1000 and 3000 words per day.  I sometimes have days where I push out 5000-10,000 in one setting, but that’s stretching for me.  Under pressure, with minimal sleep, if I absolutely have to, I can write a 20,000-30,000 word novella in 2-3 weeks.  I’ve written as much as 55,000 words in two weeks.  Once I wrote 18,000 words in thirty-six hours.  :)  That is NOT my preferred way to write, however. LOL! Back-to-back deadlines at that speed pretty much wipe me out creatively. So the faster I’m required to write and the more often I have new releases, the longer it takes me to recover when I finally reach the burn-out point. I would say that a general rule of thumb for me is that it usually takes me a couple of months to write 40,000-50,000 words.  And several months to write a 60,000-90,000 word novel. Again, though, that mileage can vary drastically depending on how quickly a story comes together. Some of them flow out easily, and others…not so much. The funny thing is that many of the ones that take that longest and are the toughest to write, often end up being the ones I’m most proud of or that I like the best. Go figure!

Q:  “Do you read books in the genre(s) in which you write?”

Yep, definitely.  I’m a huge fan of gay fiction, especially gay romance. But, really, I love to read in general, so for pleasure I read widely across a lot of genres–gay, action-adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, romance, thriller, mainstream mystery, westerns, occasionally horror and nonfiction.