An Interview with Adera Orfanelli

Join us today for an interview with the lovely Adera Orfanelli.

Where can your readers find you?

http://www.aderaorfanelli.net

http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/changelingpress 

Where’s your favorite place to hang out online? 

Changeling Press Reader’s Loop

Tell us about your latest book, including its genre. Does it cross over to other genres? If so, what are they?

A Worldly Cage is an erotic science fiction romance with BDSM elements. In it, a high class escort runs away from the man she loves because he wants a more permanent, and equal, relationship between them. When he finds her, she discovers that she has a place in his world.

What can we expect from you in the future?

I have a vampire holiday story coming out from Changeling Press called Drink me Sweetly.

How do we find out about you and your books?

My website is the best place to look.

Why did you decide to write romance novels?

I love writing romance with the happily ever after. I have fun exploring different times and places, and different types of characters, yet finding that they’re all the same in that love conquers all.

Generally, how long does it take you to write a book?

Usually just a couple of weeks since I write shorter novellas.

Do you have a set schedule for writing or do you just go with the flow?

I try to write 1000 words a day.

Where do you start when writing? Research, plotting, outline, or...?

I just start writing the story. I find it works better than way as I really get into the characters’ heads to decide what comes next.

What about your family, do they know not to bother you when you are writing - or are there constant interruptions?

I generally multi-task, so I am writing while watching television or doing other things.

What do you do to relax and recharge your batteries?

Reading.

Beyond Bounds
erotic BDSM romance anthology
my novella: A Worldly Cage by Adera Orfanelli
erotic SF BDSM romance

When Ninali found out Sebastian, her handsome dominant lover, was more than wealthy, she’d fled. She loved him, but she’d never be a part of his world. He was one of the political elite back on Earth, and she would always be a high class prostitute. Fleeing Sebastian cost money she didn’t have, and Ninali ends up working in a brothel.

After a long search Sebastian finally found the woman he loved. Without hesitation he purchases her debts—and her. Now, the more difficult task. To convince her that he still wants her and that she can be by his side without shame or fear.

Will Ninali submit to her own desires and Sebastian’s to realize they have a future together or will she simply consider herself caged, albeit in a very fancy one?

Links: http://www.pinkpetalbooks.com

Excerpt

Breezler narrowed his brows over his pale eyes. “You’re done.”

Ninali stumbled. She reached for the wall to steady herself. “What?” She sagged her naked body against the cool metal. Only with his words, did she realize Breezler held a small bag and a robe.

He tossed the robe at her. “Put it on. Your contract’s been bought. You’re not mine anymore.”

I never was yours. I just worked for you. She shrugged into the robe, noticing it was a finer weave than the ones in the dorms. Breezler dropped the bag containing the few belongings she’d brought with her and kicked it in her direction.  She opened her mouth to ask who bought her contract, but she didn’t need to know. Not after this afternoon’s performance. She knew exactly who had paid for her. Captain still wanted more than she should give. Only now she had to pay him for the debts she’d accrued getting away from him. Figures.

She nodded once, business-like, then picked up the bag. The door to her left beaconed. It led down a short hall and into the main room. She hadn’t been there since she’d come, cowed and broken, when Breezler had bought her debts. She took a deep breath, nodded, then walked back down the hall, leaving Breezler and the cages behind.

The hall, little more than a short pathway punctuated only by the door to Breezler’s office, opened into the main room. A few chairs, some pillows—she might have been stepping into some professional waiting room instead of the front room of a cage-brothel. There, in the corner, filling the room, was her Captain.

Air whooshed from Ninali’s lungs. Her Captain perused her, from the top of her tousled hair to her bare feet. She wondered what he might see, if he’d notice that she weighed less and had dark shadows under her eyes now. Maybe if she’d let him take care of her, she wouldn’t have those, but if she’d let him take care of her, she also wouldn’t be the woman she was.

Words ran through her mind. You found me. Why did you? What do you want? She kept them inside, not giving him the satisfaction.

Her Captain walked to her, his long strides taking him to her side in a matter of minutes. She held out her wrists, expecting to be cuffed, as she had been when Breezler had bought her debts and pressed into her service.

He shook his head and held out a slender silver chain.

Author Bio: Adera Orfanelli began writing several years ago when she discovered how fun it was to write stories about hot men and adventurous women living and loving in outer space. With the universe to explore, she lets the stars light her way and her imagination play. Now, she sees hot couples everywhere and her stories have moved beyond outer space and into the past, and into our modern day world. Right now, Adera is having fun writing stories her readers will love, and who knows where, or when, she'll write about next?

An Interview with AC Katt

Today we have the wonderful A.C. Katt. Help me in welcoming her to the MFRW Authors Blog.

Where can your readers find you?

ackatt.com

ackattsjournal.blogspot.com

mlrpress.com

ackattspolitics.blogspot.com

rainbowromancewriters.com

Where’s your favorite place to hang out online?

ackattsjournal.blogspot.com

Tell us about your latest book, including its genre. Does it cross over to other genres? If so, what are they? A Matter of Trust is a light BDSM that is also suspenseful.

What can we expect from you in the future? A sequel to A Matter of Trust entitled Jack’s Back, a werewolf novel, I’ll Be There for You and a sequel to my first novel, The Sarran Plague entitled Living With Syn.

How do we find out about you and your books? Ackatt.com, promo

How many readers/fans contact you? mlhansel@gmail.com

Why did you decide to write romance novels? I read so many and my husband was complaining about the cost. One day I finished a novel I didn’t like and told him, “I can do better than that.” He replied, “Why don’t you, it would certainly cost us less money.”

How much of your personality and life experiences are in your writing? I include quite a bit of my emotions and experiences in my books and twist them to fit the plot.

When did you first think about writing and what prompted you to submit your first ms? I submitted my first manuscript because I finished the book.

Generally, how long does it take you to write a book? I tend towards long and complicated plots, so it generally takes me about three months.

Do you have a set schedule for writing or do you just go with the flow? I have to go with the flow because I write when I find time.

What is your writing routine once you start a book? I write until the muse leaves.  That means I put in long hours when I’m inspired and long hours of frustration when I’m not.

Where do you start when writing? Research, plotting, outline, or...? I write by the seat of my pants. I have an outline in my head and I follow that to its logical end.

What about your family, do they know not to bother you when you are writing - or are there constant interruptions? Unfortunately, my husband interrupts me constantly.

What do you do to relax and recharge your batteries? I take a busman’s holiday and read.

What truly motivates you in general? In your writing? Progressive politics motivates me. I believe in marriage equality, justice for the poor and paying our fair share. In my writing my character’s emotions move me and the plot.

How do you come up with ideas? That’s an interesting question. A Matter of Trust came from a phrase, a bear in a suit. In gay romance a bear is a hairy man who is usually built large and portrayed as a biker or an outdoorsman. That phrase inspired me to write A Matter of Trust.

Do you feel humor is important in fiction and why? In some cases, humor is very important. In A Matter of Trust,  I show Brian Murphy as clumsy. This leads to some comic scenes.

What are your thoughts on love scenes in romance novels? Do you find them difficult to write? I don’t find love scenes hard to write although they are emotionally draining. I try to make my books plot driven rather than driven by sex scenes.

What kind of research do you do? For A Matter of Trust I contacted a person I knew online who lived the life I wanted to portray. For Shattered Glass I looked at the brutal schedule that rock bands endure while touring and researched various venues. I also researched the locations.  At that time I recently moved from New Jersey to New Mexico and used these locations in my novel under the adage write what you know.

Would you like to write a different genre than you do now, or sub-genre? My main genre is gay romance, however, I vary the subgenre.  The Sarran Plague was science fiction. Shattered Glass was a contemporary romance and A Matter of Trust is BDSM.  I am working on a werewolf story.

What does your husband/wife think of your writing? He supports me completely.

Do you ever ask him/her for advice? Yes, I often ask him for help in research.

Please tell us about yourself (family, hobbies, education, etc.) I am married to my husband of twenty-four years. I have four children;  my son, my husbands’ two sons and a daughter. They have given me nine grandchildren, six boys and three girls.  My oldest grandson is studying business at Penn State.

What are some of your favorite things to do? I love to read and my second love is cooking and baking. I invented a great recipe for carrot spice cake.

Do you have a favorite author? Favorite book? My favorite author is Mercedes Lackey and my favorite book is Magic’s Pawn.

Who are some of your other favorite authors to read? Laura Baumbach, Josh Layton, Robin D. Owen and Tom Clancy, a very mixed group.

Who, if anyone, has influenced your writing? A critique partner, Loukie Adlem.

Are you a member of any author groups - RWA, critique groups, etc.? I am a member of Rainbow Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America.

What do you think of critique groups in general? I prefer one on one critiques.

Where do you see yourself in five years? Hopefully, still writing.

How long have you been writing - have you always wanted to be a writer? I suffered a major illness ten years ago and that started me writing (remember the cost of books?). I wanted to write in high school but got lost somewhere along the way.

How many books have you written, how many have been published? I have had three books published, two are in re-release.

After you've written your book and it's been published, do you ever buy it and/or read it? Yes, because I can’t believe I actually did it. After that I try to critique my own work to see if I could have done better.

List two authors we would find you reading when taking a break from your own writing. Right now I’m reading Enchanted Again by Robin D. Owens. On my to be read list is Cherish by Shawn Bailey.

Among your own books, have you a favorite book? Favorite hero or heroine? My favorite book is always the one I’m currently writing; however, my baby is Shattered Glass.

If I was a first time reader of your books, which one would you recommend I start with and why? I’d recommend they start with my first book, The Sarran Plague.

What book for you has been the easiest to write? The hardest? The most fun? A Matter of Trust was the easiest to write, Shattered Glass was the hardest.

Which comes first, the story, the characters, or the setting? The characters.

What are the elements of a great romance for you? It has to make you laugh or cry.

What is the hardest part of writing/the easiest for you? The hardest part of writing for me is fighting writer’s block.

Are you in control of your characters or do they control you? It’s a two way street.

Have you experienced writer's block? If so, how did you work through it? God, yes, I growl in frustration until the muse returns.

What is the most rewarding thing about being a writer? Seeing my name in print.

What is the single most important part of writing for you? Telling a good story.

What do you enjoy most about writing? The creative surge that comes from telling a good story.

If you weren't writing, what would you be doing? Politics.

Are there any words of encouragement for unpublished writers? Keep writing, it gets easier.

What do you hope readers take with them after reading your work? An emotional connection with my characters.

 If money were not an object, where would you most like to live? Right where I am in New Mexico.

Leather or lace? lace

Black or red? red

Satin sheets or Egyptian cotton? Egyptian cotton

Ocean or mountains? Mountains

City life or country life? suburbs

Hunky heroes or average Joe? Hunky heroes

Party life or quiet dinner for two? Dinner for two

Dogs or cats? Definitely cats

I love pizza with (fill in the blank). Coke Zero

I'm always ready for (fill in the blank). A good book

When I'm alone, I (fill in the blank). Read or write

You'd never be able to tell, but (fill in the blank). I’m actually very shy.

If I could (fill in the blank) I'd (fill in the blank). If I could sing, I’d be on Broadway.

I can never (fill in the blank) because (fill in the blank). I can never play sports because I’m clumsy.

Dessert. Strawberry Cheesecake

City. New York

Season. Fall

Type of hero. Hunky but compassionate.

Type of heroine. I don’t write heroines.

A Matter of Trust

Donald K. Drummond was the Master of all he surveyed; a legend in commercial real estate in New Jersey and by night a Master Dom at the gay BDSM club, Indiscrete. What he couldn't find was a boy to call his own. That all changed when a nerd with taped glasses and worn Dockers barged into his office spilling his bottle of 1985 Bourdeau over his priceless Persian carpet. Brian Murphy came with a host of troubles, the least of which was his grasping Aunt, his invalid mother and his rather tenious position in Donald's mail room.  Can a Dom with issues of his own come to train and trust a needy boy from his own mailroom. It's all A Matter of Trust.

Excerpt – A Matter of Trust

In slow degrees, the tow-headed boy woke up on the hard floor. A faint moan, an eyelid twitch, a soft flutter of pale lashes, and then a blue eye opened face-to-antenna with a cockroach. The Sears Tough Skin jeans he’d opened as his birthday gift two days ago felt wet around the crotch and smelled of both urine and feces. His new plaid shirt with the pearl cowboy buttons was torn and bloody. He swallowed hard, past a dry lump the size of a baseball stuck in the back of his throat. He opened his left eye, the one nearest to the bug. It looked as if his bone stuck out of his shirt, a handhold under his elbow, the right arm bent at an unnatural angle just below the tear. It took a few additional seconds for the pain to hit, long enough for him to realize he did not know how he got here or why. Then it struck, shock abated.

He hurt, bad. Even so, he knew enough not to cry out. He heard Mama pounding on the door of the bathroom and Aunt Mary in the distance, along with the whine of sirens. Then the pain took him away, and he rode it back to safety.

AC Katt was born in New York City’s Greenwich Village. She remembers sitting at the fountain in the Washington Square Park listening to folk music while they passed the hat. At nine, her parents dragged her to New Jersey where she grew up, married and raised four children and became a voracious reader of romantic fiction. At one time, she owned over two thousand novels, until she and her husband took themselves and the cat to New Mexico for their health and its great beauty.

Now, most of AC’s books are electronic (although she still keeps six bookcases of hardcovers), so she never has to give away another book. AC is new to both GLBT and to writing being, as she claims, a late bloomer, however she claims to have found her niche in writing GLBT romance. Her current release is Shattered Glass from MLR Press and coming soon from MPR Press is A Matter of Trust.

An Interview with Catherine Gardiene

Cat's first published novel, Mission Statement, was recently released by Loose Id. This is her first author interview, for her first novel…as a virgin, we assured her it would only hurt the first time.

Do you plot or do you write by the seat of your pants?

I try to plot. I honestly do. But I've said it before and I'll say it again: most of the time, I don't actually write. I take dictation. Something creates a spark for me, which evolves into spending an inordinate amount of time developing characters in my head, a plot outline, and an arc. Then I sit down to write and my characters take over. If I try to make them follow a plotline that doesn't work for them, they stop talking to me. I once cut over 100 pages because I tried to make my characters go where they didn't want to go. The story got flat, the dialogue got monotonous, and the whole experience was unpleasant for everyone involved. Now I listen better.

What drew you to the story line of Mission Statement?

I love writing about people making positive change in their lives, especially when they take unconventional routes to get there. Vicki finds herself completely off-track and uses some rather unconventional means to get back to where she belongs. One of the many things I love about her is that she overcomes decades of preconceived notions to get "unstuck" in her life.

What’s your favorite quote?

When I was sixteen, I was a stage manager for a local production of Nuts, the play by Tom Topor. The lead character is an unconventional woman (at best) who finds her power and control in a highly unconventional way: she becomes an extremely high-priced call girl. When she's asked how she can defend her choices, she says "You don't understand the things I do, but I do have my reasons. They're not your reasons, so they're not real to you, but they're real to me, and that's enough." I've navigated by that ever since.

What three things would you want with you on a desert island?

My Kindle. A way to charge my Kindle. And lots and lots of paper and pens. Oh, crap. That's four things, isn't it? Well, can I pretend that my desert island has a tree that grows pencils? Of course, if all those things were there, it wouldn't have to be a desert island. It could be half a mile from civilization and I'd never go looking.

Who is your favorite character in your book?

I hadn't really thought about that, but I think I'd have to say Michael. That's actually a surprise to me because I usually fall in love with a secondary character, but Mission Statement is really a study of Vicki and Michael. His illusion that he's got it all together is fascinating to me; watching it unravel makes him real. Of course, a very minor character has since inhabited my brain, so Jonas is quickly becoming a favorite of mine, but that is -- quite literally -- a story for another day.

Where do you write?

I write at my dining room table. There are sticky notes and scraps everywhere. It's free of household clutter and relatively quiet, so it works for me. I only trip over the power cord every three or four days now, which has impressed pretty much everyone in my family.

What was the hardest scene to write?

The opening scene was the hardest. That's always the hardest one for me. I just want everyone to know everything I know from the first word. The first draft becomes something of a brain dump, and it isn't pretty. If not for the supreme patience and candid feedback of my pre-readers, I'd never make it through the submission process. If not for the talent and patience of my fabulous editor, Maryam Salim, the first three chapters would be…well, probably chapters four, five, and six.

What was your favorite scene to write?

I travel a lot for my day job. I saw a woman, seated alone at a bar reading emails on her phone. There was a man in the corner watching her. That picture evolved in my brain. At the same time, I noticed my thirty-something and forty-something friends and I were spending a lot of time wondering "how did we get here?" - the female version of a mid-life crisis, I guess. That poor woman in the bar suddenly had a mid-life crisis of her own and Mission Statement was born. Since that's how the story came to me, that's how I wanted it to give it to the readers. See the answer to "hardest scene" above to see how that ended.

Who is your greatest cheerleader?

It's hard to narrow it down to one person. I have three friends who really helped me summon the courage to try publishing. My dear friend Meri was my first "beta" reader and editor in all things, and she pushed me to improve in a million ways. The story itself started as a snippet in an email with the subject line "does this suck?"; MJ, if you had said yes, I wouldn't be here. Terri is my prototypical reader and compatriot in day job world, constantly telling me that she'd hang it up and hand me Sharpies at my first book signing if only I'd just go for it. These women changed my life.

What other time period besides your own would you like to experience?

I have an obscene fascination with nineteenth century England. To be truthful, I have an obsession with England in general, but the Regency era is a time period I'd travel to in a heartbeat. Of course, in my fantasy, I'd be arriving as Lady Pennyforth-Smythe, Marchioness of Danbury, Society maven and premier member of the haute ton. With my luck, I'd come back as a serving wench at a dockside pub. Not that that's a bad thing; I do have a strong affinity for ale. I just think the experience would be very different. Perhaps I'll write about it instead, so I can have some control over who I am when I get there. Unless the plot/dictation thing messes me up again, that is.

About Cat:

Cat Gardiene spends her days behind a desk and her nights in front of a laptop, but struggles to understand why she doesn’t have a better tan or a firmer ass. A lover of theatre, books, music, and alpha males, not necessarily in that order, she is a proud resident of New York City, where all four are available within a ten-block radius of any corner she finds herself…well, perhaps not the alpha males. But she can always score an excellent cappuccino.

Her writing career began in elementary school, when she and her friends would write fan-fiction for a series she refuses to disclose, but says rhymes with Blarsky and Dutch. Since then, her male characters have become more handsome and her dialogue more suggestive, but her obsession with cops and Hollywood continues. As she did then, she credits her friends with giving her the courage and the stamina to write, and her readers with providing the greatest gift of all – feedback. Visit her at www.catherinegardiene.com. Write to her at cat@catherinegardiene.com and share your thoughts. She’s practically OCD about responding.

About Mission Statement:

Victoria Simpson’s life is crumbling around her, so why not escape to Aruba for a little soul searching? Armed with a mission statement she hopes will turn her life in a new direction, she never expects to fall for a man like Michael, a man who pushes her buttons as much as he pushes her limits.

Michael Collins had everything under control, especially the women he chose to dominate at Club Marquis. But relationships started and ended at the club door, which was precisely how he wanted it. Drawn by Vicki’s vulnerability, he can’t stay away. Her body responds passionately, but she keeps her heart and mind closed to him. Can she embrace the submissive he senses inside her, or will his need to control her drive them apart?

Mission Statement is available from Loose Id at http://is.gd/MissionStatement