THE WEEK OF NOTHING SERIOUS: The Next Big Thing

I got tagged for a "The Next Big Thing" post, and I was supposed to do this yesterday, but I didn't because I was busy sewing like a little Christmas bee. A bee that can sew and guzzle malt liquor like a goddamned champion. Now, I'm doing it today, with a massive hangover that feels like someone is inserting metal rods through the extremely dry husks where my eyeballs used to be. I have two "The Next Big Thing"s happening in January, and since I can still taste the Mike's Hard Black Cherry Lemonade in my sinuses, I'm doing both and no one is going to say boo about it. Unless they say this boo very softly and without turning the lights on. Because both books are dear to my heart, and both of them are coming out within a day of each other.

What is the working title of your next book?

Silent Surrender and The Boss.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea for The Boss came from a line I read in a review of Anything He Wants by Sarah Fawkes. The review was totally not complimentary, and referred to books like Anything He Wants and Fifty Shades of Grey as belonging to a genre of "poorly written, badly researched erotica." I thought, "A genre, huh?" And I thought it would be fun to write a book that has the flavor of Fifty Shades of Grey, but not the non-existent conflict, the abuse masquerading as romance, or the heroine who dumps her entire life to be owned by some dude.

The idea for Silent Surrender came to me years ago, when I was studying American Sign Language. I realized that in all my reading, I'd never found a single Deaf heroine in a romance novel. I'm sure they're out there, but I had never read one. Then I thought, "Wow, it would be shitty to be a woman in the past. Shittier than it is now," and it all kind of fell together.

What genre does your book fall under?

Both are erotic romances, but The Boss is contemporary and Silent Surrender is historical erotic romance.


Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

For The Boss, I would have to say Amber Heard for Sophie, and Anthony Stewart Head for Neil:

For Silent Surrender, I would cast David Tennant and Ray Stevenson as Jude and Esau, and Anne Hathaway as Honoria:

Why did I even put that picture up there? You already know what David Tennant looks like. If you read this blog, I guarantee you were more likely to know what David Tennant looks like than Anne Hathaway. It's just science.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your books?

I think a drunk person wrote this survey. Anyway, for The Boss: A young professional struggles to balance her passion for a former lover with her ambition to succeed.

For Silent Surrender: A Deaf woman on the verge of being institutionalized indulges her most passionate fantasies with a dock worker she hires for the job, despite the protestations of her tutor, who is secretly in love with her.

Hey, it didn't say, "A not run-on sentence."

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The Boss will be self-published as a free serial on this blog, with the first installment coming on January 15, 2013.

Silent Surrender will be published by Ellora's Cave on January 14, 2013, and you can check it out HERE.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Silent Surrender took me from about December of 2011 to August of 2012. I had to take several breaks while writing it to fulfill deadlines for other contracts, and a brutal amount of research. The bulk of the novel was written on a week-long writer's retreat to a cabin in the UP, where there were no phones or internet to distract me.

The Boss isn't completed yet, but I'm churning out about a chapter every week, to stay ahead of my "every 15 days" release schedule.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I would compare The Boss to Fifty Shades of Grey, within the genre, and The Devil Wears Prada outside of the genre.

Silent Surrender... I don't know. To be honest, I don't read a lot of historical M/F/M.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

My rage, loathing, and despair at the success of 50 Shades of Grey fueled The Boss.

Silent Surrender came from the myriad projects I had to research while learning ASL. One of my text books was called For Hearing People Only, which is an amazing, surprisingly fun book answering Hearing people's questions about Deaf culture and life. I thought, "You know, there really aren't any Deaf heroines I can think of in romance." Over the years, my heroine, Honoria, sort of percolated in the back of my mind, and it blossomed into a story of what it would be like to be a woman in 1841, facing the reality that you don't get a lot of say in your life, your life is kind of chosen for you by one man or another.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The Boss is free, and Silent Surrender is romantic as fuck.

Look, I'm not tagging anyone for this, because I hate tagging. It's obligating one group of people, and excluding a larger group of people. If you're a writer, and you want to do this thing, just do it, and tell people I tagged you, if you want.

Armintrout out.