Story Behind the Story - The Other Side by Shawn Lane

Stats – Received contract in December 2008. Turned in manuscript December 2008. Published 02/07/09 by Amber Allure.

At that time in the history of Amber Quill, our fearless leader, Trace, asked for volunteers to write stories for certain Amber Pax collections (the method for Pax collections has changed). The theme for this one was opposites attract and the name of the collection was also Opposites Attract. The Pax was released in February 2009. The Other Side made the top 10 best seller list for Amber Quill in February. In fact, beginning in January of 2009 when At Long Last was number 1 on the best seller list for January, every book I’ve released at AQ has made the top 10 list.

Little known fact – I love the torso representing Nick in the story on my cover, especially the little badge pinned to his clothes, but the guy representing Ray looks too 1970s for me. He looks like he belongs as a teacher in Room 222 an old television show. Ray is supposed to be sophisticated, polished and well dressed. Definitely not my favorite cover.

Extremely little known fact – I never intended to continue the story after The Other Side. I did plan on a sequel/related story for Ray’s pain in the ass brother, Devon. But I planned to leave The Other Side as it was. Basically a strong Happy For Now ending. I got so many people commenting on how they never learned whether Ray got elected to the city council or whether Nick got his job back, and other details, that I gave further consideration to continuing their story.

How did I get the idea for the book – I really couldn’t tell you. The Other Side is one of those stories I agreed to write when I had absolutely no clue what I was going to write. I just thought, well, I can write an opposite’s attract story. Piece of cake. Well, not exactly, no. I do know when I did start to write it I wanted Nick to be pretty damaged and kind of scruffy cute. I wrote it with no real plan, though, and just let the words flow. Not very helpful I know. But honest.

If I could edit the book now, what would I change (if anything)? – I hate to echo Ava, but I was actually happy with the book as-is. To me, whether Ray got elected or Nick got his job back didn’t matter. It seemed irrelevant to the story. Since then I’ve realized how it could be perceived as incomplete though. The other thing I didn’t notice as I wrote it, but I once saw someone mention was that in their opinion I overdid the opposite thing, because I had one rich, one poor, one white, one black, one liked wine, one liked beer. But you know I know real people who like wine or like beer and not both so as I wrote it I never considered that someone might view that as over the top. I guess it’s true you can’t please everyone! I also know Ray came across as too arrogant to some, but I liked Ray. I thought he was a real person who sometimes comes across as an ass. Not intentional. I like writing non-perfect people.

Will there be a sequel – Yes. It’s next up after the current WIP. Unlike, the original, I have a plan for this one. And yes there will be angst and maybe some dislike of Ray again, lol. But Ray thinks with his heart and the mistakes he’ll make in the sequel are from there and fear. It will all end quite well though. It IS a romance.

Misc stuff – Besides the sequel, I still plan to write, Tempted to Taste, which is Ray’s brother’s story. It wasn’t clear at all Devon was gay in The Other Side, but you’ll find out more about that in The Same Side. Devon owns a restaurant and if you recall he called Nick a “skanky little white boy” so it amuses me to give him a little white boy of his own. His hero will be blond, pretty and hot, and happen to be the new chef Devon’s business partner hires. Look for that in 2011. Hopefully early 2011.

An Interesting Sunday...a.k.a. Nekkid Princes & Video Rentals

I got some writing done on His Client this weekend, but not as much as I wanted. So in order to motivate my a$$, I've added a little 'WIP'n Progress' feature to the right side bar. Maybe if my progress is out there for everyone to mock, then it will motivate me to move it along at something more than a snail's pace.

Today was an interesting day. First, I found Prince Phillip on the kitchen counter...naked. He was just laying there. Not sure why he was there, or what the kidlet had been doing with him. But he was just chillin' on the counter. Clearly he has no issues with nudity in pubic.
Of course, I then looked around for The Prince. Found him naked as well, in the bin of misc barbie stuff. Since the other barbies in the bin were clothed and only The Princes were naked, I'm assuming the boys weren't messing with the girls. In any case, it appears as if the Princes had been having some fun.

To add to my interesting day, I discovered the local family video store does not have something for everyone in the family. Hubby lured me to go with him and kidlet to return movies by telling me they had an Adult room in the back. I've never actually rented a pron movie. I'm more of a mail order or online subscription sort of gal. But I couldn't resist checking out the Adult room, so I tagged along. To my great disappointment, they didn't have any gay pron. Total bummer. I'm very tempted to volunteer my services to the family video store. They need a serious upgrade to their pron selection. They had m/f and of course f/f, but not even one token m/m movie. Not even a bi-curious one.

I snagged a couple m/f movies - I was there to get pron and I wasn't leaving without any. Hubby nudged me as we were waiting in line at the counter. "You should tell them they need to get some male/male movies." (yeah, he called them m/m...) I glanced to the squeeky clean, maybe 18 yr old boy behind the counter. "Um, no. Don't want to embarass the kid." As it was, when we got to the counter, the poor kid glanced at the movies -- Wubbzy Goes Green, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Lady Scarface & Island Fever 3. "Oh, well, then..." That was all he said before he quickly focused on checking out our odd selection of movies and getting us the hell out the store, with the kidlet in tow chattering about the gummy candy I wouldn't let her have.

So that was my exciting Sunday. Anyone else have an interesting day?

UPDATE: Check back on Wednesday, 6/30. Shawn Lane is going to do a Story Behind the Story post for The Other Side. *g*

Story Behind the Story - Convincing Arthur

Stats – Received contract 2/23/09. Turned in manuscript 5/8/09. Published 7/21/09 by Loose Id.

I was asked if I would be interested in writing a historical for Loose Id’s Past, Present and Future promotion for July 2009. I already had the idea for Convincing Arthur and had planned to write it after I finished Bound to Him. So it worked out quite nicely.

Little known fact – Convincing Arthur is my only book cover with fully clothed men. All my other covers feature nekkid guys. Well, Object of His Desire has Underwear Guy in breeches, but he doesn’t count as fully clothed since he’s showing off his abs.

Extremely little known fact – In the original outline for the book, Leopold’s first name was Sylvester. Yeah…Sylvester Thornton. Why did I ever think that was a good idea? The name Leopold actually came from a secondary character in my first Evangeline m/f book. I loved that character, but my editor thought the character would work better as a woman (she was right – it did end up working better with a female cousin instead of a male one in those scenes). So when I decided my bad boy wasn’t a ‘Sylvester’, I gave him the name Leopold. He’s nothing like the other Leopold, and I love him even more than that other guy.

How did I get the idea for the book – Leopold was the catalyst for the book. I loved the idea of an utter bad boy who is desperately, hopelessly in love. And I didn’t want him to be a typical rake you’d see in a m/f historical. He didn’t have a horrid childhood, he isn’t poor. He has everything that should make one happy, except he doesn’t have the man he loves. Since Leopold’s not a strong soul (he falls easily into vice and is rather emotionally volatile), not having Arthur takes a heavy toll on him.

If I could edit the book now, what would I change (if anything)? - I’m actually happy with the book as-is. Well, it could maybe do with a couple more paragraphs right before the last smex scene. As it stands, it goes from super angst to red-hot lust in the space of a paragraph. Could have lingered over the kiss a bit longer before Leopold asks Arthur if he locked the study door.

Will there be a sequel – Yes, that’s the plan. Current title is Convincing Leopold and it will take place 3 months after Convincing Arthur, with Arthur and Leopold in London. The chapter outline is done and it’s in the To-Be-Written queue. I plan to work on it this winter…that is, if my schedule doesn’t get wacked.

Misc stuff – The scene toward the end where Leopold chases after Arthur in the rain is one of my favorite scenes of all the books I’ve written thus far. I find it just so…romantic. *sigh* And I think Leopold’s my only hero who could have pulled off such a scene.

I often model the exterior of a character’s country house after an actual country estate in England or Scotland. Ramsey House (Leopold’s country house) is modeled after Farnborough Hall in Oxfordshire. Here’s a pic of it -

That's the Story Behind the Story for Convincing Arthur. If you have any questions, ask away!

Necessities

Strong storms blew thru here last night and as a result, I have no power. According to the power company, it’s supposed to be up later tonight (fingers crossed). Hubby’s got his gas powered generator going (he was really tweaked he could finally use it – we’ve had it for over a year) and I have 5 critical things plugged into it. The fridge, rechargeable camping lantern, Pretty, my iPhone, and the fish tank. The fish tank was hubby’s doing – apparently the kidlet’s 2 goldfish (Goldie #1 and Goldie #2) outrank the TV or a fan. It’s supposed to hit 90 degrees here today, so soon the fish are going to have to do without their little waterfall filter.

In addition to having the forethought to purchase a gas powered generator, hubby earned even more BJ points today by surrendering his wireless card to me. *g* Who needs power from the power company? I have my laptop, my phone, a wireless connection, and cold cans of diet coke. Oh, and he took the kidlet to my mom’s house for the day (she has power). He’s so awesome! I will admit, I keep turning on switches in the house. And yes, I have that ½ second of ‘huh? Why isn't the garbage disposal working?’ before I remember – yep, the power is out.

Since I have a quiet house for the next few hours, I’m going to work on His Client. Later tonight or tomorrow, I’ll get the post up for Convincing Arthur. I had planned to write it last night, but got distracted by the whole power being out thing.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

The Magic Touch

As it turns out, I didn't need hubby to pull files off my old laptop's hard drive. All I needed was one bored kidlet. I had set the old laptop on the couch in the basement (serving as a sort of visual reminder to hubby that I needed him to work on it) and it drew the kidlet's attention today. As she peppered me with questions ('Can I have it?' 'No. It's broken.' 'What's wrong with it?' 'It died'....), she opened the lid and started messing with it (i.e. randomly pushing buttons).

And the damn thing powered up. I could not believe it. It was completely and utterly dead 3 weeks ago. I had tried everything to revive it and nothing worked. Even had IT Dude hubby look at it and he declared something had 'blown' inside it. I don't know if something inside got shifted during shipment from Florida, or if the kidlet has the magic touch. But it works now.

See - here's proof. The old laptop lives again! :) ...and yes, that's the pic of the Princes on their date. They looked so cute I had used them as a desktop background.

Not that I have any plans to abandon Pretty. I don't trust the old laptop anymore, and Pretty and I are getting along wonderfully. But I was more than happy to be able to access the un-backed up files on it. Now I have all my cover art and photoshop files, along with the 'research' folder that was much too large to fit on a backup CD, safely saved on Pretty.

That was my excitement for the day. How was your day?

One Step Closer

I just finished writing chapter 7 of His Client (go me!!). It had lots of kissing and other fun stuff in it, so I thought the above cookie would be fitting. Other than being one more chapter closer to finishing the book, I don't have much to report. The next few weekends should be pretty uneventful for me (with the exception of Father's Day this Sunday - must celebrate the wonderful hubby *g*). So hopefully I'll be able to get a lot of writing done and get Jasper and Nate's book done by the end of the month. And sometime later this week (likely Friday night or Saturday afternoon), I plan to do a Story Behind the Story post for Convincing Arthur.

In other news, Shawn Lane is holding a contest over on her blog. Pop on by and comment if you want to be entered to win a copy of His One and Only, the final book in her Only Forever series.


I shall leave you with Marco, because...I couldn't resist. I'll admit, I'm rather fond of him. He's damn hot. *g*


...yes, today was pron star cookie day. I'm well aware of that. ;)

Story Behind the Story - Most Likely to Succeed by Shawn Lane

Stats: submitted to Amber Quill 0n 02/04/09. AQ is different but contract was processed on 02/19/09. Published 04/11/09.

Originally, Most Likely to Succeed was supposed to be part of an Amber Pax collection with the theme of Business Matters, but not enough authors signed up for the theme to create a Pax. Fortunately, Amber Quill used my story anyway, because for a long time it was my best seller there and on All Romance eBooks. It was the number one best seller for the month of April 2009.


Little known fact: I don’t think this is all that unknown but one of my two heroes has a kink I share somewhat. Well, at least one I would like to share. (clears throat) LOL.


Extremely little known fact: I briefly considered writing two other books from characters in this story. Tommy’s friend and former boyfriend, Matt and how he got together with his fireman boyfriend, Josh, and a story with the guy who broke Clark’s heart by being a sleaze, Aaron. There was something about Aaron, who I know was a prick in the book, that made me want to redeem him in his own story. A reformed asshole (no pun intended there) appeals to me.

How did I get the idea for the book? I got the idea for this “Business Matters” story from watching gay porn on Men At Play. The “stories” there always involve two guys in a suit and it’s pretty blasted hot. Thus where I began to think of my two hot suited guys.

If I could edit the book now, what would I change? I’d probably find a better way for Thomas to find out what Aaron did to Clark then have his secretary tell him. I might have explored Clark’s sister’s abusive relationship with her husband more.

Misc Stuff: Clark is still one of my favorite heroes, probably because of his naughty side yet he’s also got a soft vulnerability. I’ve always liked the name Clark since my younger days of watching Christopher Reeve play Clark Kent in Superman and then later Dean Cain (yum). I also love Clark Griswold in the Vacation movies. Clark shares the same last name as my bff.

The last name for Thomas came from the silly song, H, A, Double R, I, G, A, N, spells Harrigan…um, anyway, I was watching a Mash episode and Colonel Potter was singing that song. Check out the lyrics if you’ve never heard of it.

Updates and Bloggy Plans

I'm happy to report the begging worked. *g* Shawn Lane is going to do a Story Behind the Story post on Most Likely To Succeed sometime this weekend. Be sure to check back in the next couple of days to get the scoop on Thomas and Clark's book. Devon Rhodes and Stephani Hecht also agreed to do posts. Not sure which books yet or when (I left it up to them), but definitely in the near future. Somewhere in there I'll do posts for Convincing Arthur and Object of His Desire. So that's the very vague schedule for upcoming Story Behind the Story posts.

Tomorrow (Friday) I'll be over at Brita Addams's blog. She's a new author who writes m/f erotic Regency romance, and maybe perhaps in the future, m/m as well. *g* Anyway, she interviewed me for her blog recently and will post the interview tomorrow, and I'm also giving away a copy of From Afar. So pop on by if you feel so inclined.

As for writing, I'm slowly but surely working my way through chapter 7 of His Client. It's not going as quickly as I'd like, but it's a pivotal chapter so it's taking me some time to get it where I want it. It's also been a busy week at the EDJ, and I was out of town last weekend for a wedding and I have another wedding to go to this weekend. Must be the month for weddings. I'm still targeting end of June to finish the book. We'll see how it goes. It's only the 10th of June, so I have 20 days to write 3 chapters. At about 3000 words a chapter, that means 9000 words in 20 days. About an average of 500 words a day (given there will be a couple days I'm sure I'll piss away). So that means...I better get to work!

I started the post with a hottie, and I'll end it with a pretty. Well, I think he's more beautiful than pretty, but regardless, he's yummy. *g*

Story Behind the Story - Bound by Deception

I was mulling over ideas for blog posts the other day and decided to start a new topic - Story Behind the Story. The idea is to share background information on specific books. Little known facts, pre-publication stuff, how a book came to be written, etc, and also answer any questions from readers. I'm thinking nothing long or extensive. Just snippets of info people might find interesting. I'm planning to invite author friends to come visit and do posts on their own books. So it won't be just me, babbling about my books *g* And I don't plan it to be a regular weekly post sort of thing, more every now and then.

I'm going to start it off with Bound by Deception.

Stats: submitted to Loose Id on 7/28/08. Received offer 8/9/08. Published 9/16/08. Yeah, it was really fast. Loose Id had an unexpected opening in their schedule and they thought the book would fit in the slot, so they fast tracked the book. Of course, I was happy. I'm not a very patient person.

BBD was my first contracted Ava book, and my first published book overall. It's my best selling Ava book to date. It also has the distinction of being the first m/m Regency book released by Loose Id.

Little known fact: originally titled 'The Switch'. Loose Id asked that I come up with a new title, since the old one was kind of misleading, especially considering the book is a m/m with BDSM elements. Neither guy is a switch and a switch isn't used in the book. They gave me the nudge toward something with 'deception' in the title, and I came up with Bound by Deception. I suck at titles, but this one is one of my favs.

Extremely little known fact: I very briefly toyed with the idea of Vincent being a sub. Of him shocking the hell out of Oliver in the 1st scene at the brothel, and expecting Oliver to tie him up. When plotting a book, I'll explore alternative paths and see where they take me. Sometimes they work out, and like in this case, sometimes not. When mulling the idea, I could get Vincent to take off his clothes but that was it. Couldn't even get him to make the request of Oliver or even hint at it. I took that as a sign it was something he would never do, so I quickly abandoned the idea.

How did I get the idea for the book? I enjoy reading books with BDSM elements (but not hard core stuff), and wanted to try my hand at writing something of my own with some D/s. The research was fun, too. ;) JT's Stockroom is a great source for inspiration. In fact, here's the suspension bar Oliver and Vincent used in the 1st smex scene - suspension bar - though it's not black, but plain steel in the book (had to make some adjustments to fit the regency time period).

If I could edit the book now, what would I change? Lengthen the scene where Vincent decides he wants more than a friendship with Oliver. Not sure how I'd do it, though. I wouldn't want him to leave Oliver's apartments, and it's not like he could have sat on the couch for hours. But he could have done with more than 5 minutes to make that decision.

Misc Stuff: Oliver is my favorite type of hero to write. I think it's pretty obvious - I loved all over him in the book *g* The theme in the book is also a fav - unrequited love with friends turned lovers. Oliver and Vincent are also my favorite couple. Again, kind of obvious, as I wrote them a sequel and a short freebie, and have a 3rd book in the works.

That's the story behind the story for Bound by Deception. Got any questions about the book or characters? If so, ask away!

Since this is my first story post, let me know if there are any other questions you think I should have added to my little 'interview'. I tried to think of standard stuff that could apply to any book, but if I missed something you would find interesting, let me know.

If there is a specific book you're curious about, again, let me know. I plan to beg a few author friends (Shawn, Devon and Andi, of course, and since Stephani Hecht is my bud from my local RWA chapter, I'm gonna beg her, too). But if there is anyone else, let me know and I'll see what I can do. No promises, but I'll try.