Genevieve visits #RomanceBeckons to talk about POV #QuestionOfTheWeek (via Romance Beckons)
Welcome Genevieve Dewey to Romance Beckons. Genevieve Dewey is the author of The Downey Trilogy (First, I Love You & Second of All) and the short stories Bird Day Battalion & V-Day Aversion. She is a wife, mother, sister, friend and Anthropologist.…
As you know, occasionally I invite authors to come and play on my blog. Sometimes it’s just a book blurb, or cover reveal, sometimes it’s an interview. Well, recently I asked fellow author Travis Luedke of the Nightlife Series to come for a visit. If some of you don’t know about the Nightlife Series, it features vampires (of the badass, non-sparkly variety), sex, violence, and sometimes smexy violence. And I say that with love. But, anyhoo, back to the point at hand, you know what this foolish man said to me?
“Ok… but make it lively.” – Travis Luedke
Oh, Travis.
Challenge.
Accepted.
___
(aka Travis gets what’s cumin to him)
[Parental discretion is advised, contains adult language and overt references to sex]
___________________________
Gen: This interview won’t take long, my darlings, as I’ve asked a few of my girlfriends from the infamous #naughtycouch to help me keep it “lively”. Most of you know my go-to-girl on the couch, Bad Penny @Penelope_Prose, but I’d like to introduce you to a few more of #Naughtyville’s residents; Caroline, Cat, Beth, and Deidre known on Twitter as @CarolineD_13, @dbl_latte, @missb1331, and @laDeeDa51, respectively. When I asked them for help they all jumped at the chance to ask Travis some questions. Penny, very helpfully, suggested we do so while enjoying the festivities of summer. Don’t know about you, but here in the Midwest that means fairs and carnivals! That’s right, make yourselves comfortable because Travis will be “manning” the dunk booth. He will have to answer the questions truthfully and in a timely manner or he gets dunked. And to make sure he doesn’t chicken out–not that he ever would–we’ve tied him up. Naked. Sweet P, you can remove his gag now.
*Bad Penny chuckles and removes the ball gag.*
Travis: I don’t remember anything in your email that said I’d be naked! Or gagged. Or tied up–
*Gen ignores him and turns to Beth.*
Gen: Fantastic job with the Shibari knots, Beth!
Beth (blushing): Thanks, Cupcake. I wanted to try that particular design since I pinned it on Pinterest.
Gen: This makes a nice change of pace for some of us ladies, tying someone else up. But I’m not sure for Travis. That’s a great first question, come to think of it! Is this the first time you’ve been tied up, Travis?
Travis: Well, yes this is my first, and that rope is giving me a wedgy something fierce. Wait, does being handcuffed count as being tied?
*Gen lobs a ball and Travis goes down.*
Gen: Oh! Oops. Itchy trigger finger. My bad. My husband complains about that all the time! He’s all, easy there, Dirty Harry.
Travis: I don’t care about how dirty and harry you like your men, get me out of this water. This shit’s cold.
*The ladies all snicker while Penny pulls Travis back on the harness.*
Bad Penny: Let me do him… I mean it, Cupcake.
Gen: Oh, sure, he’s all yours. Caroline can have sloppy seconds.
*The #naughtycouch ladies all giggle. Travis groans.*
Bad Penny: Here’s my questions… Of all the characters you’ve written about, Travis, which one is your favorite, least favorite, aaaannnd why? Oh, and if you pick my favorite as your least favorite; I’ve got balls with your name on them.
*Bad Penny pretends to line a ball up with the target of the dunk tank and giggles like a mad woman.*
Travis: I got some balls with your name on ‘em girlfriend. Wait! Don’t throw it! Okay, characters. Let me see. Michelle is probably one of my favorite characters, because she’s so complex, twisted, loving, and yet so vicious and wicked. Most readers never really understand Michelle until the end of the third novel, Nightlife Paris. It’s in Paris where we learn the dark, gritty trials she survived during WWII. Michelle’s life until now has been very tragic, lonely, but all that changes with Aaron. She changes. My least favorite character would be Delia, Aaron’s ex-girlfriend. She’s a manipulator, petty, selfish, and has no real redeeming qualities. She strung Aaron along, playing his insecurities for her own malicious pleasure. Although many readers are shocked to learn what happens to Delia at the end of Nightlife New York, I feel like she got precisely what she deserved.
Bad Penny (licking her lips and fondling the ball): You know, Travis, the next time you feel like dishing out punishments—hey!
*Gen drags Penny back to the couch*
Gen: Caroline, you’re next.
*Caroline gets up and finger waves at Travis.*
Caroline: Ok, so my question to Travis, a few of your books are set in different locations. If you could pick a place to live out of them where would it be?
Travis: I think, ideally, I would choose to be a perpetual traveller. Stay in one city for 3-4 months, then move on. Each city, each country, has its own unique flavor, culture, and appeal. I would miss America at times, but then I’d come home and very quickly remember all those reasons I left. And there are many travels yet to come in the Nightlife Series: London, Moscow, Hong Kong, and perhaps Panama City (a sequel to Blood Slave).
Caroline: Why did you choose paranormal romance? Do you enjoy reading this genre? Wait… Is that two questions?
Travis: Yes, that is two questions, and I’m getting cold here. I think I might need someone to come warm me up, some warm hands, maybe a warm tongue?
*The girls snicker*
Travis: No? Just gonna sit there and stare at my junk while I shiver? I thought this was the #naughtycouch?
*Travis shakes his head as he looks down at his not-so-impressive display. Caroline raises the ball to throw it*
Travis: Paranormal Romance! … I guess I have no interest in anything normal in the way of fiction. If it’s violent, creepy, macabre, paranormal, and erotic, that pretty much hits all the happy buttons for me. And romance is the glue that binds everything together. All the great stories of the world have at least a touch of romance. Even in Greek, Hindu, and Judeo Christian mythology, the dynamics of romantic entanglements were ever present. Adam broke the rules for Eve, and he’d probably do it all over again if you gave him the chance. Helen of Troy’s romantic mess launched a thousand ships to sail across the Aegean. Is there anything worth reading that doesn’t involve romance?
Gen: Mnnn… nope.
*The girls shake their heads in agreement. Cat pops up*
Cat: Ehem, I have a question.
*Caroline elbows Cat.*
Caroline: It was my turn!
Cat: You already asked two questions!
*Cat and Caroline start tickle fighting. Beth runs over to break them up and they start tickling her, too*
Deidre and Penny: Someone needs a spanking!
*Travis grins and Gen lobs another ball at the switch. The girls stop fighting to point and laugh at wet Travis*
Travis: Ah, come on! Couldn’t you put a heater in this thing? Dunk me in a hot-tub? At least get me a couple shots of tequila. This is cold!
Gen: Oh, sorry, you looked like you were getting a little hot there. Penny and Dee, stop laughing!
*Gen hooks her arm in Beth’s and Caroline’s and they sit down.*
Gen: Don’t worry, girls, no one’s getting spanked, not even Travis.
*Bad Penny starts pouting and snuggles with Caroline on the couch. Gen plays with Deidre’s hair while Deidre massages Beth’s shoulders. Travis starts drooling*
Gen: Cat, it’s your turn.
Cat: Hi, Travis! I have read the first two books in the Nightlife series and loved, loved, loved Michelle. She appeals to my secret, hidden, inner domme–oops, did I just admit that…out loud?!! Shhh, don’t tell anyone!
*Cat turns around and vamps. The girls all giggle and stick their tongues out*
Cat (turning back to Travis): Is her character/personality based on anyone in your life or did you create her purely from your imagination?
Travis: Michelle can be very cavalier and flippant. And she has little respect for unworldly Americans that have yet to realize they are not God’s gift to the planet. I would be lying if I said I’d never met or dated a foreign woman like that. Truthfully, the inspiration for Michelle’s character came from a series of novels by Stephen Clarke, ‘A Year in the Merde’, and ‘Merde Actually.’ It’s a story of a British man fumbling through corporate Paris and his misadventures with French women. As I read those novels, I literally heard Michelle’s voice going off in my mind, cussing up a storm in French. I saw her careless Gallic shrug, and her smile that could entice a man out of both wallet and pants at the same time.
*When Cat keeps staring at Travis, Gen lobs a ball at her rear*
Cat: Hey!!
Gen: Cat, do you have another question for him?
Cat: Umm, let me think.
*Caroline jumps up from the couch and whispers in her ear*
Cat: Oh, good one, who is your favorite superhero, and if you were a superhero who would you be?
Travis: Okay, I admit, I am a bit of a comic book nerd. I watch all the superhero movies, sometimes more than once. Favorites? Don’t really have one, because so many of them are simply too cool for words. But, if I had the choice of being one particular superhero, I would probably go for Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine. He’s such badass. And its damn near impossible to kill him. He’s one tough S.O.B.
Caroline: Oh, I like that answer!
Cat: Me too!
*Cat and Caroline raise their hands to throw their balls at the same time*
Travis: Hey! You said you liked the answer!
*Travis sighs in relief as the balls bounce off the edge. Gen drags the girls back to the couch*
Gen: Beth, you’re up next.
Beth: Well, I don’t mind going easy on you, Travis. What is one scene from a book that was inspired by real life events?
Travis: There are several scenes in all my books that have been inspired by real life events: the ones where the guy screws the girl so hard she can barely walk, and she loved every last second of it.
*Travis winks. Beth raises her hand*
Travis: Don’t you dare throw that ball! Okay, Okay! Vegas! In the gambling scene in Vegas, I have actually used the numerical odds betting system that Aaron used. And believe it or not, it does work around 90% of the time, but only on Roulette and Baccarat. The other 10% of the time you lose your shirt.
*Travis winks again. Beth smiles and fondles the ball.*
Beth: What is the most blatant lie you ever told?
Travis: Ahh, that’s an easy one, but not very flattering: “I love you.” Those three words are perhaps the most abused words in the English language. We often think we mean it when we say it … but do we really?
*Beth lobs the ball and Travis goes down.*
Beth: I think I should get another. That was so obviously not true.
Travis: I love you! Now get me out of this water!
*The ladies all nod their heads at Beth and smirk at Travis.*
Beth: You have to wear a t-shirt with one word on it for the rest of your life. Which word do you choose?
Travis: Merde. It’s an all-purpose word in French which happens to cross over to Spanish as well. And it would seem an appropriate description of so many aspects of this life. Translation: Shit.
Beth: Speaking of, my ropes will need to be removed before you—
*Gen grabs Beth*
Gen: And last, but never least, Dee, it’s your turn!
Deidre: Okay… Probably not the naughtiest or best of questions. But with him being tied up and already so wet and that water is obviously cold…
*Everyone on the couch giggles*
Deidre: Stop it, you guys! The poor man.
*Deidre grins evilly*
Deidre: Travis, do you have a favorite scene that you’ve written, for whatever reason, and why?
Travis: I think my favorite scene was chapter two in Blood Slave, it’s a FF sex scene. When the female vampire, Lia, wets her finger and dips it in her vial of cocaine, and then slides it up between Hope’s legs … I live very vicariously through writing those scenes.
*The ladies start chanting: Dunk, dunk, dunk!*
Deidre (shaking her head): Not just yet, we know how Gen likes delayed gratification.
Bad Penny: Ooohhh–
Caroline: Snap!
Beth and Cat: Hee!
Gen (smacking at them): Tuh!
Deidre: Travis, did you make any one character have more of your own personal attributes, good or bad, and which one?
Travis: Sadly, it’s probably some of my villains that are closer to me in real life. But Aaron does tend to be a cynical-yet-endearing sort of smartass, and that could accurately describe one of my own multiple personalities.
*Deidre lobs the ball for one last dunk.*
Travis: Merde!
*The girls all laugh. Gen and Beth pop up from the couch to start untying Travis. Cat and Caroline start whisper fighting about who gets to towel Travis off.*
Travis: Get this rope out of my crack, please and thank you. And ladies, got a naked guy here. Let’s do this #naughtycouch style.
Cat: Oh, we’ll show you #naughtycouch style, alright!
*Beth snickers*
Deidre: Let’s put him in the kilt!
Travis: Kilt—what?
Bad Penny: Wait! Let me show you some fun gear I picked up at Tribal Fire…
Travis: Gear?
Caroline: Dirty martinis, everyone?
*Beth opens a jar of olives*
Gen: Ok, my lovely blog followers! That’s it for today because the guy I got the booth from has to get it back to the Fair…
Bad Penny: I thought you said it fell off the back of a truck?
*Caroline snickers.*
Gen (clearing her throat): Anyhooo, thank you for joining us today as we interviewed Travis. Please check out his books and social media links below!
TW Luedke is a husband, father, and writer of Urban Fantasy Thriller, Paranormal Romance, Young Adult Fiction, and Sci-fi. He is currently catching a 3rd degree sunburn in San Antonio, Texas, and loving every minute of it.
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Travis-Luedke/e/B00911L5PS/
Blog http://thenightlifeseries.blogspot.com/
Website http://www.twluedke.com/
Twitter https://twitter.com/TWLuedke or @TWLuedke
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/TWLuedke
Facebook author page https://www.facebook.com/pages/TW-Luedke/231016383686967
Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/TWLuedke
Wattpad http://www.wattpad.com/user/TWLuedke
Email twluedke@gmail.com
Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/104267524680678805923/posts
Hulllooooo, my peeps! I have another treat for you, a guest blog from my author colleague Dianne Harman. She’s here to tell us a bit about how her book Blue Coyote Motel came to be.
BLUE COYOTE BACK STORY
by Dianne Harman
I’ve been a reader since before kindergarten and was an English Major in college, but I never felt I had the “necessary credentials” to become a writer. I’d never gone to numerous workshops, joined critique groups or anything else that I thought “real writers” needed to do. Nevertheless, whenever someone would ask me what my dream thing would be I always pictured myself at a computer with a large window looking outdoors next to it and me writing. And so I sit here today at the computer, the large window next to me and a hummingbird nest in my tree! So much for visualization!!!
My husband read a review of Stephen King’s ten-year old book, On Writing, and suggested I read it which I did. It changed my life. Stephen said I could write. I didn’t need to do all the things I thought an author had to do to write. But now what to write?
We were at a wedding in Palm Springs, California where our son was the best man. It was being held in an old renovated downtown hotel. The temperature outside was 106 degrees in October. The air-conditioner was silent, and for what reason I will never know, I turned to my husband as we were getting ready to go out to dinner and said, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if someone put a ‘feel-good’ drug in the air-conditioner and everyone felt good all the time?” He looked at me and said, “There’s your book.” That was the genesis of Blue Coyote Motel.
At dinner that evening a large priest with a huge cross was seated at the table next to us. It was about the time of the Penn State – Jerry Sandusky scandal. The priest became an alcoholic pedophile in my book. At the wedding dinner the next evening I was seated next to a couple who owned gold mines in Brazil. They became characters in the book. And so it went.
I wrote the book on my iPad as the California State Senate was in session and I was in Sacramento, California with my husband without a convenient computer. It went fast. The characters dictated what was going to happen and I simply wrote it down. I thought it would probably go in the bottom drawer of my nightstand and that would be it but I would have fulfilled my dream. My husband asked to read it. Three days later he told me it had to be published. I couldn’t have scripted the rest. I self-published it and a few months later Blue Coyote Motel was chosen as a quarter finalist in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Then, unbeknownst to me, it was chosen as Goodreads Psychological Thriller of the Month. Who would have thunk? Not me. And it’s still selling well after all these months!
I never intended to write a sequel or a series, but the Beta readers and others kept asking me what happened to Maria. The next in the series, Coyote in Provence, is in the final editing stages and the third book has been written and should be out by the end of the year.
I guess the whole lesson is to “bloom where you’re planted.”
BLUE COYOTE MOTEL SYNOPSIS
You’ll never look at motel air conditioning the same way after you read Blue Coyote Motel.
Blue Coyote Motel is a suspense filled thriller about six travelers who stop and spend the night at a remote California desert motel. Each of them leaves the following morning “feeling good,” but unaware that they have inadvertently become addicted to a gaseous drug piped into their rooms.
Jeffrey, the owner of the motel, is a scientist who was recently fired by a prestigious Southern California drug manufacturer for giving an anti-aging hormone he discovered to his beautiful Latina wife. Spinning slowly into the depths of insanity, he decides to test the effectiveness of another of his drug discoveries on unsuspecting motel guests. He calls the drug Freedom because it frees people from depression, anger, stress, grief, and aggression. Jeffrey has grandiose plans to make Freedom available throughout the world in order to bring about peace and harmony, but instead it causes grief and chaos in the lives of the motel guests. The cast of characters includes a defrocked priest, a Native American pediatrician, a wealthy widow, a Brazilian couple who owns gold mines and a salesman intent on finding himself.
Blue Coyote Motel presents an engaging look at the human frailties present in all of us.
ABOUT DIANNE HARMAN
Dianne Harman draws her stories and characters from a diverse business and personal background. She owned a national antique and art appraisal business for many years, leaving that industry and opening two yoga centers where she taught yoga and certified yoga instructors. Dianne has traveled extensively throughout the world, most recently dividing her time between Huntington Beach, California and Sacramento, California, where her husband is a Senator. A gourmet cook, she has entertained Governors, Congressmen and numerous other political figures in her homes. An avid reader, Dianne brings the richness of her life experiences to her novels, Blue Coyote Motel and Tea Party Teddy.
Amazon Book Pages http://amzn.to/SO8uIj & http://amzn.to/ZgKwIB
Goodreads Author Page http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6568284.Dianne_Harman
Facebook Author Page http://www.facebook.com/#!/AuthorDianneHarman
Twitter Username http://www.twitter.com/@DianneDHarman
Website: www.dianneharman.com
*Vivid Dreams*
Leave her be.
Don’t you
ever wake a mental giant.
If you think she is before you and not off away deep in
thought–
Think again.
Her eyes are barely hanging on her own weaving words
while her mind is painting structures in clouds high with
soaring birds.
Her introspection draws a melody with a violet and vivid
glisten,
Her wheels are rapidly turning,
all while
She stands in place to listen.
Leave her be.
Her ungrounded earth is filled with patterns
foreign
to you and me.
Her eyes are not parallel to this globe’s green static lines–
at first glance her thoughts are beneath it…
but when you stop and
Look Again:
Her mind is Clearly Above It.
(Copyright 2013, Original Clyde Aidoo)
~~~~~
*Somewhere*
I do believe there is someone out there for everyone.
There is a woman who can take the weight off
A burdened, oversized man.
A man who can make the most wary woman
Learn to trust again.
A woman who can turn a shy mute
Into the life that makes the party shine.
A man who could make a crippled woman–
Learn to walk Cloud 9.
A woman who won’t care what others think–
Even if the whole world says he’s too ugly.
A man who cares more about what’s inside—
When she thinks she is short and chubby.
There are men and women
who if found,
Would take their liberties:
To free a tortured soul:
Of all insecurities.
And I believe there is a man for every woman.
There is a woman for every breathing man.
I assure you there is someone who’d care,
but for far too many
They are still out there.
(Copyright 2013, Original Clyde Aidoo)
~~~~~
These poems are from Art of Mind III: The Evolution of a Trilogy
Join me tomorrow as I interview Clyde about his poetry and other such things!!! You won’t want to miss it, he’s a hoot! 🙂
Genevieve Dewey 