Everyone please help me in welcoming Annie Alvarez to XtraOrdinary Romance.
Annie is a relative newcomer to the scene but I find her stories utterly fascinating and I hope you will as well.
Welcome Annie!
At what age did you realize you wanted to be a writer?
I've always fiddled around with writing but it wasn’t until I turned the ripe age of 40 that I started getting serious about it. Call it my mid-life crisis.
What has been your biggest influence on becoming a writer?
Giving something to the lesbian community. Let’s face it the straight world has a ton of wonderful movies, books and what-not’s but lesbian really don’t have a role model, per se. Bella’s got Edward, Sookie has Bill, and now Izzy has Tamara.
How did you feel when you got your first publishing contract?
Oh my god, I just about fell out of my chair! I couldn’t believe it when I got the email from eXtasy’s EIC saying they would take my book.
How many novellas/novels have you published to date? When did you have your first sale?
To date, I have 3, For the Love of Blood, Cheating Death and Dying to Live.
My first book, For the Love of Blood was published on April fool’s day 2009. Pretty cool isn’t it?
Tell me about your latest release. Please include if it is part of a series or a stand alone book.
Well, my latest release is, Dying to Live, book 3 of the Hightower series and it’s all about Izzy helping Tamara deal with becoming human again. And no, it’s not that simple, you see, in becoming human, Tamara is dying and Izzy must find a way to save her while dealing with the vixen, Celeste. Lustful Torment, book 4 is all in Tamara’s point-of-view so we get to see things from a different angle on that on. What was your inspiration for this book?
To give our community a vampire heroine to call their own. Kim Harrison has Rachael and Ivy. Jasmine Galenorn has Menolly. Underworld has Selena. Now we have Izzy and Tamara.
How do you categorize yourself: pantser or plotter?
Definitely the pantser! I get an idea and run with it. I run hard too, letting nothing get in my way of the ultimate goal- a fantastic story! If I start the whole planning process, I get too involved with the what-ifs and never get around to writing my stories.
How do you handle the editing/revision process?
I love it! Tex is a wonderful editor and makes the whole editing/revision process painless. He always has wonderful suggestions and is a charm to work with. I couldn’t ask for a better editor!
You’re received some fantastic reviews...how do you feel about them and why?
I couldn’t be happier. I think they hit dead-on considering that I’m still technically a new writer. I’m hoping that as time goes by and I get better that my reviews will get better too. It takes time and patience to get where I want to be, but it will happen.
Did anything odd happen while you were researching this story?
Funny you should ask that. Let me start by saying that my life is odd to begin with but yeah, things have gotten even stranger. I’ve had a few strangers randomly ask me if I believe that vampires exist or mention that erotica is a hot subject right now and carry on full conversations at the checkout line about this. Strange…
Do your characters take over the story?
Absolutely! I basically let my character have full reign and they’re not shy, they take it believe me. Sometimes, it’s Izzy screaming the loudest in my head, sometimes it’s Tamara that takes over and before I know it, I’m writing out a scene for her that should have been Izzy’s.
How much of yourself can we find in one of these books? Do you every make yourself a character?
My partner once said that there is a little bit of me in all my characters but that I resemble Tamara the best. Maybe it’s my charming personality or my sinister sarcasm. Either way, Tamara and I do have a lot in common, for instance, we both love black biker boots. :-)
Is humor important in today’s women’s fiction?
Of course. Let’s face it, life is too serious as it is and just because someone writes an erotica or a romance book doesn’t mean that you can’t be real about it. People say funny things, we think funny things, hell, sometimes we even do funny things in the middle of a crisis. I once heard about a friend having a major argument with her husband and she dropped her pants and told him to talk to her cheeks. That’s funny! So yes, humor is very important. :-)
Are love scenes difficult or easy for you to write? Why?
Both. The basic premise of a love scene is always the same, person A meets person B, and sparks fly. What’s difficult is writing it in such a way to entice the reader. What if person B, has other plans for person A? What if, it’s not as simple as sparks fly when they meet? Now you’ve got something different to offer the reader.
What is the biggest piece of your advice you can give a beginning writer?
Don’t ever, ever give up! I sent my first book out to a plethora of publishing houses and when I did get a response back, it was the standard, no thank you. I did this for 2 years, finally got tired of the rejection and packed everything up. Yes, I gave up on it. One day, while surfing the internet, I found this one publishing house I had never heard of and guess what? They took my story and ran with it. Now I have three published eBooks, and I’m working on my fourth. So again I say, don’t ever give up. If one publisher doesn’t like your book, try another, have faith in yourself.
Annie’s Bio: I live in Texas with my partner of 12 years. I never really understood why biographies are so serious, after all, it is about getting to know the author better, isn’t it?
I started writing a few years ago, and have had all of my friends read everything I write. Some stories are good, and some deserved what I call the file 13 (a really big Texas size shredder!) I finally found a niche that I do well in…erotica. I figured this out when I would send copies of a rough draft home with friends, and they would return it with missing pages. Yes, it took me a while to get it- my girlfriend says I'm a little dense.
I have two published books, For The Love Of Blood and Cheating Death, both are part of The Hightower Series I'm working on and Sessions is at the publishers waiting for its debut. I’m hoping that you like my style enough to keep reading. I love writing lesbian erotica because I am a lesbian, and because my mind has its own way of working, I occasionally write about… straight sex. And yes, I need to seek outside help when I write about guys. Yeah, yeah, it’s been that long and don’t give me the, it’s like riding a bike. Bike’s have a nice cushy seat on them!!
I hope to see more of you at the bookstore.
You can find Annie at:
http://www.anniealvarez.net/
http://www.extasybooks.com/
Amazon
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/
http://www.goodreads.com/
http://www.hs.facebook.com/AnnieAlvarez
http://www.myspace.com/anniesreality
http://coffeetimeromance.com/board
Thank you, Lynn! It’s been fun. We’ll have to do this again soon.
You are so very welcome, Annie! I really enjoyed it!
Readers, don't forget to get your name in the hat for a free ebook from Annie by commenting. One winner will be announced next week.
Have a great week everyone!
Lynn
Today we have the wonderful, A.J. Llewellyn with us. Help me welcome him to XtraOrdinary Romance.
Thanks for being here today, A.J.!
At what age did you realize you wanted to be a writer?
Hi Lynn, thanks so much for having me here. I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was eight years old. That was when I wrote my first book. Yes, I did! I wrote it in an exercise book by hand. It was called “Ararat” and I thought it was a masterpiece. It was about a little boy who finds out he is dying of cancer and he loves horses. Everybody died at the end, even his horses. My father encouraged me to get away from writing after he found the book. He suggested I take up soccer instead!
What has been your biggest influence on becoming a writer?
My mother’s death when I was six has influenced my whole life I think. I have always filled every second, particularly since she died at the age of 36 (colon cancer). I honestly thought I would be dead by 36 and so I wanted to make sure I lived a full and productive life. Surviving my 36th birthday in good health was a milestone. A sad one however. Had colonoscopies been available when she was alive, my doctor who routinely checks me and my brothers, told me she would probably still be alive. I started writing very young as a way of communicating with her.
How did you feel when you got your first publishing contract?
I was very excited. I ghost wrote a celebrity memoir and I didn’t mind my name not being on the cover. I minded working with the celebrity (who shall remain nameless) who was a complete head case, but I got a book out of it – Beyond the Reef, published by eXtasy Books in August 2008 was based on my experiences. So I am grateful. I worked on a movie with this guy who, like a lot of A list actors has it in his contract that extras and crew members can’t look them in the eye. I’d never heard about it before but it’s very common. Do you have any idea how hard it is to talk to someone and not be able to make eye contact? LOL…
How many novellas/novels have you published to date? When did you have your first sale?
I have 36 novels and novellas, several short stories and many more in the editor’s queue with a few publishers. eXtasy Books is my predominant publisher, but I have books coming out elsewhere too. My first sale to eXtasy in 2007 but the actor’s memoir came before that, plus I was a published journalist long before this.
Tell me about your latest release. Please include if it is part of a series or a stand alone book.
I actually have release dates every two weeks, but my current release as of November 15 will be Bad Cops, the second of a series of movie/webisode tie-ins with Massive Studios, a division of Falcon Films.
What was your inspiration for this book?
Director John Bruno who is a very good friend of mine was staggered by my output and also the heat of my sex scenes. He read my book Phantom Lover and he was excited at the prospect of it possibly becoming a movie. He directs gay porn but is very big on story, which porn is not exactly known for…so he brought four ideas to me, the first of which was Laid (published September 15) and I am excited about Bad Cops because the webisodes are available at the time of the book’s release. It’s the first joint venture of its kind for an erotic fiction novel and a studio. Eventually the webisodes will all make it to DVD – early next year I believe.
How do you categorize yourself: pantser or plotter?
A mix of both. I allow the story to wander if it feels like it. My characters are kinda bossy, you know lol…
How do you handle the editing/revision process?
Edits are vital obviously so you don’t look like a dumb-ass when your book comes out but I don’t require many revisions. I am a storyteller and I just power through the drafts. My problem is stuff like commas and the odd typo because I work so fast.
You’re received some fantastic reviews...how do you feel about them and why?
I love my reviews, honestly but they don’t ensure sales, so I keep them in perspective. I prefer the reviews where you can tell the reviewer has actually read the book. When they use the wrong names for your characters and depict a storyline that has nothing to do with your book, that’s a big give-away!
Did anything odd happen while you were researching this story?
Yes, I went to the set of Bad Cops and I probably shouldn’t say this – but my readers know I am a stickler for details and research, so I insisted that I needed to see the warehouse depicted in my book, but I got all excited and went down to the set and the actor on call that day blew off the shoot! He never returned calls or text messages and said later on that he was busy and unable to call her text. It’s hard to lie about these things when you are an avid Twitter (and so am I) and I see that during the time we were waiting for you that you were tweeting every five seconds from the set of another movie!!
Porn is like this though. I’ve discovered that flakiness is second nature and that all that hot sex requires a lot of nurturing from the director and the videographer.
Now, if you had a choice of taking the place of any character in any book you have ever read, who would it be and why?
I would be one of the characters in the Chronicles of Narnia, because those are the most magical books ever. I think I would want to be Peter – or Lucy even though she is a girl. I love those stories and re-read them often. I would love to meet Aslan and have all those adventures that take years and years in fantasy but only minutes in real time!
If you could time travel, where would you go?
I would go back to 1896 and to the city of Honolulu during the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. This was the United States’ first foreign invasion and its first overthrow of a sovereign rule. I would give anything to have been there helping Queen Lili’uokalani protect her throne. I wish I had come to know her. She must have been a wonderful woman. Hawaii during this time would have been both incredibly beautiful and dangerous, with the islands still undeveloped, but also with so many different cultures meeting at a climactic moment in time. Great change brought with it disease and destruction. I would like to have been witness to all of it.
If you could spend the day with anyone in the world who is famous, who would it be? Why did you choose them and what would you do?
Without question, it would be the Dalai Lama. I have so many questions for him and would like the chance to meet him and to ask his thoughts on so many things. I have read many of his teachings but I am curious about ordinary things as much as his view on the state of the world, the environment and I also want to know if he has any guilty pleasures such as cupcakes. If not, I would take him out for tea and ask him a billion questions and send him home with some Hawaiian music, one of my books and some coconut cupcakes!
What is your typical writing routine? Do you count words, pages or time?
I write every day and I count words. I write 3-5,000 words minimum. Any less and I get agitated because I have so many deadlines. I am always writing one book. Editing another and researching more. I read a lot too and get lots of ideas for books from everything including conversations I overhear, travel magazines and…well, everything! I write as soon as I have made my first cup of coffee. I work for a couple of hours and walk my dog. If I am not rushing off to work, I tackle the business end of things, emails, blogs, twitter, that sort of thing. I write every chance I get, even when I am walking my dog, I carry a notebook and pen with me.
Who and what are you reading now?
I read constantly. You can’t be a writer and not read. It’s one of the many things I have learned and I read as much as possible. Right now, I am reading a wonderful book, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. I work in a library and this is the book everybody I work with has been reading and they passed it on to me. The last book that got us all worked up was Beethoven’s Hair. Three Cups of Tea is a remarkable, true story about a man who built fifty-five schools for girls in the most strictly-controlled Muslim sections of Pakistan. I strongly recommend it.
What authors and books have influenced your writing over the years?
I love memoirs such as Isabella Bird’s Six Months in the Sandwich Islands and Armine Von Tempski’s memoirs of growing up in the islands. I also read all her Hawaiian novels. I devoured Victoria Nelson’s book My Time in Hawaii and loved it. She also wrote a fabulous book on writer’s block. I think the definitive, go-to guide for writers however has to be Stephen King’s On Writing. I don’t believe in writer’s block, by the way. I believe if you’re stuck, move on to something else. That was one of the first lessons I learned from William Goldman. If you get stuck, it’s because your story has gone off the rails. Leaving it alone and coming back, you’ll find where your train train off track and you can fix it!
I learn from non fiction writers…I love travel journals and love the sort of writing that makes you feel like you are there. I hope my books read that way. I love when my readers tell me they feel like they just visited Hawaii by reading one of my books!
Did someone every give you a great piece of advice along the way? What was it?
Yes! I just spent and evening with actress/author Harley Jane Kozak who passed on some great advice, which was about research. She said she learned that when she’s researching an unfamiliar topic for a book she doesn’t go out and buy the fanciest, newest adult, or even YA book on a subject. She gets children’s books because the facts are distilled to their most basic level. I loved that advice!
A.J.’s Bio: A. J. Llewellyn lives in California, but dreams of living in Hawaii. Frequent trips to all the islands, bags of Kona coffee in his fridge and a healthy collection of Hawaiian records keep this writer refueled. A. J. loves male/male erotica, has a passion for all animals (especially the dog, the cat and the turtle). A. J. believes that love is a song best sung out loud.
Find A.J. here:
www.ajllewellyn.com
email: aj@ajllewellyn.com
www.twitter.com/ajllewellyn
www.facebook.com/aj.llewellyn
www.myspace.com/ajllewellyn
Thanks for having me here, Lynn!
You are so welcome! I really enjoyed this A.J.! It was interesting to hear you enjoyed Three Cups of Tea as much as I did...it was very inspirational...as you well know.
Thanks for taking part in my 2 for Thursday promotion.
Also, for those of you just dying to know...A.J. will give one lucky winner their choice of books. I post these winners late Wednesday night and all you have to do be entered is to leave A.J. a comment.
Good luck everyone! Thanks for dropping by!
Lynn
Hi everyone!
The winners of last week's drawing are:
For Courtney Breazile's Reincarnated Death Wish is boonebrux.
For Tierney O'Malley's Wicked Proposal is Nathan Lamirand.
Winners, please email me at lynncrain@cox.net and I will send you your prize.
Thanks for stopping by to see us at XtraOrdinary Romance and see you all next week!
Lynn
