Thank you, Bonnie Bluss, for hosting me on Sultry Storyteller!

What inspired you to write this book?

I was inspired to write “Gigolo Seduction” after watching an episode of “Gigolos,” simply enough. I was struck by how culturally, we feminize prostitution by demonizing women in the sex trade. Yet we tend to completely overlook men in the industry, and we view them as having a semblance of power that women in the industry don’t have. I was interested in exploring where men who are sex workers compromise their power and how that might explode when confronted by deep emotions.

What were your biggest challenges that you had to face when writing this story?

The biggest challenge in writing this piece was handling the psychology of two very different characters. I had to convey someone who believes himself to be worldly wise realizing he has no clue about his inner landscape, alongside someone who appears to be meager and somewhat simple, yet in the end is the wisest of the two. Because this is a BDSM interaction, I had to show his epiphany through their sexual interaction, but also ground it into a solid emotional reaction. I had to get them through the climax of sex and his catharsis. This wasn’t easy to do, given his general stoicism.

What made you choose the BDSM lifestyle to write about?

For me BDSM is more about the D/s dynamic. I’m far more interested in the psychology of each character and how they fuse to create a space where pain is cathartic and erotic. The whole reason that BDSM works, in reality or fantasy, is because the ego surrenders. Otherwise, characters are just being mean to each other.

Some people dig that, too, though I just don’t find enough range in that interaction to develop a story. I want to develop not just what kink gets characters off, but also convey it sensually enough that even though that kink may not be intellectually palatable to readers, it’s so compellingly raw that they find it hot. In other words, I want to make people crave things they think are offensive. That’s where real release occurs.

You write Paranormal Fiction. Why?

It seems more natural to me, LOL. I’ve had a lot of experience with the wyrd and in my other life I work professionally with helping people resolve intuitive and spiritual issues. I really like bringing that into my fiction. Because I’ve actually had a lot of supernatural experiences I like to think that I can portray them in a way that makes them seem more accessible, thus… creepy. Anytime you can make peoples’ senses turn against them you’ve accomplished an amazing thing. And plots don’t have encompass horror to do that. Just writing on the edge of a common experience and portraying it in a slightly less tangible sensibility can leave readers tingling. I love that!

You write GLBT, what are the challenges you face in that genre?

Gender and sexual orientation are fluid to me, and I’m interested in portraying them as such in my writing. I also like working with alternative relationship dynamics, because once you get to know people, polyamory and swinging are not that alternative. There is a huge audience out there for fiction representing marginalized lovestyles. I think that writing about such lifestyles is challenging because the genre is still niche, and like all others, it has certain expectations of its characters and plots that can be somewhat stereotypical. I will take a hairpin curve in a plot any day over vanilla HEA. Even though there are certain expectations in GLBTP writing, it’s still more liberated than mainstream het erotica.

What are harder scenes to write sexy, combat, or conversation?

Dialogue is very easy for me. If all writing could be dialogue, I’d be relieved of drawing together those vexing plot elements and conflicts. Because I’m very into the psychology of what motivates characters, I’ve got to have clarity of why they do what they do. Even if that motivation doesn’t make it into the story proper, I need to understand it in order to seamlessly weave it all together. Sometimes I have Character A, Conflict X, and Resolution M, but I don’t know how to drive the character to get there, emotionally, or psychologically. Those things have to be present for me to believe my own stories.

I guess for me it’s subtler details that are harder to layer in than the bigger plot progression or character development.

Originally published at Sultry Storytelling.