The authors interview each other. Scary, huh? Delve into our deepest thoughts and weirdest habits. You've been warned...
What happens when the four of us decide to interview each other? Well, maybe you should read on and decide for yourself...
PG: A short story about computers taking over the world. I think I was about ten, at the time. I thought I was making it up. Who knew I was seeing the future?
Melissa: In the mad, passionate throes of pre-teen horse addiction, my frazzled English teacher begged me to do something other than read "The Black Stallion" by Walter Farley another time. Each time I read it, I did another book report from a different angle. It's a wonder she didn't pull all of her hair out. Part of the "intervention" was that I wrote a book of my own, about a horse of course. I still have it a box in the attic and think fondly of it. I am certain it is far better in my memory than if I should ever take it out and ruin that episode of my life by reading it as an adult.
Amelia: I believe it was "The Scary Gost". I still have it, illustrations and all, with clear packing tape for a cover.
What is the hardest thing about writing?
PG: On bad days?verything! LOL! Well, I hate saying good-bye to characters I?e created (one reason I write series, I can postpone the inevitable that way) so endings are sometimes hard...although usually not as hard as beginnings. Sex is hard. Good sex, that is. Okay...writing good sex is hard. Writing bad sex, on the other hand, is horrifyingly easy.
Melissa: Committing to an ending. Seriously, I can come up with plots, ideas and characters all day long - but get within a few pages of the ending and I balk - hard. It's akin to giving up a best friend and is the hardest part of the process.
Amelia: Editing. I get very committed while I write, and going back and deleting always makes me cringe a little. But it ALWAYS leads to a better story.
Do you have a favorite character that you've created?
PG: Oh, yeah, why don? you ask me to choose between my kids next? I have lots of favorites and they change all the time. Usually my favorites are the H/H from the last book I wrote?ever the one I? currently working on. If I had to name just one I suppose I? have to go with Dan Cavanaugh, he was just so much fun to work with.
Melissa: Every time I start a new work, I have a new favorite. There is something about each that I love but I don't think I could pick one above the others. Mothers can't pick a favorite child, well, some do, I wouldn't.
Amelia: Um. I guess of all of them my favorite is probably Rebekah Bonny, the "based on historical figures" female pirate in disguise. The entire story came to me, BAM, like she whispered it in my ear. Love Rebekah's take charge attitude and kick ass style. I also have a soft spot for Jason Bell from The Jason Factor, because he's an awful lot like my own husband, in a lot of ways ;)
What was the last book you read?
PG: Blood Lines by Tanya Huff
Melissa: Faith, Reason and the Plague in Seventeenth Century Tuscany by Carolo M. Cipolla
Amelia: Dirty, Megan Hart (kick-ASS)
What did you eat for breakfast this morning?
PG: Half an English muffin topped with peanut butter, strawberries and coffee (of course).
Melissa: A cup of decaf coffee. I'm not a breakfast person.
Amelia: Luna Bar and coffee (of course, hee)
What's a good day for you?
PG: Uhh...Friday? Any day I don? have to get up early? Any day that? sunny and warm? A day that I? not stressing about getting my newsletter out? A day without a deadline? LOL! Okay, seriously, most days are good. Any day when everyone in the family is being happily creative is pretty near perfect. Throw in a trip to Calistoga?wine tasting, gorgeous scenery, mud baths?and you?e got Nirvana.
Melissa: One where my head doesn't hurt, my shoulder doesn't lock, I don't run into the door jamb on my way out. Asking for my horse not to bite me would be good, I must be tasty or that is how he shows affection, but that would make my top ten. Any day where I can smile and mean it, feel accomplished and have earned it and be at peace is a good day.
Amelia: A day in which I get to write, hang with my kids, hang with my husband and otherwise do absolutely no laundry.
Choose: peanut butter or jam.
PG: Peanut butter
Melissa: Jam, because it goes great with cream cheese and plain in mountain pie makers. However, peanut butter is the fastest way to quiet a barking dog - they love it and it sticks to the roof of the mouth until gone. As you can guess, we have an unusual household.
Amelia: Peanut butter, chunky
Besides your husband, who is the hottest guy on the planet?
PG: More choosing??? Naw, this one? impossible. There are far too many. That? be like choosing what kind of chocolate I like best.
Melissa: Oh wow. A part of me immediately did the fan-girl squeal for Johnny Depp. He was astounding in Pirates et al as well as The Libertine and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Then I remember Val Kilmer in Willow and just about everything else. The man is awesome, even when playing a gay man. But for oozing raw sex appeal and not losing it by being a dink in private life (sorry Russell Crowe, you blew your chance) - I've got to go with Mark Wahlberg. I'm his age and remember the days of Marky Mark not with derision but with genuine...concern. I sat in my college dorm and watched his one music video and felt bad for him. Good looking guy, had that bad-boy edge and some boy-band pimp of a producer was lining up a just legal guy to do softcore videos. Mark just has a primal sexual aura that is impressive. And he'd probably get a restraining order if he could read this...lol!
Amelia: Johnny, of course.
What? the strangest thing you've ever learned while doing research for a book?
PG: Well, the fact that a bullet will travel for miles unless something gets in the way and stops it was (and still is) very shocking to me. But probably the weirdest thing I?e ever learned about is the ?remolo technique (also known as vibrato), with which some guitarists claim they can access something called the ?aginal frequency and bring women to orgasm just by playing the right notes. I? love a demonstration, wouldn? you?
Melissa: That real fluffers on the set of pornographic movies wear latex gloves, condoms and plastic eye wear "just in case". I even got a story in email from one person (nameless) about how one woman worse a poncho styled rain coat and booties.
Amelia: Boy that's a good question. Writing the wacky adventures I do leads some very strange places. Probably something to do with possible mutations in genes while researching Triple X. Two headed cats, for example. Weird.
Do you have any odd writing habits?
PG: I think I have nothing but odd writing habits. The worst (and, Amelia, I think this fits right in with yours) is that I occasionally will ?rite out loud (dialogue, narrative and sound effects. Eek.) which, yes, is verrry interesting when you write erotica.
Melissa: I don't think so. I'll have to have someone watch me and make commentary.
Amelia: It turns out I can't write a sex scene if anyone I know is near me. Even the husband! I have to go to an anonymous coffee shop or be alone in the house. Can't really explain that one.
Which of your characters is the most like you?
PG: I think I relate to most of them...although it scares me how well I understand some of my villains. But I? say I share most in common with either Gabby from Waiting for the Big One or Lucy from the Oberon series. You know?ither talkative, impulsive, loves animals or bossy, opinionated and hot tempered.
Melissa: Hmmm... I'd have to say a combination of Flora Daniels from Forget Me Knot and Amber Fordyce from Trickster's Folly (work in progress). Both are unconventional ladies. Flora has a smile for everyone and tries hard to hide her hurts behind it. She marches to her own drummer - she even wore a camouflage dress to her high school prom. And she has an affinity for plants. Amber is not beautiful, she has scars and manly ways. She is strong physically and holds a job that is traditionally male. There is also her hair trigger fuse on her temper. But on the inside she is very insecure - the rage and anger the world sees masks how she feels so unneeded, unnecessary as a result of a not so hot childhood. My childhood was good, but there were things that happened that instilled the very same feelings.
Amelia: Me? I don't write Mary Sues. No, no no...okay probably Abby Conner, Triple X. She, um, likes the music I do, listens to the podcasts I do, and gets to play with two hot men like I...wish I did. Tee hee.
Why do you write what you write? What (or who) got you started?
PG: I was writing a mystery and my characters staged a coup and turned it into Romance. But the day I gave a friend a scene to read and she called me later to say, "I read your scene and called my boyfriend and told him, ?ome home now!? was when I realized that writing erotica was much more fun than writing suspense!
Melissa: Honestly? I kept getting rejected by the horror and science fiction/fantasy folks while readers on my journals and message boards exploded in praise for my sexual tales. I changed gears.
Amelia: I've been writing erotica since I was old enough to do so--around high school I wrote little dirty stories right next to the maudlin poetry in my journal. I blame Stephen King. And when I discovered erotic ebooks, my first being Triad by Lauren Dane, I thought "why not give it a whirl"? And now here we are.
What was the funniest and/or weirdest response you ever got to something you've written?
PG: I think the most off the wall response I?e ever gotten was from my sister, who read the first scene of Scent of the Roses and asked, "Is the whole book autobiographical?" I still haven? figured out what she meant by that. This is a woman who? known me her entire life and, trust me, there are very few parallels between Scout? background and my own.
Melissa: I had a lady write to me and ask about Mars, if he was based on a real dog - she had a female Chihuahua and wanted to have puppies. If she didn't live in Michigan I would have taken her up on it - I want puppies too.
Amelia: Let's just say a BDSM story goes over...interestingly...in a critique group full of stodgy folks. Heh. No one ever said I was shy.
If you weren't a writer, what would you be?
PG: Well, I?e certainly tried other jobs out. I?e been an admin, an editor, a manager, a cook, a buyer, a garment worker, a docent, a meat packer, a film stylist, a kennel attendant, an activist, a nightclub promoter, a shipping clerk, a ghost writer, a respite caregiver and a minister, among others. Some of them contemporaneously. I think, if I didn? write I? probably have become a veterinary technician. Or possibly a photo retoucher.
Melissa: A farmer and a violinist. I'm already a wife and a mom. I've been a trail guide, dishwasher, security system installer, reporter, engineer, short-order cook, dance teacher, cocktail server, equipment designer, gymnastics instructor, and technical writer among other things. Only natural I'd be a writer after all that...lol. There really isn't much left.
Amelia: What I am now, for my day job. Nope, not telling--a girl can't reveal all her secrets now can she? But how lucky am I to have two jobs I totally love? Well, either those or swimming with dolphins...or...heh
What is your favorite quote, writing or otherwise?
PG: "Never think that a small group of committed people cannot change the world. It is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead. Either that or my personal motto (attributed to one of my characters, Chay Johnson) "If you can? laugh at yourself, you?e taking life too seriously."
Melissa: "You might have lost the battle but you haven't lost the war."
Amelia: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Albert Einstein
Favorite erotic novel you didn't write (don't chicken out, pick one)?
PG: Sigh. Favorites are hard! And, honestly, most of my favorites were written by my CPs and I? not choosing between their ?ids either. So I guess I am going to chicken out (a little) and pick Anais Nin? Delta of Venus. Not quite a novel, but it? among the first erotica I read. What really impresses me about that book (especially now, as a writer) is the fact that she writes scene after scene after scene and never seems to repeat herself.
Melissa: Deva Dasi by Ataullah Mardaan
Amelia: Um. I have a special place in my heart for the Kensington Ladies Erotica Society. My first pron.
Band/Music most often played on your iPod/Stereo?
PG: It totally changes with every book I write. Currently I? listening to a lot of Ray Charles, the Notting Hill soundtrack, Vanessa Carleton and Snow Patrol. (the previous book required a mix of grunge rock, along with Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews, Melissa Etheridge and Jewel
Melissa: Industrial Rock - Rob Zombie
Amelia: Great Big Sea. When I write, usually the Firefly/Serenity soundtracks or the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack. Or some other movie score--the perfect blend of ups and downs to write by.
Non-writing hobbies?
PG: Uh, does reading count? Sculpting. Cooking. If I had the space, I? like to get into quilting. Various mixed-media crafts.
Melissa: crochet, read, play violin, puzzles and woodwork
Amelia: Reading, crafts, diaper changing (okay, so I don't have much time for hobbies lately :)
Most guilty pleasure?
PG: I don't do guilt. So I'll go with Macadamia nuts. I can go through a six dollar jar of them in a day. I hide them in my desk and I don? share.
Melissa: I'm a B movie fanatic - and not necessarily horror. I have "B" as in "Bad" movies like The Pirate Movie, Pandemonium, Big Trouble in Little China and many many more. When we have guests I am not allowed to pick the movie for the evening.
Amelia: Ice cream and loud sex. Actually, I only feel guilty about the ice cream.