Good morning! Please welcome guest author Jade Onyx. Though I will be away for most of the day, please feel free to leave comments for Jade and I will post them as soon as I return. Thank you!
~Kate
What is one of your favorite things about writing?
One of my favorite things about writing is meeting my characters and living vicariously through them. They take me on journeys with them. I get excited and happy for them when good things happen. I ache for them and worry about them when bad things happen. I always look forward to seeing where they bring me by the end of the story, because I know they demand their happily ever after (or happy for now) from me.
Sometimes, though, they can irritate me as well. Every character has secrets or negative tendencies they try to hide from me. So I have to be patient and let them reveal their character flaws to me. When I accept them and write them into the story, I feel I have gained enough of their trust to keep the story moving. However, those lulls in writing when they hide themselves from me are excruciatingly long. No matter how much I force myself to sit down and write, they won’t make it easy for me at all. So I’ve learned to live with my characters directing their own scripts and being a channel or vessel for their story to be told.
Trusting my characters in the writing process has actually been very helpful. When I thoroughly disliked getting into my villain’s head while writing a novel-length project, I backed off of advancing on the project at the time. Instead, one set of minor characters from the novel demanded their happiness. So I wrote a novelette for them. Shortly after, another set of minor characters from the novel also demanded their story. So I ended up writing two spin-off novellas (Prison Break and Eat Mì) while taking a break from writing that novel. By the time I went to complete the novel, I had fresh insight into the villain’s motives and knew how to complete the rest of that novel.
Can you write sex scenes at any time or do you have to be “in the mood?”
LOL. I wish it was that easy for me to answer your question!
To be honest, sex scenes are some of the most difficult scenes for me to write. Yes, I said that and that came from an author of erotica! These scenes…gosh, I actually stare at a blinking cursor every time. I find sex scenes hard to write, because I get into the character and the character wants me to write exactly what he or she is feeling, thinking, doing–especially if the scene has finally appeared in the story for the very first time.
The easiest sex scene for me to write was the one that appeared in Prison Break. The sex scenes in Eat Mì and Awake are difficult for me to write because the female protagonist in the former is finally having her first orgasms and the female protagonist in the latter is a virgin exploring her sexuality for the first time in her life. So I have to write enough details to satisfy my characters, capture their experiences in print, and hope they’ve conveyed themselves well enough through me.
Would you tell us about your latest release?
My latest release is Eat Mì. Its alternate title is Eat Me. The latter word in both titles are homophones. I chose the Vietnamese word for “wheat” with the accent mark in place because the male protagonist in the story is an Asian alpha male. Wheat is a food that entered the Vietnamese diet through the French. The title seemed fitting since the love story is between a European (Irish) American woman (Jessica Wyatt) and an Asian American man (An Tang, pronounced On-Tong). So the representation of an English word and a Vietnamese word side by side in the title spoke to me.
Honestly, I met An after I met Jessica. When Jessica’s brother Jeremy in Awake urged her to get her sexy back after yet another disappointing break-up but instead she went to a sex club, I knew then that I wanted to write her story. I mean, here she is a product of Catholic school upbringing and she somehow gets talked into going to a BDSM club–it was too good a story to pass up! As soon as I knew that I wanted to write her story, I went to a one-year-old’s birthday party and on the way home from there An appeared in my mind’s eye. I couldn’t get either Jessica or An off my mind by that point. So the story began to form.
What are you working on now?
I’m completing the novel-length project Awake that originally rerouted me to produce Prison Break and Eat Mì. Actually, Awake is in the critique phase. After revisions, I’ll be sending it off to beta readers before finalizing the book. I expect it out no later than June 2014. I’m crossing my fingers, though, for mid-March.
Awake is about Jeremy Wyatt and Magdalena (Maggie) Martinez. He is healing his wounds from an intense breakup two years ago. She is a graduate fresh out of junior college, whose family fled to San Francisco three years ago from a dark past. Only that past collides with their present and threatens their future.
Even though Prison Break and Eat Mì already provide a taste of my work to readers, I have high hopes for readers to enjoy Jeremy and Maggie’s story in Awake. Awake exists as the intersection of three fields: healing arts, erotica, and romance. I like to coin my work as HER ~ Healing Erotic Romance. I like the acronym because it is feminine, spelling out the word “her.” I also like the acronym because I have a special place for the healing arts, its potential to transform and heal a character as much as sex/sexuality can be a healing force. Same thing goes with romance, since romance also opens doors to a character’s growth. I would love for my stories to touch readers somehow and somehow readers grow with the characters.
What are your favorite genres to read and write?
Until 2013, I had no idea I was into reading or writing fiction. For over a decade before, only my nonfiction work had been anthologized. I always thought I was a nonfiction writer then and the only books I had on my shelf were all nonfiction how-to books. I like DIY stuff! 🙂
2013 was a pivotal year for me because I attended more memorial services than I could count on one hand. Each memorial made me wonder how I would like to be remembered. As I sought within myself, I realized that I desired to take my writing seriously. Researching the traditional publishing industry then, I stumbled upon Shoshanna Evers’ anthology about the self-publishing industry. I would forever be grateful to Shoshanna, because reading her anthology made me realize I was a fiction indie author. Not only that, I found the romance writer within me and thereafter took the bull by the horns.
Even though I never indulged in the romance genre before, I found myself reading Fifty Shades and then Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series. Then I read over 100 more books, claiming it was “research.” Obviously, I became hooked. Still am. So the rest is history. I like reading what others in my field are writing, and I like writing and contributing to that field. So my favorite genre to read and write right now is Romance. BDSM, Contemporary, Historical, Paranormal, Suspense–I’m reading almost everything.
Where can we visit you online?
I love hearing from readers. I write in hopes you would enjoy meeting the characters. So seeing your emails, your reviews, everything matters! I truly appreciate hearing from you.
So definitely friend me on Goodreads. I do write back!
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7305801.Jade_Onyx
Follow and tweet me, too! I write back!
https://twitter.com/JadeOnyxBooks
Friend me on Facebook. Send me a message and I write back.
https://www.facebook.com/JadeOnyxBooks
Sign up for my newsletter, join my street team, and you’ll hear from me.
Really. So connect with me.
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