Writer's Quirks, Strange Research and a New Venture

I live with a writer (he's on the left). We've been together many, many years. I can't deny that such creative cohabitation has great benefits. Jon and I are each other's sounding board. We fill in the gaps for each other. We proofread for each other. This symbiosis was especially important early in our relationship. I was not trained in screenwriting, and Jon was not a writer of prose fiction. In theory, the arrangement should have been simple. I do characters. Jon does visuals. We both work on the concept and the outline. Easy peasy lemon squeezy – it is not.

The big issue is that Jon hates doing re-writes. Who doesn't, right? I am quite famous for reacting so badly to the term 'notes' that my production partners warn the note-makers in advance that they best have complete confidence in their schooling, experience, and taste (depending on my mood) or Deb is really going to hurt your feelings. And I'm known as the nice one. Oh, there were many meetings I was glad Jon wasn't a part of such is his dislike for re-writes. That said, I do know that re-writes are inevitable for various reasons that involve anything from money (remind me to tell you about the animatronic cow we wanted for our Vampire film, Demon Under Glass) to logistics, creative input from the cast and/or crew, and audience reaction. Only Paddy Chayefsky got away with not changing one word of a script, and I'm fairly certain that only happened once.

Somehow, we've made our personal styles mesh well enough to write scripts in a timely fashion with little household tension. I found that I've picked up a lot of Jon's methods for outlining and figuring out what is wrong when I hit a wall while writing fiction. And he's been learning about writing fiction from me. He experimented with all kinds of styles when writing some chapters of the insanely long fanfic saga. Jon was so good at mimicking my voice that very few readers spotted the difference between my chapters and his. For the most part, the Logs were written quickly to respond to episodes and irk the writers for the show. They were also writing experiments.

And then came Life on the Periphery, Jon's collection of short fiction. First off, I must emphatically state that the book is brilliant. That made coping with 'he who shall not re-write' worth the considerable consternation. The protracted research process featured questions about such disparate topics as teenaged girls in the Dust Bowl era, abandoned spouses in olde timey Arabia, personality quirks of the jinn, security protocols at Auschwitz, and courting rituals of young men in 1920s Ohio. The questions tended to pop up randomly and in no particular order. Life was quite interesting during that time. He kept this gal on her toes.

 The range of the collection is breathtaking. He has a truly unique perspective and expresses that with keen insight, great wit, and delightful whimsy. I freely admit that it was so good that I was annoyed. It was his first collection. Who hits a grand slam the first time at bat? When I think about it, I'm glad the collection turned out so well. 

The current book is a novel, but it still involves a wide range of research. Jon has two expert consultants working with him, but the questions keep coming. How do you eat French onion soup (chew, then sip); what do you know about Noh Theater (next to nothing); if you get soaked in the rain, should the clothes come off as soon as possible (yes). Over the past several weeks, he's been through the Concept Stage, the Outline, and the Detailed Outline. He's five chapters into the writing now. The first thing Jon's discovered is that characters are harder to control over a longer arc. That was quickly followed by the revelation that no matter how careful the outline, a plot can be stubbornly wayward.

What do Jon's adventures with writing have to do with mine? Isn't it a distraction? It does seem so when I write it down like this, but I find his drive encourages me when I am wallowing in rough waters with my own work. That said, Jon has derailed me while writing love scenes here and there with the sheer weirdness of some of the questions. That is rare though. It's encouraging to have another writer in the house. Keeps our eyes on the prize, so to speak. And pulling me out of the deep malaise I was in was no easy feat.

Updates

I'm basically finished writing the short story that's taken forever. Its title is Pedestal. I'm working on a few illustrations before going back to proofread and tweak. As I've said before, the story will be free to download. I'll also post it on my Yaoi Blog page. This my gift to the readers for their patience and understanding. I've written an outline for the next Ensnared book while working on the short story. I wasn't planning on that, but a certain character loves hogging attention. Other novels and shorts are in the works. I worked on the next Vampire Rent Boy when I got stuck with the current short story.

Speaking of keeping our eyes on the prize, I was seriously stressed over the thought of having to take on freelance work to keep our heads above water during this situation with the Feds. Before my diagnosis, I worked jobs that didn't drain my mental energy. That way, I could write quite a bit while I was off. The gigs I'm looking at now require a lot of mental and/or creative energy.

I think the worry was evident in my last Author Page post. Several lovely readers strongly suggested that I consider starting a Patreon account. I've considered this before, but I couldn't figure out what perks I could give that anyone would want. The latest person to suggest a Patreon sent links to other authors who had an account. I was surprised at the average minimum ($3.00) and at how simple and easy the perks could be. So – I'm gonna create a Patreon account! It will be a few weeks before I roll it out. First, I must publish Pedestal, Second, I want to plan it carefully and get a jump on the crafting the perks. Thank you to those who suggested the notion.

This is both exciting and terrifying.

An excerpt from Pedestal will be available tomorrow!

Stay tuned!

Muses, Inspirations, and...Jon

It's been a while since my last blog. I thought I'd warm up with a writer's blog. The question I'm answering from my readers is 'Where do my ideas come from?'

I suppose if a casual reader looked at my body of erotica works, the variety of themes that have no relation to one another must look odd. No two settings are alike. The titles that are in the works will likely cause more confusion than clarity. Let's see, there is a new title set in the Regency era of England and another that is in the corporate world of Manhattan and rarefied world of the Hamptons. These will join the other series that span realms that have magical elves and dragons to a New Jersey town where the children of the night hang out in dive bars. My head is often a rollicking, boisterous place.

But how does this happen? The short answer is it's Jon fault. I'll explain that in a little while. Let's do a mini countdown, shall we?

3. I was going to write fanfic because I loved/hated the original then decided to do new work.

The Surrender books originated with my mad love for Lord of the Rings fanfic. There were some works that were so amazing that I was convinced the writers were closeted professionals. I adored

their takes on the characters and how they immersed readers in those realms. So, I wanted to try my hand. I was already an infamous fanfic writer with a few series going. Then, I was chatting with an Industry friend who argued that I should spend all of that creative energy on something that could provide an income. That was true. Fanfic never kept me from writing scripts or doing Producer things, but I was hungry for some professional creativity that didn't involve budgets and fighting with my own department heads.

The Surrender books set out to be a typical fantasy romance. It really did. But as Jon often says, I can't resist subverting tropes and then making that twisted version seem reasonable. That is what makes me a very dangerous Domme when I have a mind to be. Thus, the story of a royal princess who is forced to marry in order to save her kingdom becomes a tale of subtle Dominance and submission. I even tried to beat the record for the longest first sex scene that is still held by the amazing Thea Devine (her real name) at over 100 pages. My first love scene didn't get that far, but it was still a hoot. My only regret with those books even though I really loved writing them is that I held back on the fantasy elements, and I haven't written the third book. Well, I'm fixing that with some major re-writes (I'm going for that record adding the magic) and the newest volume!

Let's move on to the titles that inspired me via blind, boiling rage and hatred. The first was the Ensnared series. Yes, this epic series full of fun characters and hot loving was one of the titles born of rage. I'm not going to get into a debate about pop culture influencing bad behavior. These are my own reactions to tropes that have impacted me or someone I know in profoundly negative ways. BDSM is wildly misunderstood by the general public thanks in large part to ridiculous depictions in various forms of media. This is especially true in Yaoi. I was new to the sub-genre when I first ran across Ai no Kusabi. While it wasn't the worst non-con I'd ever seen, it was the one with the prettiest characters and the most compelling voice performances. Thus, it was popular and often held up as representative of the entire genre. This was a problem for me because I was trying to expand the market for Yaoi fiction beyond straight women to include gay men. They rightfully had a problem with the tropes in that title and many others. What to do? When Jon runs across a book or film he doesn't like, he takes similar concepts and weaves a better tale. It is a long tradition in literature. Hemingway did it in Torrents of Spring. Joe Haldeman did it with The Forever War. I set out to turn the all-powerful Seme and the powerless uke love story on its head with a romance that made sense while indulging in lots of BDSM sexy time. Ensnared became way more than I expected, but I am enjoying the ride too much to give it up entirely.

The other title that fits in this category and the next is my response to a film that thankfully had limited distribution called The Pet though it also works as a response to the equally vile 50 Shades books and films. See below for a brief mention of The Proposal.

2. Continuations of my own themes.

Thus far, there is only one title in this category though there is a second in the works that began as a script. The first is the Soldiers Series. This series is an extension of the novelization of our film, Demon Under Glass. Vincent and Rik are the end results of experimentation that began in that film. At the time I wrote A Soldier's Choice, I was much enamored with Conqueror of Shambala so my protagonists vaguely resembled those men, but the entire mythos for the series is ours. Why yes, I did notice that the theme resembles the new series The Passage. I noticed enough to have a hard look at when those books were written and by whom. Ours predate his novel by a few years. I suppose Vampire super soldiers come up in more than one head. And just as the Passage is neither Demon Under Glass or the Soldiers series, my titles are not Conqueror of Shambala. Inspiration comes from many places. The Soldiers series will continue with a fourth book and the script we wrote will become a webcomic.

The Proposal script never got past the treatment stage. My cancer diagnosis derailed it for a while. The success of 50 Shades made me rethink trying to make a controversial film first. I'm serializing a novel right now that I will release in installments as ebooks followed by a combined print book. If the series catches the right eyes, I still want to do a film.

1. It's Jon's fault.

Somewhere during our many years together, Jon became my muse. He didn't do it on purpose. He just has this way of summing up something in a few words that make for a great starting point. In the Industry, it's called The High Concept (Miami Vice's High Concept pitch was MTV Cops, for example). He's directly responsible for Vampire Rent Boy. That happened while we were looking at a stock image website for art to go with The Companion. We came across the image of a pale face beauty in a top hat and vaguely Victorian clothing, and Jon said 'Vampire Rent Boy.' And I was off to the races. By the way, I really did hang out in a bar like Muttley's in Hoboken when I worked in Manhattan ages ago. A few doors down was the bakery that would be run by the Cake Boss years later. But I digress.

Another time, we were chatting about how any job can become a chore (even filmmaking). Jon wondered if sex bot builders would continue to masturbate after working in such a place. That comment resulted in a short story that is least like me – sexy but darker than dark and depressing. I wrote Product Development for an anthology years ago and will publish it soon as an ebook novella. More recently, he became obsessed with a Reese Witherspoon TV ad that featured a bizarrely designed decanter. That led me to comment that Mykos would think that design was the real reason a civilization fell. And I was off and running with the next Ensnared. I'd been grasping for a beginning for weeks. Jon is also responsible for my writing a Yaoi romance by way of Regency Era England. Well, Jon and Midsomer Murders.

This is my process – such that it is. To find all of my available titles, you can visit my Amazon Author page here: https://www.amazon.com/D.L.-Warner/e/B002BREP2O

Next Blog – Who are my characters based on? Where DOES that dialog come from?

Stay tuned!