Hello Kory! Thank you
so much for visiting Written Butterfly with me today! It’s such a pleasure to chat with you. So tell me…
Q) How did you dream up the dynamics of your characters?
This is a great question, and I had to think about it for a
few minutes. My two MC’s came to life in May, 2016. That seems like such a long
time ago now. When I sat down in front of my computer and began to think about
the opening setting of what has become
From Lightning to Love, the first novel in
my
Lightning Series, the image of a darkened
room with a solitary, weary figure appeared to me. I wondered, why is he weary?
What is his story? What brought him to this place and time? Like a match held
to dry tinder, Jason’s story suddenly blazed before me. It was all I could do
to write it out because the images and his backstory appeared in my mind at
breakneck speed.
Aaron’s story and history took more time and unfolded in
bits and pieces, but as I wrote one scene after another, more and more of his
life was revealed to me.
At the core of the story, I wanted to show that LGBTQ people
are no different then heterosexuals. Their dreams and desires to live fulfilled
lives are just as strong, and their need to leave something important behind is
just as important. Creating the environment in which Jason and Aaron live will
allow them to build Nathan’s Promise, an LGBTQ(S) physical rehabilitation
center and there’s much more to come.
Q) Is this book part of a series? If so, can you tell us about it?
Once I completed the first rough draft, I read through it
and recognized that the lead character, Jason (who was given a different name)
was actually the Jason from a manuscript I began to write back in 2003. I
realized then that the reason I wasn’t able to finish that manuscript was the
clock needed to jump twenty years into the future in order for me to see where
Jason was headed. When that happened the life he will build with Aaron opened
up to me. I’ve written the first three installments and there are a total of
six planned. That old manuscript will now become the prequel to the series and
will be released after the final installment is written.
With each book, Jason and Aaron face a new challenge that
they must overcome. In the first book, Jason discovered an injured and
unconscious Aaron hanging by his torn parachute from a tree on his property. In
the second book,
Lightning’s Hidden Menace, Jason and Aaron
must fight for their lives after a former nemesis of Jason hunts them down with
the intention of killing them both. In the third book, they assemble a team and
begin to plan for the construction of Nathan’s Promise, but once again, fate
seems to be against them when a chain of events threatens everything they’ve
accomplished.
Q) Can you give a fun or interesting fact about your
book?
The setting for the story was very important because it had
to be isolated to ensure that Jason would need to rely on his former medic
training to care for Aaron alone, without the possibility of outside help. I
chose one of the most remote regions of the continental United States, the
Wasatch Range in the Bear River Mountains of Idaho. As a result, the location
has created some wonderful new strategic and logistical challenges for the
characters and the storyline.
Q) What gave you the inspiration for your book?
In a nutshell, my inspiration for the
Lightning Series was my desire to show that gay men are no different then
anyone else in their needs, wants, and desires to live full, enriched, and
meaningful lives.
Q) Do you have any habits that get you in the writing
frame of mind?
I’m a pantser in that I write by the seat of my pants. I can
go weeks without writing anything, particularly after I’ve completed a
manuscript. Even though I think I know where a story is headed, my mind needs
time to workout the basic details for the next installment on a subconscious
level. Often I’ll get glimpses of details, but if I try to sit down and begin
to write before the story is ready, I wind up staring at a blinking cursor for
hours, and I eventually give up. Once I begin, I have an idea as to where the
story needs to go, but the details and specifics arise spontaneously while I
write. Often this is where new characters appear.
Q) Do you plan all your characters out before you start a
story or do they develop as you write?
Characters, whether main or supporting, come to me
spontaneously. Often I’ll be writing a scene and suddenly a new voice begins to
speak or a physical image of what they look like appears to me. Most of my
characters are based on someone or someones who I know personally or admire.
I’ll pull certain physical and personality traits from different people and
combine them into one person. Miss Charity, from the forthcoming When
Lightning Strikes Twice, is a perfect example of a character who is the
culmination of traits from several people from both my personal life and folks
I admire.
Q) How much real life do you put into or influences your
books?
I try to make my stories as real and plausible as possible,
and I constantly pull from my personal experiences, though I disguise them by
changing circumstances and combining many different pieces and I’ll push them
to the extreme. Many of the recipes in my novels are ones I personally created
or modified and use regularly.
Q) What are your upcoming projects?
I’ve recently completed the first manuscript in a spin-off
series that was accepted for publication just this week. It will follow the
life of a new, supporting character who was introduced in Lightning’s Hidden
Menace and who was a love interest for Jason from ten years before the
Lightning Series began.
Blurb:
Jason cannot believe that Aaron, the man whose
life he saved and who helped him break free from PTSD, has suddenly returned to
him. Healed, whole, and ready to renew their growing love, they begin to plan a
future together. With their first night of torrid lovemaking, they dream of
many more, but fate is against them.
A dark nemesis from Jason’s past reappears with
lethal intent, driven by a grudge from having been disgraced by a military
tribunal. The fallout for Jason and Aaron is far-reaching and heart-wrenching
and tears into the fabric of the life they have so carefully begun to weave.
When hatred strikes in a barrage of gunfire,
they are left fighting for their lives. Their only focus is to take back what
has been ripped away from them; their only hope, that the strength of their
love will be enough.
Excerpt:
“You look beautiful,” Aaron said as Jason
approached the bed.
“So do you. How did I get so lucky?”
“Luck had nothing to do with it, baby. You
saved my life. You were kind to me, and you took care of me, and day by day, I
fell more and more in love with you, and now you’re stuck with me.” Aaron
opened his arms, and Jason climbed into them.
“I can live with that.”
As they began to kiss, Aaron rolled Jason onto
his back. “Now let me take care of you for a change.”
“Just go slow, Aaron, and remember, just
because I can’t go for too long doesn’t mean that I don’t want to.”
“Yes, baby. I’m going to take such good care of
you.”
“I’m all yours, Aaron.”
“Yes, you’re mine.”
Aaron rolled to his side and began to slowly
run the back of his fingertips across the thick, trimmed hair that covered
Jason’s chest, lingering over each nipple when he crossed them. Then he moved
it up and down his belly, barely making contact, raising goosebumps. “I could
do this for hours, baby, but I know I’d be pushing it, and I don’t want to put
too much stress on you.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just…”
“Hush, my love, I know,” he answered as he
covered Jason’s mouth with his own.
He ran his fingertips through the manicured
lawn above Jason’s growing shaft and then cupped his balls into his palm,
gently squeezing and massaging them.
Jason’s lips parted. As he let out a moan,
Aaron drove his tongue deep inside Jason’s mouth.
“Baby, I could come just like this,” Jason
moaned again as he pulled his mouth away.
“Is that what you want?”
“No, I want to come with you inside me.”
“Then I’ll make that happen.”
Aaron slid himself down along the length of
Jason’s body until his face hovered above his shaft. He lowered his head and
gently squeezed his balls as if he was testing the ripeness of an orange, just
enough to bring the first drop of sweet nectar to the surface. When it appeared
at the slit in the head, he flicked the tip of his tongue across it, lifting
the drop as it emerged. Immediately, he encircled the reddened helmet with his
mouth and began to flick his tongue around the corona and down the frenum. Then
he began to suck.
Jason’s body spasmed. “Oh! Oh, my! Aaron.”
Aaron rose to his knees and pivoted around
while moving his right thigh across Jason’s chest until he straddled it. He
opened his mouth as wide as he could and slid down the shaft, deep throating it
until his nose became buried in Jason’s balls.
Jason lifted his head and pulled Aaron’s sack
into his mouth as he nuzzled his nose behind it, inhaling Aaron’s musk.
Aaron sucked Jason’s shaft hard as he pulled up
and lingered over the crown, then he released it for a moment. “Oh, Jason, your
scent. It drives me wild.”
Instinctively, Jason spread open his thighs
when Aaron began to milk his shaft with his mouth. When Aaron reached down and
began to circle his middle finger around Jason’s hole, Jason groaned and
tightened his abdominal muscles, causing his hips to roll upward. “Ow! Aaron,
help me. It’s pulling on my ribs.”
“Where the chest tube was?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got you, baby.” Aaron grasped Jason’s
butt cheeks with his hands, spreading them apart, while he slid his mouth from
the head and traced his tongue downward along the underside of Jason’s shaft.
When he reached his balls, he mouthed them one at a time, rolling them against
his tongue. Then he moved down further, licking along the shaft as it ran
beneath the base of his pelvis until he reached Jason’s clenching hole. In one
long motion, he spread his tongue wide and licked along the crack from the base
of Jason’s cock and across the hole, until he came out the other end. Then he
tightened his tongue into a lance and began to drive it against Jason’s outer
sphincter, jabbing and wiggling it as he went until it relented and opened
itself to him.
Jason’s body began to tremble and lurch in time
with Aaron’s advances. Guttural sounds erupted from his throat as Aaron
devoured him like a predator feasting over a fresh kill. The louder Jason
became, the more Aaron was driven into a feeding frenzy as he sucked and
slurped and swallowed until he breached the final barrier.
Aaron pulled away and reached for a bottle of
lube. He popped it open and squeezed a huge glop over his fingers, then wiggled
his middle finger against the outer sphincter of Jason’s hole at the same
moment he dove down on his shaft again and began to suck, feverishly. Jason’s
hole puckered, but then opened as he advanced past the inner sphincter. Making
small circles as he probed deeper, he massaged the muscles and coated them with
the slick lube until his finger was in to the last knuckle. Then he added his
index finger and began sliding them together in and out and around and around.
“God!” Jason shouted. His breathing became
ragged as he gasped against the advance of Aaron’s ministrations, and when he
added a third finger, Jason began to pant.
“You’re almost there, my love,” Aaron said as
he readied the fourth.
“I’m ready, Aaron. Please. I’m ready.”
When Aaron had all four fingers inside him and
began to caress his prostate, Jason’s hips began to buck, wildly. A jet of
pre-cum was ejected from the now purple head, and Aaron sucked it down his
throat, greedily.
“Easy, baby. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“I can’t help it, Aaron. Not when you do that!”
“I’m sorry, I was too aggressive. I forgot…”
“Don’t apologize! Not for that!
Not ever!”
“Roll onto your side, baby. I’m going to take
you slow. Slow and steady. Just let me do everything. I don’t want you to rip
open any stitches. How would I explain that to your doctors?”
“Aaron, forget the fucking stitches! They’re
coming out tomorrow. Now, please,” Jason moaned, “make love to me.”
Aaron’s cock bounced with each heartbeat,
aching for release. He slid his body next to Jason’s, rolled him back onto his
side, and encircled him in an embrace. Then he slowly slid his shaft along the
cleft between Jason’s butt cheeks, through his thighs, and under his balls
until its head found daylight on the other side. Jason reached down and scooped
up what remained of Aaron’s saliva and mixed it with the pre-cum that oozed
from his slit. He grasped the engorged head of Aaron’s cock and began to
lubricate it.
Buy
links:
Bookstrand - http://www.bookstrand.com/lightnings-hidden-menace-mm
iTunes -
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/lightnings-hidden-menace/id1282617754?mt=11
Networking links:
The rest of the hike was on a downward trip, making it much easier on my lungs. Large boulders for me to climb over. I tell you, the best exercise in the world is traversing boulders. The last part of the hike is always the worst, when you get done with the exciting sight-seeing and have to proceed to the car. The last half hour was simply excruciating as we trudged over flat terrain, bypassing those people carrying mattresses so they can climb a big rock and not hurt themselves if they fall. I don't see the appeal in that, but to each his own.
