KINKY LOWDOWN with Jennifer James

You can take 5 items/men to a fully catered desert island – what/who would you take?   J

Honestly...I’m not taking men. All the men around me want food and clean clothes and shit all the time. So I’m taking my laptop, sunscreen cause I burn like bacon left on the sidewalk in Vegas, my Kindle, sunglasses, and a big ass cocktail glass for endless cold drinks. I’d love to be alone for awhile with no one to bug me.

Do you have a favourite author(s)? Who is it/are they?

Of course I do. Kim Harrison, Kevin Hearne, Seanan McGuire, Kelley Armstrong, Patricia Briggs, Cherise Sinclair ... crap I’m wracking my brain and my kid is next to me playing an obnoxious ass game and I can’t concentrate.

I love UF and PNR and high fantasy best. A strong storyline with lots of twists and turns and magical realism are what really do it for me. Cherise Sinclair is just fucking awesome, so anything she writes is going to be amazing, regardless of genre.

How did you start your writing career?

One day, early in the morning, I woke up and my hands had detached themselves. They were busy scribbling in a notebook ... and I couldn’t stop them. Off they went all around the house with a marker.

J  Actually I’ve been writing for a long time. I wrote stories as a child, I took a few classes in high school and college. Then I went back to college and took more writing courses. I landed my first contract with Decadent publishing for Love Kinection.

I spent some time writing book reviews for GraveTells as Captain Dirty Pants, but once I was contracted it was recommended we not write book reviews (since as an author you could be seen as being shady ... or mean or whatever.) So that part of my life was over.

Which character was the hardest to write and why? 

They’re all hard in their own ways. They’re all different people with individual hurts, hopes, fears, jobs, families. I had a very hard time with Ronin from Unmasking Her Dom in the Sin Circus anthology. I cried a lot over him.

Ronin is a veteran who was injured while in service and he gets shafted when he comes home. Overcoming his hang-ups and shoving him out of the shadows was difficult. Plus, I had a limited word count to do it in. I’ve had several requests for more about Ronin and Maggie/Elektra, so I might write them another book. (Elektra is Maggie’s stage name.)

Who’s your favourite character? And what would let him/her do to you in the Dungeon?

My favourite character? Wait, there’s a Dungeon? You’re asking me to willingly go into a Dungeon with these people? You do realize it’s my job to torment them, screw up their lives as bad as possible, right?

Ummm ... yeah I dunno that I’m going in the Dungeon. They would have me for breakfast thank you very much. I mean, sure they got a happy ending, but I think given the opportunity these people would spank me and it wouldn’t be funishment.

I’m not going. No. I am a chickenshit.

Although ... I do kinda sorta have a crush on the Masters from Cherise Sinclair’s Shadowlands. So if I was single, and they weren’t fictional ... yeah. *cough*

If you write under an alias/Nome de plume, how do you deal with being addressed by that name?

Well, no one has ever called me by my alias in real life. Occasionally I am called JJ by a few people, and that seems normal, I guess. Jennifer is my real first name. J I’ve been writing for a few years, so being Jennifer James is real to me. I have another alias I write under, but I don’t advertise it.

I know now you’re wondering what the fuck that is, and why am I saying that and not telling ...Well, I dunno. It slipped out. I don’t advertise it much because my kids know that I write, and what I write as JJ is pretty explicit ... and under that name I get even a little bit dirtier. Plus, I kinda like to have a sorta secret name. It’s like being Peter Parker and Spiderman or something. I dunno. Someday I’ll shout it from the rooftops. Just not today. J Sorry.

*ducks* Stop throwing stuff at my head.

Quit. Or no books for you. *glares*

Actually I’m kidding. Here’s your book back. :D

What made you decide to pick an alias?

Weird internet interactions. I’ve gotten some strange messages on FB, emails and things. So I’m glad I went with an alias. Plus I have kids, and since I’m a crazy worried person who wonders if everyone I see is a psycho killer, I like to think this keeps them a little safer.

What was it about kink that made you choose the genre?

I think sex is awesome. I’m good at writing sex scenes. My brain is rather ... naughty and it comes naturally.

What extent do you go to, to research for what you write?

I Google search and read lots of articles about subjects I might explore or am interested in. (That goes for everything from ménage to toys to BDSM to PTSD to famous landmarks.) I’m kinda like Number Five from Short Circuit. I want to learn about everything and have an intense curiosity that leads me in all sorts of directions.

If you’re trying to ask if I ever engage in the things I write about ... well you are a naughty minx and I don’t discuss my personal sex life online. *Spanks Amanda* But I will say I’ve been married for 15 years and I’m a happy girl. Very happy. J

 ~I can't believe I just got spanked in an interview!!~ Amanda ~

If you weren’t an author, what would you have ended up doing?

Well I’m a dental assistant. So I’d still be doing that, and my evenings would be filled with more sewing and crafting and cross stitching and drawing and painting and reading and bike riding.

I’m not a full time writer, although I do aspire to be. That’d be amazeballs. With cherries on top. And also whipped cream and shaved chocolate.

Honestly, thinking about that question my stomach curdles. I can’t NOT be an author. This is how I came outta the womb. I’ve tried to not write before. Tried to walk away from it when I was having personal issues. The less I wrote, the more depressed I got. Absolute misery. I must write.

Do you have any rituals/habits when you write?

Sometimes I listen to music. I like to move the places that I sit now and then if I’m having a hard time and the words aren’t flowing. So I could start at my desk and end up on my bed or the couch or the porch. I almost always have a drink with me. Water, hard cider, coffee, spiked cocoa, something. No eating though. That’s distracting.

But I’m not sacrificing goats or poking voodoo dolls or burning incense below a picture of my editor. Although maybe I should have a shrine for her. She’s amazing.

My desk is in a corner now, and I like to have stuff hanging on the walls around my area there that have my goals, quotes, pretty pictures, that kind of thing around it. I’m a big believer in writing my goals and dreams down and then seeing those things all the time to help me stay focused. It does help with the depression that always accompanies finishing a book, poor sales, paying the bills ... you know, the poopy part of writing.

Is there anything on your current/upcoming release schedule?

Nymphs of New York Volume One (Has Wet For The Titan and Rock Hard and Wet in it) just became available as a bundle. In print too! Yay!

Um, I’m rereleasing some short stories/short novellas that were in anthologies.  They’ll be up soon for $0.99, so if people missed the anthos, those will be out. I released Peyton’s Ride back in February, and I’m busting ass on this full length NA contemporary thing I’ve tentatively titled Pants On Fire. It’s trying to kill me, but my editor loves the pages she’s seen so far. I have the follow up to Hunger Embraced that I’m hoping to release this year, but I don’t know for sure when it’ll be out. It’s called Hunger Unbound.

As far as other series stuff, I’m going to be releasing another ménage book under my other alias ASAP, then I’ll be doing a werewolf short featuring my characters Kayla and Jack from Marked. After that I’d like to do a follow up to Covert Craving (cause it’s sorta sci-fi and I love it, even though the book is pretty much invisible) and then more Nymphs of New York and maybe, if I’m insane enough, I’ll manage another Riding With The Hunt story.

Where are your books available?

Amazon, B&N, ARe, Kobo, iBooks, Diesel. A few are up on Smashwords and BookStrand. I’m trying to get them all up everywhere, but as I’m only *me* I have a hard time doing all the writer/business person stuff, and still actually writing. So if I have to choose between the two, I pick writing.

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Or, if you’re a chatty sort, you can email me at jenn@authorjenniferjames.com. I love to hear from readers.