Read with Pride Northwest discussion

We’ll be interviewing GRNW Attending Authors all summer as we prepare for the Gay Romance Northwest Meet-Up on September 14 in Seattle.

Please feel free to join in and ask your own questions for the authors!

GRNW interviews Devon Rhodes - Part 1!

Here we interview Devon Rhodes, author of A Sticky Wicket in Bollywood and other works.

Congratulations on your new International Men of Sports series, coauthored with T.A. Chase! What got you both interested in doing this series together?

Devon: Thank you! We are having so much fun with it. As to how it came about, the two of us were rooming together at GayRomLit 2012 and we’d been talking about…hmm, maybe world domination? Anyway, we’d somehow got on the subject of different countries that third-party sellers were expanding to around the world and thought it might be fun to write a book for some of those countries. To tie them together, we finally realized that every country in the world has its small selection of sports that people really follow and identify with, so we took that angle and ran with it.

At one point we were brainstorming while lying in bed late one night and I finally just got up, grabbed some paper and a pen and started taking notes. We added to the notes all through the conference, even on napkins at one point, and outlined six books. I managed to keep track of all of that and when I got home I typed it all up in a shared doc and we got started almost right away on the first book. :-)

Since each book focuses on a different sport (A Sticky Wicket in Bollywood and cricket, Chasing the King of the Mountains with bicycling, and At First Touch with soccer), did you and T.A. have to do a lot of research on these sports while writing?

Oh yes. I grew up in a sports crazy family, so I know the basics about a lot of sports, but c’mon—cricket isn’t exactly something you see very often in the States. We did a lot of research for that one in order to understand Ajay and his activities and sound like we knew what we were talking about in Sticky Wicket! That’s also when we decided to base our titles on references from each sport.

Team cycling in the Tour de France was another one that we only peripherally understood. And it was during the research for the book that we learned about the different achievements on the Tour—that’s where we came up with the title of the book and Pascal’s specialty. I also saw some photos and a video of an actual accident that inspired the opening scene of our book. We followed the 2013 Tour route in our story, and it actually turned us into fans. We both really got into the Tour this year after learning what it was all about! It was fun to know what was going on. :-)

Soccer is quite a bit more familiar than some of the others since it’s popular worldwide including in the US. But we still had to decide on positions, career paths, terminology and so forth.

The sport for the book we’re working on now is rugby. We’ve been researching online, and I’ve discovered that it’s on cable fairly often, so I’ve been watching it to pick up the lingo and be able to visualize the action.

What is it like to co-author? How do you and T.A. balance writing together?

Typically we each take one main character and write from that person’s pov, alternating back and forth. We write in a shared Google doc, which means we can both be on the document at the same time, or work separately then have the other be able to see what we’ve done next time they’re online. We’re in different time zones and have schedules that don’t always mesh, so that helps to be able to have live updates.

The times I enjoy the most are when we’re both online and writing a scene between our characters. Even if it’s in one character’s pov, we’ll each write dialogue from our own characters, back and forth. So her guy will say something, I’ll type a response from my guy, and so forth. It’s so much fun because just like in real life, you don’t know exactly what response you’ll get. Sometimes the conversation—and hence the plot—goes off in directions we never would have come up with on our own.

Are there any more books (and sports) you would like to explore with this series?

*laughing* We actually have three more solidly outlined and set with release dates. Book four is set in Australia with rugby, book five will be in Canada with hockey and curling, and book six is in Brazil with beach volleyball. All of those should be out by early next year.

After that, we have ideas for a baker’s dozen more countries and sports in the queue. I’m not joking. So, close to twenty right now. I know, I know. We’re crazy. But as long as we continue to fun and enjoy writing them, they’ll all see the light of day within the next few years. :-)

You’ve written across multiple genres, including contemporary and paranormal. What are your favorite genres to write? And to read? Are there genres that you haven’t tried yet that you are interested in?

I definitely have a love of paranormal, both for writing and reading. It’s a lot of fun as a writer to not be bound by simulated ‘reality’. After all, I’m a writer—creating something that doesn’t exist is what I do! And as long as I’m doing that, might as well throw in a few surprises…

I do enjoy contemporaries as well as long as I can really visualize the characters inside and out. You really have to know your characters in order to have them pop off the page, and I’m not talking about just what their hair color and height is—I mean, what is their personality, their motivations for doing things. Where are they going in their lives and why?

Historicals are great fun to read when they’re well done, but I can’t ever see myself writing one. All the fact-checking. Oy!

You wrote a fascinating blog post for Chicks & Dicks about how NOT to write series. What inspired you to write this post?

Hahaha, oh yes, that one. Well, from what I recall, Chicks & Dicks had asked me to contribute on a month where they were spotlighting series. I was assigned a date later in the month, finally got ‘round to trying to come up with my spin on it and read some of the other authors’ posts. Many of them were similar, talking about how to write a good series, etc. So, contrarily, I decided to take the opposite approach. As comes across loud and clear in the article, I had just come off an interesting experience where I’d written the third book in a series quite a long time after the first two. I took all of my…um…‘challenges’ and laid them out there as a cautionary tale for the readers. :-)

If someone came up to you looking for advice about breaking into the gay romance genre, what else would you recommend to them?

Same thing I say to any writer getting started in whatever genre they choose. Read, read, read. Then write, write, write. And keep doing the former. And the latter. But don’t forget the former… And so on. :-)

As to gay romance specifically, I think you really have to have a special place in your heart for those who love the same sex. It will come across in what you write if you’re just taking a traditional couple and changing the sex of one character.

Truth—when you go to create two men who are meant to be together, you need to remember first and foremost that they are both men.

Check out the next post below for the rest of our interview with Devon Rhodes!

GRNW Interviews Devon Rhodes - Part 2!

Besides being an author, you’re also Editor-in-Chief at Total E-Bound. How did you get into editing?

I’ve always been wired to catch errors and I’m a very fast reader, but I had never really thought about making a living from it until I started proofreading for a couple publishing houses within the genre as well as freelance, more as a hobby than anything. I did well enough at it that I caught the attention of the higher-ups at TEB and they offered me a position as a content editor. I really like what they stand for as a company, so it was a pleasure to commit to actually working for them. Since then, I’ve grown along with the company to where I am now.

What do you find most challenging about editing?

I did a guest blog along those lines once! Mostly, it’s keeping all of the different stages of all the different manuscripts flowing and progressing for all of my different authors. At one point, I was editing for over 60 authors, so between chasing submissions and edits, proof reviews, paperwork, addressing their pleas for just a bit more time, etc… Let’s just say I probably spend as much time sending and answering emails as I do actually editing. And I have a crazy, huge spreadsheet to keep track of everything.

As an editor, what do you recommend for writers when they are interesting in submitting a work, or contacting a publisher?

Good question! And since I do the initial assessment on every single submission TEB gets, I definitely have an opinion on this topic! :-)

First of all, know the publisher that you are submitting to. You wouldn’t believe how many submissions I get that aren’t even close to what we publish. Read some of their books, take a look at what they offer and read the submissions guidelines. I recommend doing this before you even start writing. Have a target publisher in mind, or at least a general idea of the houses in the genre, before you write your book.

You’ve read the guidelines, now it’s time to follow them! If the publisher has asked for information to be given, or things to be formatted a certain way, you aren’t going to get off to a good start if you ignore those requirements. It makes us grumpy. You don’t want a grumpy editor opening your creation.

When it comes to the email or cover letter, be succinct. I’ll scan your background and the blurb, but if I see a ten paragraph mini-book, I’m going to stop reading. I’ll still look at your story, but as above, I’ll be grouchy when I do.

Have a good beta reader in your corner, not a yes-person. You need someone who understands (and hopefully loves) the genre you’re writing in, but who will also give it to you straight up if your character is hard to connect with or there’s a huge plot hole.

And at the very least, run a spellcheck. Please. On both the manuscript and the email. :-)

What are some of your future projects? What can readers look forward to?

Besides all of those International Men of Sports books with TA, lol, I have several other works planned. My Vampires and Mages and Weres, Oh My! Series has two more books started. I’ll be writing the next book in my One Wish series at Dreamspinner next year. I also have sequels planned for release in 2014 for A Ring and a Promise and Making His List.

I also have a cowboy/western novella titled Christmas of White coming out this year at TEB, just in time for the holidays. :-)

Last question (from me. GRNW followers can jump in after this.) We’ll have a lot of readers at the September GRNW Meet-Up in Seattle, and it’s always interesting to hear what authors like to read and would recommend. What gay romance titles are some of your favorites?

Always a hard question, but since we’re already here, pop on over to my Goodreads bookshelves and browse! I have over three thousand books added so far—which isn’t even close to all of the ones I’ve read—but if you go to my MM shelf and click on rating to sort them, you’ll see some of my five and four star rated books. I also have them categorized by basic subgenres if you have a particular favorite. :-)

Thank you for the interview, Devon!

Gay Romance Northwest Meet-Up - Sept. 14

You can see even more of Devon Rhodes and our other GRNW authors at the Gay Romance Northwest Meet-Up on September 14 at the Seattle Central Library! We hope you can join us. :D http://gayromancenorthwest.wordpress....

Special thanks again to Devon for talking with us!

If you have questions for Devon, please feel free to ask here. This thread is open to questions. :D

That was an outstanding interview, Devon. You touted on what I always recommend to new writers who grab me at sci fi and fantasy conventions. Read, read, and read some more. Critique groups are also fabulous, and YEAH to the mention on good beta readers. Good ones can be an authors best and most cherished tool. Again, fabulous interview.