Terrific Tuesday with Jasmine Black:)

Welcome! Please introduce yourself and tell us about your latest release.

Hello and thanks for having me here today. I’m Jasmine Black. I write romance, erotic romance, and erotica in both m/f and m/m.

My latest release is a m/m erotic romance called Say it Again out with Silver Publishing. It’s my first and only m/m romance, however, I hope to write more.

Blurb:

One month before the annual fireman’s charity auction, fireman, Wade Hartman announces he’s gay. This year when he strolls down the catwalk, he wants to leave with a man. When the only bid he receives is a pity bid, Wade’s crushed, but he lets his friend take him to dinner anyway.

Real estate conglomerate, Jared Kessler’s loved Wade for years. So when he reads the article about the fireman’s charity event, he knows he has to be the winning bidder. Mistaken as an unwanted bidder, Jared refuses to give up. He wants Wade, if only for one night.

One innocent dinner turns into fiery passion. But one night isn’t enough for Wade. He wants Jared for real. The more Wade pushes, the closer he comes to discovering the deep, dark secrets of Jared’s past. Can love conquer Jared’s fears or are his wounds too deep for even love?

Have you incorporated actual events from your own life into your books?

Yes, I would say I have. However, they are usually just little snippets not the whole story. Like I know of this guy who to his family he was going to the store to get a pack of cigarettes. He left and never came back. Never called, nothing. So that tiny line made it into a story as an explanation on how one of my heroine’s ex-boyfriends left her. It wasn’t a huge deal in the story, just a line. I tend to use things like that. Or like I have a future release in March 2011 that is a golf story. I don’t golf and I have no desire to golf, but my husband loves it, so I wrote it and picked his brain for research.

How much research do you do? Do you research first and then write, or do you write first, then research as needed?

It depends on the story and how close it is to my heart. Some stories I have done no research and some I have done a lot. If you write what you know, the less research you have. But if you write something you have no clue about, it will take more research. I have written a historical and that one took me a lot more research to get the details right. Sometimes I just pop on the web and scour sites and other times I go to the library. I might even interview an expert. Or if I feel like there is too much research to do, I might scrap the real thing (like places) and create a fictitious place that is completely in my head. No matter how much research I do, I always try to give correct information.

Small details I will skip in the manuscript and keep writing if the juices are flowing. If I’m stuck, I might do the research and plug it back in the story so I am at least doing something to move the story forward. But the big stuff you have to do up front or stop when you get to that point in the story. Otherwise you may find yourself rewriting the entire story if you get major facts wrong.

Is there any message you want readers to take from reading your work?

No, I never intend to put an underlying message in my stories except the theme, like honesty is the best policy; nothing deep or heavy, but a story needs that to hold it together. I write because I enjoy it. I hope my readers enjoy it too. My writing is not meant to be profound, just mere entertainment. I do tend to have an emotional though behind my stories. For example, Say it Again is meant to be a sad story. You should feel sad after reading it. 0 to 69 in 5 Minutes is meant to be funny. You can’t take it too serious or you’ll get angry at the main characters, it’s just meant to be a light hearted and funny romantic comedy.

Are you a plotter or a pantser? And have you ever had a story take on a life of its own?

I think I am a pantser. My characters always do what they want to. They never listen to me. And if I try to make them do it my way, they stop talking to me until I do it their way.

How long did it take for you to be published?

From the time I really started to get serious about writing, it took me two years to publish in ebook. It was a long hard two years of work though.

If you could go back and tell yourself anything when you first began your writing career, what would you say?

Toughen up. I shed a lot of tears to get to the place I am today. When I first started and got those critiques full of blue marks, I would cry and want to give up. But without them, I won’t be where I am today. When you have polished that first manuscript and polished it and polished it some more and then you get a rejection, don’t worry. It’s only one person’s opinion. You’ll never know why they didn’t like your story, so move on and keep submitting it. It’ll fit somewhere.

Laptop or pen and ink? What are your ‘must-haves’ when writing?

I like to write on a desk top computer. I will pen and ink if I’m not at my computer and a scene comes to me. But never hardly ever laptop as none of my have word on them.

I must have quiet and be left alone. Music helps a lot, but I don’t have to have it.

Who are your favorite authors? Who would you say influenced you the most?

I don’t have a lot, but I do like Dorothy Garlock. While her books and writing are completely different from mine, she never fails to suck me in and keep me turning pages. I also have to say that I like my critiques partners’ writing. They have influenced me the most, Piper Denna, Maya Blake, Sutton Fox, Autumn Piper and Nyla Rose. Also a couple of great gals who are not published yet, Felicity Kates and Mary Murphy.

For Fun:

Any special Thanksgiving traditions?

When my kids were smaller we built a thanksgiving tree every year. We would get a pot and put a branch or two in it and secure them with dirt. Then I’d cut out leaves from colored paper. Everyone in the family would write what they were thankful for on the front, name and year on the back and then we’d place them on the “tree.” I kept the leaves. Every year the new leaves would go on the tree and the past years would be taped to our sliding glass doors.

Pumpkin Pie or cake?

Neither

Thank you for being here today! Please tell us where we can find your books.

You can find my books at the ebooks stores of Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Smashwords and others.

You can also find me with eXcesica and Silver Publishing. Or my charity books with Coming Together. And coming soon through Lyrical Press and XOXO Publishing.

Say it Again Excerpt:

The evening approached at rapid speed. Too fast for Wade. He took a deep breath and straightened his tie, trying to gain the confidence to walk out on that stage. It was the annual fireman’s charity auction. No big deal. He’d participated for the last five years. Some woman would bid, they’d go to dinner, and maybe she’d want sex and maybe she wouldn’t. But all of that was before he’d come out of the closet a month ago. This year he feared no one would bid. Or even worse, people would boo or throw things at him. How could he be gay? After all, he was a big, beefy fireman and everyone knew gay men were fashion designers or hairdressers, right? Well, at least that’s what everyone in town had asked him over the last few weeks. His last girlfriend called him up crying, wanting to know if she had turned him on to men. Why didn’t people understand he was just attracted to the same sex? Always had been, but never acted on it.

“Wade, you’re up,” the chief’s wife, Maggie, called to him. Maggie organized the event every year to raise money for the department and plenty of women showed up, cash money in hand. “You’ll do fine. And if no one bids, I will.”

He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, Maggie, but I’m not sure Chief would be happy about that.”

“Oh, poo. Mrs. Harold’s already put the word out that she’s bidding on Eddie. If he can go out to dinner with another lady for charity, I can spend the evening over lobster with you.” Wade laughed but fidgeted with his tie again. “Stop fussing. You look great.”

The auctioneer looked down at his program. “Next up, we have Wade Hartman.” Wade walked up the stairs and stepped into the lights. The crowd grew quiet and all eyes bore into him. Taking another breath, he walked to the center like every other year, took off his jacket, and tossed it over his shoulder. “Standing at six-foot-two-inches with black hair and green eyes, Fireman Hartman benches two-fifty and runs the mile in five minutes flat.” The auctioneer looked up from his note cards and cleared his throat. “Let’s start the bidding at one hundred. Do I have one hundred?” Wade forced a smile to charm the crowd, but inside his nerves screamed to run that mile now, out the door, down the street, and never come back. Last year they’d started the bid at two hundred and he went for six hundred. No one spoke up. He looked over at Maggie who gave him a reassuring thumbs up. Turning back to the crowd, he walked down the catwalk and modeled for all it was worth, smiling and winking at the women. “How about seventy-five? Can I get seventy-five?” Anger began to boil in his veins. For Christ’s sake it was for charity, after all. The men needed new equipment for their safety. And he did risk his life for these people every day. The auctioneer cleared his throat again and frowned. “Fifty? Come on, people.”

Maggie appeared at the side of the stage, mouth open, about to speak when a voice boomed from the crowd. “One thousand!”

The crowd oohed, and he scanned to see who had bid. “Could you say that again?” The auctioneer strained to find the bidder. A man, decked out in an Armani suit, light brown hair, tall, with broad shoulders, stepped forward and lifted his number. “One thousand dollars.”