Saturday, April 11, 2015

Author Saturday Spotlight~ L.A.Witt #Interview & #Giveaway

L.A. Witt, author of so many fabulous books in the M/M genre is my spotlight author this Saturday! She's written so many amazing books such as, Out of Focus, Cover Me, Rules of Engagement, and so many more. Today we will take a look at her work, sit down for an interview, and of course have a giveaway for all you lucky readers.

Let's get started. L.A. has written so many books I can hardly make a dent in showing you them.

Where Nerves End:

Jason Davis can handle a breakup. And an overwhelming mortgage. And a struggling business. And the excruciating pain that keeps him up at night thanks to a shoulder injury. But all of it at once? Not so much. When his shoulder finally pushes him to a breaking point, Jason takes a friend’s advice and gives acupuncture a try.

Acupuncturist Michael Whitman is a single dad struggling to make ends meet. When a mutual friend refers Jason as a patient, and Jason suggests a roommate arrangement to alleviate their respective financial strains, Michael jumps at the opportunity.

But Jason soon finds himself regretting it—he’s too damn attracted to Michael, and living with him is harder than he thought it’d be. In fact, the temptation to act on his feelings would almost be too much if not for the fact that Michael is straight. Or at least, that’s what their mutual friend claims.




Out Of Focus:

He’ll bend for them. But they may break over him.

For twelve years, Dom lovers Ryan “Angel” Morgan and Dante James have run a successful photography business, and satisfied their need for a submissive with the occasional sizzling three-way. On a wedding job, they both zero in on the bride’s beautiful brother, but as professionals, they keep their attraction on the down-low—for now.

Jordan Steele has no trouble establishing mastery over his stallions. When he hires Angel and Dante to shoot promotional photos for his stable, though, there’s something about them that calls to his inner submissive. After a little flirtation and a photo session that gets almost too hot to handle, Angel and Dante are happy to show him the ropes. And the whip.

Once they break the ice, their sexual chemistry burns hotter than a macro flash. Everyone gets what they need…until emotions come into play. Their power could develop into something permanent, throw everything off balance—leaving one of them the odd man out.


From Out in the Cold:

Neil Dalton’s foundation is already cracking. Grief, guilt, and PTSD have ruled his life since a terrible crime tore his world apart last year, and he’s dreading a holiday visit with the family he simultaneously needs and resents. Then someone from his past shows up and rattles that shaky foundation right out from under him.

First a war nearly destroyed Jeremy Kelley. Then his family threw him out when he needed them the most, and now he’s barely holding on emotionally. He spends his last dollar to get to Chicago and prays his former best friend doesn’t leave him out in the cold.

Together, Neil and Jeremy spend the holidays with Neil’s family in their hometown of Omaha. They struggle to deal with families, flashbacks… and feelings that haven’t even begun to fade since their last failed attempt at more than friends. As they try to repair their fractured psyches and rebuild damaged bridges, they rely on each other more than ever, but they can’t deny the mutual attraction that’s existed since before they were both emotionally battered and scarred. If they couldn’t make it work back then, how in the world can they pull it off now?


Again, I can't even make a dent in showing you her work. There is so much and it's so wonderful!

I had the pleasure of doing an interview with L.A. Witt and it's time to share that with you.


INTERVIEW:



Thank you L. A. for being here today. For many in this genre you are well known, and for others you are new. I have a few questions for you that may make your fans, and future fans, get to know you a little.

    You’re an Epic Award winner, Rainbow Award Winner, and you’ve been a finalist in the Lambda Literary Awards. You have a talent that is clearly seen by many. What, to you, has been your greatest achievement in your writing career? 
 
Bar none, having readers tell me that one of my books helped them understand themselves or someone they love. I’ve had a reader tell me that after reading a particular book, he knew who he was. Others have told me that they learned to be more open-minded about a group of people (most frequently LGBT people or sex workers).   So I think that’s the biggest thing for me – getting into someone’s mind on some level and changing their perception of the world or themselves.

      You’ve co-written with Aleksandr Voinov for many books. It’s hard to find someone compatible to do that with. How do the two of you make it work? 

Aleks and I have a really weird brain bond. I work with other co-writers, and I adore them, but writing with Aleks is something else. We’re almost always SO much on the same page that it’s kind of scary. Not only do we finish each other’s sentences (when speaking OR writing), but we’ll write a scene or paragraph or sentence almost exactly the way the other was thinking it. So, I don’t know that we really make it work so much as… it just does. He jokes that he has a USB port implanted in the base of my skull. Sometimes I wonder if he’s joking.

With my other co-authors, it’s also pretty effortless; you know very quickly if your writing styles/techniques will mesh.  Whenever I’ve co-written with anyone, it’s flowed so easily it didn’t even feel like we were actually WORKING even though we were.

    What do you search for when you’re reading a book, and do you try to incorporate that into your work or leave the reading and writing separate? 
 
I have a very hard time reading for pleasure these days. It’s difficult to shut off the editing brain, and when I see things in a book that my editors always fix in my books (certain types of sentence structure, for example), it jumps out at me and yanks me out of the story.

When I do find something that I can read without my internal editor interfering (she is SUCH a pill), I look for interesting characters and situations that make me think “how in the world are the characters going to get out of this one?”  Those are factors I try to work into my writing as well—if a character isn’t interesting and a situation doesn’t seem remotely insurmountable, then…meh.

     What is the biggest misconception people make about you as a writer or otherwise?
 
That the writing is effortless. Because I tend to write fast, people often say “I wish it was as easy for me as it is for you” or “I have to write slower because I actually put thought into everything” (um, thanks?).  The thing is, I don’t write fast because it’s easy or because I don’t care. Part of it has to do with time – I have no kids, no day job, a low maintenance spouse, very little social life, and no real obligations outside the house. A substantial chunk of my day is devoted to writing. So when I say I wrote a book in two weeks, bear in mind that “two weeks” means “two weeks of 8-12 hour days.”

The other reason I write fast is, quite frankly, so I can sleep. When a story really grabs hold, it will keep me awake at night until it’s written. The sooner it’s written, the sooner it shuts up. Granted another one will take its place in short order, but I can usually score a couple of solid nights before the character-induced insomnia kicks in again.

So I guess the biggest misconception is that I either wave a magic wand or just bang on the keyboard and hope for the best. I really do work my tail off at this.

    If only ONE of your books could be made into a movie, which would you like to see on the big screen? 

Hands down – Static. It remains one of my favorite books even after a few years, and I would sell my soul to see it on the big screen.
 
      How do you develop your characters to make them seem like real people? 

That’s a tough one to answer. I’ll usually start with a photo of a person (I need a visual of the character’s face), and then figure out enough about them to start writing. i.e., what circumstances in their life have put them where they are when the story starts? Why shouldn’t they be with their love interest, and why are they determined to be anyway? After that, the details tend to fall into place themselves. The characters don’t quite spring from my forehead a la Athena, but they do tend to crystallize pretty quickly, and then the story is built from their emotions and actions.

So I guess that’s kind of a weird, vague answer. I’m not really sure how they develop, just that somewhere between the “I have an idea” and “The End”… they do.

     What were some of your favorite books growing up? 
 
The Stand by Stephen King has been a favorite for many years. I’ve probably read it a dozen times in the last twenty years. Otherwise, I read a lot of SFF, horror, etc. And my guilty pleasure is, and probably always will be, the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. I’ve adored those books since 5th grade, and I don’t see that ever changing.

    Can you tell us about your future work? 

At the moment, I’m working on a VERY long science fiction novel, which I’ve been plotting for years and am FINALLY diving into. I hope to have that one out later this year. (This won’t be a romance)

On the romance front, expect to see a lot more menage and bisexual characters in the near future, not to mention more lesbian and trans* books. I’m working on two Bluewater Bay books simultaneously, and those should be out later this year.

This will also be the year I finish the sequel to Aleks Voinov’s Dark Soul. Writing that one has been kind of a comedy of errors – every time I start making headway, I have to stop for whatever reason – but I am bound and determined to finish it in 2015. Mostly because I really, really need Silvio Spadaro to move out of my skull.

     How can your fans follow you? Social media, website, twitter….
Email: gallagherwitt@gmail.com

Okay, thank you so much, L.A. This is has been amazing and I am excited about your future works and seeing what you come up with next.

Thanks for having me! - LW

 Now for the giveaway! *CHEERS*
The giveaway will run until Friday, April 17th. Winner will be contacted via email (So check your spam, please)

We have a reader's choice for you (Some restrictions may apply) So enter below and good luck.
Thank you L.A. for being with us today, sharing some interesting tidbits about yourself and of course for this awesome giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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