Interview with Aislinn Kerry

Oh goody, goody, I talked the fabulous erotic author Aislinn Kerry
into the Backseat with me!  So Aislinn, have you always leaned toward the naughty side with your writing?  Does it ever worry you that Santa might stop bringing you resents?

Aislinn Kerry:  Oh, definitely not. When I first started writing, I
was painfully shy. The first love scene I wrote was a very tame
fade-to-black, and I was dreadfully self-conscious about it. It's been
a process, slowly growing more and more comfortable with more explicit scenes and stories.  As for Santa -- This year's been my best
Christmas yet, so I must be doing something right. grin

TK: Okay so I confess I almost never have read an authors book before I interview them. Spank me I know. Today however I have read Blood and Roses and I am leaning towards it being my favorite read in 2009.

Aislinn:  Wow! Thanks so much. Blood and Roses really holds a special place in my heart.

TK: If you started out shy where did the jump to male/male books like Blood and Roses come from?

Aislinn: It was a gradual corruption. I'm lucky enough to have some
fantastic writing buddies I work with, many of whom are fond of m/m romances, and their enthusiasm for it helped me discover my own interest in it. I haven't looked back since!

TK: What struck me about your writing was the unapologetic characters you create - or maybe just that they make no excuses for where life has lead them. What made you decide that a love story that features a male prostitute and a vampire would capture the reader, or what about it captured you?

Aislinn:  The part of the story that captured me is less what Arjen
and Maikel are, and more who they've become because of that.
Prostitution has made Arjen jaded, cynical, and very guarded with his emotions. And Maikel's age and the constant adoration he receives has made him terribly bored with life. Neither of them are the sort to fall head-over-heels for someone, or to bare their heart once they have. The journey of how they do so, how they do find themselves in love with one another despite everything, is really what held my fascination.

TK: I feel that many authors would give us tortured back story leading to this moment in these men's life, were you tempted?

Aislinn:  I can't say that I was. For me, the real interest of the
story lies in Arjen and Maikel and their interactions with one
another, they way they conflict with one another and work past each
other's defenses and really take one another by surprise. I have
written stories where characters had traumatic histories that were
important to the plot, but even then, I try to keep my focus on the
present, and even in those stories I tend to not reveal much of the
backstory until pretty late in the game.

TK: Why a vampire? Could they both have been human?

Aislinn:  I'm sure they could have, in another writer's hands, but I'm
a fantasy writer at heart. I'm drawn to the supernatural, the
mysterious, the things that go bump in the night. When I first started
writing, I imagined myself as a fantasy author, and was a little
startled when my mom started telling my relatives that I was going to be a great romance writer. That was back when I couldn't write a
fade-to-black love scene without blushing to the tips of my toes, and
I've since come to embrace my love of romance, but fantasy is part of my foundation and it's what I always find myself coming back to.

TK: So in the future m/f, m/m, where is the muse leading you?

Aislinn:   I'm currently finishing up the last book in a duology
that's been a lot of fun to write. M/m romance, pirates, swashbuckling, battles at sea... There's also an m/f romance about a selkie waiting to be written, and even possibly my first foray into science fiction. My list of ideas waiting to be written is a mile long, and it seems like I add to it every day. I've already got my goals and projects planned out to the end of the year, and it's going to be very busy, but I'm really looking forward to the stories that are waiting to be told.

TK: Many of your books are novellas and shorter works, does that help you get to all your ideas?

Aislinn:  Oh goodness, I don't think I'll ever get to all my ideas.
But I like the length of novellas because they let me tell a story
that's very focused on the main characters and their romance. I love
novels, too, but their greater length requires an expanded scope, with subplots and a bigger cast. I think for romance especially, novellas can give a much more intimate feel that I really enjoy.

Ultimately, though, I let the story determine the length, and I rarely
start a book with much more than a vague idea of how long it might end up being. I'm notoriously bad about predicting my own wordcounts. A book that I expected to run about 40,000 words recently turned into a 90,000 word novel on me, and I once thought that I was writing a standalone novel only to realize, as I approached the 100k mark, that it was going to take two books to tell the story. And to add insult to injury, it then turned into a trilogy!
TK: Well I must say it has been a treat to talk and a triple treat to
read your book.  I can not wait to read everything you have in the
works!   Everyone will get a chance to read my review of Blood and
Roses tomorrow.  Don't miss it here on Naughty in the Backseat.

Aislinn:  Thanks so much for having me, Terry!

Find out more about Aislinn Kerry and her books on her website http://www.aislinnkerry.com/