A blog meme!

My critique partner, friend, grammar Nazi, shopping pal and macaron loving pal Jess has tagged me in a blog meme. It seems to be running through my fellow #ROW80 participants, so why shouldn’t I play along? I’m going to use the NaNoWriMo project I started a few days ago, yes, the newest one, to answer these questions since it plays the best with the questions posed to us.

What is the working title of your book?

Currently?

Service Optional

Why? Well, it was the first thing that came to me, it was a little suggestive and it fit where I see the story going.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

Oh this is going to be a fun answer.

Drugs.

No really, drugs.

I was laying awake in bed. I’d just taken a pain pill and I was staring at the ceiling. I often mull over story ideas in that hour or so it takes me to fall asleep and with the added pain pills that only makes the ideas. I’m not sure the exact progression of events in my head that spawned the whole idea of Strippers in Space. I think it started out as straight contemporary, but Magic Mike has all ready done that, so it needed a twist. What if it was in space? What if things aren’t as they appear?

And now I have a book.

What genre does your book fall under?

Science-Fiction/Erotic-Romance

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Ooo, this is a fun one. Can I use pictures?

During my brainstorming, for some reason I decided to pick which one of the Ellora’s Cave Cavemen, or cover models, I thought would most accurately fit the character simmering in my head. Back in October when I went to Romanticon I got the chance to meet a lot of the guys in a more relaxed setting. They’re all super polite and professional, but one guy really seemed to steal the ladies hearts. Nick, pictured right in a shot from the Romanticon website, was super popular with everyone, and after a moment talking to him you knew why. He’s very much the gentleman despite the fact that I don’t think the poor guy brought enough shirts to the conference to be able to wear one every day. *snicker* Anyways, Nick to me was a great representation for Caleb, the hero in the book.

One of the fun things about the Ellora’s Cave covers is that we are allowed to request a cover model for the books. We don’t always get them, but it never hurts to ask, right?

The heroine was a little harder for me to pin down. I mean, I started this whole thing around the idea of who the hero was, so there was some spinning my wheels where the leading lady is concerned.

I’m guilty of never writing blondes so I wanted to make sure I got a blonde in this book. I’m also not really up to speed on my actors so I went to google and went over some images. Yes, I’m guilty of grabbing this one of Emma Stone off Google Images. That’s a no-no for those of you who are copyright savvy. I’m going to delete it, so hurry up and read this all ready!

I’ve always liked Emma Stone. Probably since she was in Zombieland, and even though I could have done without the romance in my zombie movie, I like her. She’s not the embodiment of my heroine, Lisbet, but on a set I’d love to see what she could pull out if she were in those same circumstances.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Oh lordy. I don’t even really know the whole plot and I all ready need to distill it down, huh?

A genetically altered special ops soldier must choose whose well-being is more important, his own or the woman who time and again sacrifices to keep him and his team safe.

I’m not thrilled with that line, but for now it works. There’s BDSM and stuff that don’t get touched on when you boil the story down so far, but I guess that’s the point, huh? Get to the meat of the matter.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Neither, I’ll be going to my established e-publisher, Ellora’s Cave with this one. Only right since their Alpha Caveman is the visual embodiment of the hero, Caleb.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Uh… No idea! It’s still unfinished. I would, in a perfect world, like to finish writing this draft by the end of November. I think that since I’d like this to be a novella, and if I write somewhere between 1K to 2K on this book a day I should easily knock it out. I’d like it to be somewhere in the realm of 30K, which is long enough for a decent plot, but not too long as to need to come up with more elements. I’m kicking around the idea of writing Caleb’s buddies eventually. Maybe I can get a really cool theme cover or something.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Uh… I guess I would compare this book and the overall idea to something like Kim Knox’s Planetary Bodies series, also at Ellora’s Cave.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Drugs. I think I covered that earlier, yes?

I also wanted to write something that was a little less serious, a little more fun and do it all within the science-fiction genre. I really enjoyed writing A Kiss for a Cure and returning to the genre which started my writing, but I wanted to do something different. This book is different, that’s for sure. While I did retain some of the same elements, such as a hero needing to be saved and a sacrificial heroine, there are differences.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Magic Mike. No seriously! With all the attention the movie gathered from women and popular culture, the male stripper has some appeal, and I wanted to take that idea, give it a twist, put it on its head and see where that took me. The result was, well, where I am now.