Renee Rose's Blog - Posts Tagged "never-submit"
Korey Mae Johnson on Otherworldly Discipline
Korey Mae Johnson is a fixture in the spanking publication world. You may recognize her name from Blushing Books, where she ran things for the past several years. Or you may know her as the author of the wildly popular books Never Submit and Pursuit of Glory. Or you may know her a cover artist - she is the graphic designer who did the artwork for the covers to all my books as well as countless others. You may be aware that she is now the co-owner of Stormy Night Publications, a new spanking fiction house.
Korey released her new book Otherworldly Discipline this week and I caught up with her for an interview.
Renee Rose: Do you use a pen name, and if so, how did you come up with it?
Korey Mae Johnson: Strange thing, but I expected this to be my real name at one point back when I was going to marry my ex-fiancé. Korey is actually my first name (although I don't spell it that way) and Mae is my middle name. After I got into the business, though, I didn't change it, and when you're really into the spanking community, it's good to avoid using your real last name. That, and I have snoopy parents who would find out that I worked in the spanking community for a living if all they had to do was Google me. I think my pen name is really dull and have wished to change it, but I've been in the community too long, so I can't without starting all over. Ah, well.
Renee Rose: Tell me about your latest release Otherworldly Discipline.
Korey Mae Johnson: Ashcroft is one of those wizard-hermits you read about who sits in his tower, reading books and ignoring the world around him as best as he can. Ashcroft is an Archivist, a type of wizard who actually gets off on studying. Charlotte's a witch, and a far cry from Ashcroft. Her particular breed of witch, although mightily powerful, is cursed with ADD for the most part, extremely flakey, and hates anything that doesn't involve "a good time." She's the last of her kind and was raised by Herb Wizards in Sunny California, and she would really like to be there—or at least on "Earthside"—smoking weed, having fun, and playing her violin.
Too bad she's got this destiny to fulfill and this craft that only she can fully possess. And so, fate would have it that she got stuck with Ashcroft. Even though they're not the same brand of wizard, he's the only one who was ever trusted with the secrets of her race… But she's the worst student ever and he's far too enthusiastic about teaching. It seems inevitable that he's going to have to spank her constantly, because she's nothing but a pain in his ass and she views him as nothing but a pain in hers... literally.
Strangely enough, they fall in love anyway. Along the way she gets herself into shit up to her eyeballs with Ashcroft’s evil brother, she has to constantly battle wits with Ashcroft's snarky shape-shifting and sex-obsessed steward, and she finds things out about her father that makes her question the point of her very existence.
That's Otherworldly Discipline, Book One: A Witch's Lesson. I'm actually really excited about it and am already working on the sequel for it. Good time to be working on a sequel during the Autumn, too… Puts me in the mood for fantasy.
Renee Rose: What is your favorite story/book that you have ever written and why?
Korey Mae Johnson: Pursuit of Glory was a joy to write from start to finish, and even though I wrote several versions of Pursuit of Glory before finally finishing it, the hero and the heroine never had trouble getting together. I have a crush-till-my-death on Logan Liam, and I have an obsession with 18th century warships. I would love to do a sequel for it this year or the next—it's about time for one. I haven't gotten my Logan fill just yet! It's the only book I've ever written where right after I wrote it, I felt I wasn't done. I probably could have gone another 20 chapters with those characters right away.
Renee Rose: How many books have you written? Are they all spanking fiction?
Korey Mae Johnson: I've written four novels, two novellas, and two short stories, and yep—all spanking. And thank goodness I can do it and make a living; I remember writing up a storm in high school and depressing myself because I couldn't seem to write a full story without a spanking in it, so I thought I had no hope of ever writing professionally.
Renee Rose: How long have you been writing spanking fiction?
Korey Mae Johnson: Since I was six. If you mean how long I've been writing spanking erotic fiction, then fourteen. Back then, though, I used to start a million novels and work on them for half-a-book and quit. Pursuit of Glory, which I wrote when I was twenty-one years old, was actually the first book I ever fully completed.
Renee Rose: Are you okay in your kink?
Korey Mae Johnson: Well, I'm getting there. I've certainly had it long enough! I've had an utter obsession with spanking since I was two—literally. But I always knew it was strange, that it wasn't something to advertise, and I hid it with every fiber of my being. Other kids didn't hide DRUGS as well as I used to hide spanking. I used to hide my spanking stories in something and then hide THAT thing. My parents still don't know about the kink, even though I've been working with it since I was 22. I was sort of raised to be a feminist warrior-princess, and so explaining a kink involving submission and control to another human being seems like it might estrange me from them forever.
That being said, I love the fact that spanking, in general, feels like it's part of some sorority/fraternity system. There's so much support, so many friends, and we're all dealing with a lot of the same issues. I almost don't want it to go mainstream, where it's "okay with everyone!" because I would miss the family-like closeness to so many people.
Renee Rose: Is writing your full time gig?
Korey Mae Johnson: Yes and no. It's part of my full-time gig. I worked for ABCD Webmasters (Spanking Romance, Bethany's Woodshed, Spank Stories, CFPublications, and Blushing Books, etc) from 2008 until just this October (2012), and I started out as a writer. It sort of built onto newsletters, then website design, and then store design, and then formatting and cover design, and graphic design. So I'm sort of a Jack of All Trades. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, want to make any one of those things my "full time job". I like to have several things I'm doing, but I do like to work within the BDSM community the most. In short, it's as much my full-time gig and my living as anything else is right now.
Renee Rose: What do you like to see in spanking fiction?
Korey Mae Johnson: A build up and good, loveable characters. Characters don't have to be perfect, but they have to be developed and believable and I don't like a spanking to be too contrived. Most of all, I like embarrassment. That's almost more of a fetish to me than the spanking itself. I like the aspect of humiliation because of the spanking, or whatever other punishment is in the story. That's why I don't go for the harder-core BDSM fiction—eventually, the aspect of humiliation in those stories gets forgotten, because the characters are living out of a dungeon. I'm not a dungeon fan.
Renee Rose: What is your writing process?
Korey Mae Johnson: I don't think James (my publisher/husband) would appreciate me saying. It's not a process he approves of. In essence, I create a setting, create the characters, and try to give them some sort of goal I'd like them to try to achieve before they kill each other. After that, I just let them go.
I used to do a lot of acting back in middle school and high school, when I think the largest growth spurt of my writing happened, and because of this, I sort of go with the "get a character and improv!" route.
My writing process is full of sweat, tears, and bloodshed. The characters never do what they should, and it always ends much differently than I'd imagined in the beginning.
Ellie and Graham in Never Submit!, for example, did not want to get together. They were both too stubborn to bend, and Graham was far too much of an egotistical asshole and Ellie was too much of an immature, not-able-to-take-a-seat-for-one-second flake. I had to mold and guide them into the sack against their will, I assure you. Thorton and Penny in Learning to Blush were a million times more difficult, somehow, because only a miracle could ever get Thorton laid because of how often he sticks his foot in his mouth, and it was hard to make Penny embarrassed about anything because she's sort of a slut. It took three full attempts to get Edward and Faith together in Earning a Christmas Bride because Edward kept molesting Faith (the sweet, innocent daughter of Santa Claus)… I shit you not.
Because of the hardship I've chosen, I sometimes rewrite the first 5 chapters about 20 times each book, just to get the characters molded enough so they get on "the right track". One of these days—hopefully soon—I will start writing outlines and just follow them. I did that only once, for The Evening's Entertainment, a short story, and it only took me seven hours to write it (it's over 8,000 words long). I was astounded by how "easy" the story came out, but I haven't been able to do it again since.
Renee Rose: What's your take on consensual vs. non-consensual spankings in fiction?
Korey Mae Johnson: I love reading non-consensual spankings. It's the element of discipline and punishment and humiliation, and humiliation is always for the most part non-consensual. I never feel like I need 'consensual' spankings, like foreplay, because I don't need spanking as foreplay. I watch vanilla porn; I like sex in itself.
I didn't think I'd like consensual spanking scenes at all at first, but I've read enough of them done really, really well lately. Not only that, but since I've gone to a spanking party and gotten my butt smacked by a few "strangers", and had a fantastic time, my mind is a little more open to it.
Still, I like to try to give readers what they want, rather than what I want them to want. Because of this, I don't think I'd try to write a consensual spanking book myself, since from what I’ve seen in the past, non-consensual spankings sell a little better, which means there's more of a demand for them.
Renee Rose: What traits make a hero hot to you?Korey Mae Johnson: Confidence. It's all about confidence. Confidence is what attracted me to my husband right-off. I like a man who feels they can take on the world and do anything. I like the "man's man" where they have a good sense of humor, high sense of lust, and utter devotion. Can't get enough of it.
Renee Rose: What gives your heroines strength?
Korey Mae Johnson: Mostly stubbornness and obsession, which is what gives me strength, and I think it, and delicious coffee, is the only reason to even get out of bed in the mornings. My characters all tend to have a hobby or something they want to do and a way they want to do it, and it's always something that can't be changed.
Renee Rose: Are you like any of your heroines?
Korey Mae Johnson: I try not to be for fear of creating any "Mary Sue" characters—you know, one I'm vicariously living through, because I would really steal any character development from that character in that case. I wouldn't make the character me, after all; I would make her who I wanted to be, look how I wanted to look, and people would treat her how I wanted to be treated, not how the other characters would treat someone like her.
So, I try to make the characters as unlike me as possible to avoid falling into that trap. I have no trouble basing my characters on people I know, but I wouldn't feel comfortable if I could look at a character and say, "Hey! She's like me!" If I did, I'd go back and change her. Besides, I'm in every book: I'm the narrator. I'm sometimes a very involved narrator, too.
The place where I failed was Otherworldly Discipline. Charlotte is a lot like me. Not that I play the violin, because I don't, but she's like me in all the ways I don't like myself. Including the fear she has of the dark, the cold sweat she wakes up in when she realizes—far too late—that she's done something mind-bogglingly stupid, and the fact that she's lazy in some things, but in the things she has any interest in, she's hard working. She actually looks a lot like me, too, but that won't last. Her character changes a lot between book one and book two—including the way she looks.
Renee Rose: Are you working on a new book right now? If so, tell me about it.
Korey Mae Johnson: I'm working on a few, actually. Otherworldly Discipline, Book Two needs to be finished PDQ, because I've made promises to have that out by "Fall 2012". When I made that promise, I didn't know I'd be working my tail off until October 2012, though, but I'll try what I can. I can't talk about Book Two without spoiling the first book all over the place.
I have an age play in the works, too. I'm trying something different by having a struggle of what the main characters really want, and about the sexual relationship within age play, as well as the discipline, and about the problems one might come across if living the lifestyle 24/7. Sophie, the main character, actually has a Daddy and a woman that plays the Mommy role, so there will be inherent F/F spanking scenes as well as M/F, as well as pretty graphic sex and naughty bits.
Other than that, I have a couple of stories waiting in the wings, one is a MFM (Two Males, One Female, all heterosexual as the two men are brothers) contemporary and the other is a contemporary M/F, but I plan those books to be more like novellas. We'll see once they really get started.
Renee Rose: Are you presently in a spanking relationship?Korey Mae Johnson: Yep. My husband, James, and I actually met on the site "Spanking Internet" (which is now www.spanko.net). I was looking for some play or just a friend with whom to chat about spanking in the local area (which was Monmouth, Oregon at the time) and low and behold, James found me, and I fell head-over-heels and moved to Texas. We've been in a Domestic Discipline relationship ever since, although we do incorporate spanking into our foreplay, too. So we sort of mix our spanking enjoyment so it fills up a lot of our lives. Either way, it must work, because I'm still SO in love with my husband that it hurts sometimes (during the spankings, it hurts literally).
Renee Rose: What is your favorite spanking implement?
Korey Mae Johnson: Ah, implements. I actually hate implements, because they're never part of "fun" spankings, really, but an implement we own that I respect is his leather slipper paddle we got from London Tanners. It is absolutely gorgeous, and he can give me quite a spanking with it, and it doesn't really bruise me. This is awesome, since I actually bruise super-easy.
Check out Otherworldly Discipline and follow Korey Mae Johnson at the following social media locales:
Twitter: @KoreyMaeJohnson
FB: http://www.facebook.com/korey.johnson...
Website: http://koreymaejohnson.stormynightpub...
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Korey-Mae-Johns...
Blushing Books: http://www.blushingbooks.com/index.ph...
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
email: Korey@stormynightpublications.com
Korey released her new book Otherworldly Discipline this week and I caught up with her for an interview.
Renee Rose: Do you use a pen name, and if so, how did you come up with it?
Korey Mae Johnson: Strange thing, but I expected this to be my real name at one point back when I was going to marry my ex-fiancé. Korey is actually my first name (although I don't spell it that way) and Mae is my middle name. After I got into the business, though, I didn't change it, and when you're really into the spanking community, it's good to avoid using your real last name. That, and I have snoopy parents who would find out that I worked in the spanking community for a living if all they had to do was Google me. I think my pen name is really dull and have wished to change it, but I've been in the community too long, so I can't without starting all over. Ah, well.
Renee Rose: Tell me about your latest release Otherworldly Discipline.
Korey Mae Johnson: Ashcroft is one of those wizard-hermits you read about who sits in his tower, reading books and ignoring the world around him as best as he can. Ashcroft is an Archivist, a type of wizard who actually gets off on studying. Charlotte's a witch, and a far cry from Ashcroft. Her particular breed of witch, although mightily powerful, is cursed with ADD for the most part, extremely flakey, and hates anything that doesn't involve "a good time." She's the last of her kind and was raised by Herb Wizards in Sunny California, and she would really like to be there—or at least on "Earthside"—smoking weed, having fun, and playing her violin.
Too bad she's got this destiny to fulfill and this craft that only she can fully possess. And so, fate would have it that she got stuck with Ashcroft. Even though they're not the same brand of wizard, he's the only one who was ever trusted with the secrets of her race… But she's the worst student ever and he's far too enthusiastic about teaching. It seems inevitable that he's going to have to spank her constantly, because she's nothing but a pain in his ass and she views him as nothing but a pain in hers... literally.
Strangely enough, they fall in love anyway. Along the way she gets herself into shit up to her eyeballs with Ashcroft’s evil brother, she has to constantly battle wits with Ashcroft's snarky shape-shifting and sex-obsessed steward, and she finds things out about her father that makes her question the point of her very existence.
That's Otherworldly Discipline, Book One: A Witch's Lesson. I'm actually really excited about it and am already working on the sequel for it. Good time to be working on a sequel during the Autumn, too… Puts me in the mood for fantasy.
Renee Rose: What is your favorite story/book that you have ever written and why?
Korey Mae Johnson: Pursuit of Glory was a joy to write from start to finish, and even though I wrote several versions of Pursuit of Glory before finally finishing it, the hero and the heroine never had trouble getting together. I have a crush-till-my-death on Logan Liam, and I have an obsession with 18th century warships. I would love to do a sequel for it this year or the next—it's about time for one. I haven't gotten my Logan fill just yet! It's the only book I've ever written where right after I wrote it, I felt I wasn't done. I probably could have gone another 20 chapters with those characters right away.
Renee Rose: How many books have you written? Are they all spanking fiction?
Korey Mae Johnson: I've written four novels, two novellas, and two short stories, and yep—all spanking. And thank goodness I can do it and make a living; I remember writing up a storm in high school and depressing myself because I couldn't seem to write a full story without a spanking in it, so I thought I had no hope of ever writing professionally.
Renee Rose: How long have you been writing spanking fiction?
Korey Mae Johnson: Since I was six. If you mean how long I've been writing spanking erotic fiction, then fourteen. Back then, though, I used to start a million novels and work on them for half-a-book and quit. Pursuit of Glory, which I wrote when I was twenty-one years old, was actually the first book I ever fully completed.
Renee Rose: Are you okay in your kink?
Korey Mae Johnson: Well, I'm getting there. I've certainly had it long enough! I've had an utter obsession with spanking since I was two—literally. But I always knew it was strange, that it wasn't something to advertise, and I hid it with every fiber of my being. Other kids didn't hide DRUGS as well as I used to hide spanking. I used to hide my spanking stories in something and then hide THAT thing. My parents still don't know about the kink, even though I've been working with it since I was 22. I was sort of raised to be a feminist warrior-princess, and so explaining a kink involving submission and control to another human being seems like it might estrange me from them forever.
That being said, I love the fact that spanking, in general, feels like it's part of some sorority/fraternity system. There's so much support, so many friends, and we're all dealing with a lot of the same issues. I almost don't want it to go mainstream, where it's "okay with everyone!" because I would miss the family-like closeness to so many people.
Renee Rose: Is writing your full time gig?
Korey Mae Johnson: Yes and no. It's part of my full-time gig. I worked for ABCD Webmasters (Spanking Romance, Bethany's Woodshed, Spank Stories, CFPublications, and Blushing Books, etc) from 2008 until just this October (2012), and I started out as a writer. It sort of built onto newsletters, then website design, and then store design, and then formatting and cover design, and graphic design. So I'm sort of a Jack of All Trades. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, want to make any one of those things my "full time job". I like to have several things I'm doing, but I do like to work within the BDSM community the most. In short, it's as much my full-time gig and my living as anything else is right now.
Renee Rose: What do you like to see in spanking fiction?
Korey Mae Johnson: A build up and good, loveable characters. Characters don't have to be perfect, but they have to be developed and believable and I don't like a spanking to be too contrived. Most of all, I like embarrassment. That's almost more of a fetish to me than the spanking itself. I like the aspect of humiliation because of the spanking, or whatever other punishment is in the story. That's why I don't go for the harder-core BDSM fiction—eventually, the aspect of humiliation in those stories gets forgotten, because the characters are living out of a dungeon. I'm not a dungeon fan.
Renee Rose: What is your writing process?
Korey Mae Johnson: I don't think James (my publisher/husband) would appreciate me saying. It's not a process he approves of. In essence, I create a setting, create the characters, and try to give them some sort of goal I'd like them to try to achieve before they kill each other. After that, I just let them go.
I used to do a lot of acting back in middle school and high school, when I think the largest growth spurt of my writing happened, and because of this, I sort of go with the "get a character and improv!" route.
My writing process is full of sweat, tears, and bloodshed. The characters never do what they should, and it always ends much differently than I'd imagined in the beginning.
Ellie and Graham in Never Submit!, for example, did not want to get together. They were both too stubborn to bend, and Graham was far too much of an egotistical asshole and Ellie was too much of an immature, not-able-to-take-a-seat-for-one-second flake. I had to mold and guide them into the sack against their will, I assure you. Thorton and Penny in Learning to Blush were a million times more difficult, somehow, because only a miracle could ever get Thorton laid because of how often he sticks his foot in his mouth, and it was hard to make Penny embarrassed about anything because she's sort of a slut. It took three full attempts to get Edward and Faith together in Earning a Christmas Bride because Edward kept molesting Faith (the sweet, innocent daughter of Santa Claus)… I shit you not.
Because of the hardship I've chosen, I sometimes rewrite the first 5 chapters about 20 times each book, just to get the characters molded enough so they get on "the right track". One of these days—hopefully soon—I will start writing outlines and just follow them. I did that only once, for The Evening's Entertainment, a short story, and it only took me seven hours to write it (it's over 8,000 words long). I was astounded by how "easy" the story came out, but I haven't been able to do it again since.
Renee Rose: What's your take on consensual vs. non-consensual spankings in fiction?
Korey Mae Johnson: I love reading non-consensual spankings. It's the element of discipline and punishment and humiliation, and humiliation is always for the most part non-consensual. I never feel like I need 'consensual' spankings, like foreplay, because I don't need spanking as foreplay. I watch vanilla porn; I like sex in itself.
I didn't think I'd like consensual spanking scenes at all at first, but I've read enough of them done really, really well lately. Not only that, but since I've gone to a spanking party and gotten my butt smacked by a few "strangers", and had a fantastic time, my mind is a little more open to it.
Still, I like to try to give readers what they want, rather than what I want them to want. Because of this, I don't think I'd try to write a consensual spanking book myself, since from what I’ve seen in the past, non-consensual spankings sell a little better, which means there's more of a demand for them.
Renee Rose: What traits make a hero hot to you?Korey Mae Johnson: Confidence. It's all about confidence. Confidence is what attracted me to my husband right-off. I like a man who feels they can take on the world and do anything. I like the "man's man" where they have a good sense of humor, high sense of lust, and utter devotion. Can't get enough of it.
Renee Rose: What gives your heroines strength?
Korey Mae Johnson: Mostly stubbornness and obsession, which is what gives me strength, and I think it, and delicious coffee, is the only reason to even get out of bed in the mornings. My characters all tend to have a hobby or something they want to do and a way they want to do it, and it's always something that can't be changed.
Renee Rose: Are you like any of your heroines?
Korey Mae Johnson: I try not to be for fear of creating any "Mary Sue" characters—you know, one I'm vicariously living through, because I would really steal any character development from that character in that case. I wouldn't make the character me, after all; I would make her who I wanted to be, look how I wanted to look, and people would treat her how I wanted to be treated, not how the other characters would treat someone like her.
So, I try to make the characters as unlike me as possible to avoid falling into that trap. I have no trouble basing my characters on people I know, but I wouldn't feel comfortable if I could look at a character and say, "Hey! She's like me!" If I did, I'd go back and change her. Besides, I'm in every book: I'm the narrator. I'm sometimes a very involved narrator, too.
The place where I failed was Otherworldly Discipline. Charlotte is a lot like me. Not that I play the violin, because I don't, but she's like me in all the ways I don't like myself. Including the fear she has of the dark, the cold sweat she wakes up in when she realizes—far too late—that she's done something mind-bogglingly stupid, and the fact that she's lazy in some things, but in the things she has any interest in, she's hard working. She actually looks a lot like me, too, but that won't last. Her character changes a lot between book one and book two—including the way she looks.
Renee Rose: Are you working on a new book right now? If so, tell me about it.
Korey Mae Johnson: I'm working on a few, actually. Otherworldly Discipline, Book Two needs to be finished PDQ, because I've made promises to have that out by "Fall 2012". When I made that promise, I didn't know I'd be working my tail off until October 2012, though, but I'll try what I can. I can't talk about Book Two without spoiling the first book all over the place.
I have an age play in the works, too. I'm trying something different by having a struggle of what the main characters really want, and about the sexual relationship within age play, as well as the discipline, and about the problems one might come across if living the lifestyle 24/7. Sophie, the main character, actually has a Daddy and a woman that plays the Mommy role, so there will be inherent F/F spanking scenes as well as M/F, as well as pretty graphic sex and naughty bits.
Other than that, I have a couple of stories waiting in the wings, one is a MFM (Two Males, One Female, all heterosexual as the two men are brothers) contemporary and the other is a contemporary M/F, but I plan those books to be more like novellas. We'll see once they really get started.
Renee Rose: Are you presently in a spanking relationship?Korey Mae Johnson: Yep. My husband, James, and I actually met on the site "Spanking Internet" (which is now www.spanko.net). I was looking for some play or just a friend with whom to chat about spanking in the local area (which was Monmouth, Oregon at the time) and low and behold, James found me, and I fell head-over-heels and moved to Texas. We've been in a Domestic Discipline relationship ever since, although we do incorporate spanking into our foreplay, too. So we sort of mix our spanking enjoyment so it fills up a lot of our lives. Either way, it must work, because I'm still SO in love with my husband that it hurts sometimes (during the spankings, it hurts literally).
Renee Rose: What is your favorite spanking implement?
Korey Mae Johnson: Ah, implements. I actually hate implements, because they're never part of "fun" spankings, really, but an implement we own that I respect is his leather slipper paddle we got from London Tanners. It is absolutely gorgeous, and he can give me quite a spanking with it, and it doesn't really bruise me. This is awesome, since I actually bruise super-easy.
Check out Otherworldly Discipline and follow Korey Mae Johnson at the following social media locales:
Twitter: @KoreyMaeJohnson
FB: http://www.facebook.com/korey.johnson...
Website: http://koreymaejohnson.stormynightpub...
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Korey-Mae-Johns...
Blushing Books: http://www.blushingbooks.com/index.ph...
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
email: Korey@stormynightpublications.com
