An interview with Author Muffy Wilson
Author: Muffy Wilson
Your latest/current work: Cheerleaders In Heat
Publisher: Q~Press Publishing, Yellow Silk Dreams
Young: Tell us about your Latest Book/Book about to be released? Release Date? And can you give us a teaser?
Muffy Wilson (M.W.): This book is a collaboration between a bestselling mystery/thriller writer friend of mine who had a brainstorm about this book and asked me to help her. She want to step into the world of erotica and get a thrill of a different kind. She named her alter-ego Chrissy Laurence and off we tripped. It sounded like fun and it was! It was a dramatic departure for me in writing style, I tend to the more poetic and romantic, so I was really able to cut loose on this one!It was published in September and we wanted to work with My Family���s Heart to end the year with a huge splash for the book!
NOTE: Although this novel is lighthearted, campy and full of laughter with an occasional tear and lots of sex, there is a chapter that deals with rage, drugs, rape and is extremely violent. This chapter is no way meant to glorify aberrant non-consensual sex and/or drugs and violence in any way. It is a pivotal chapter and it lives at that point to give Cherie a reason to move forward, rather than continue to be sucked further into the abyss which she is quickly sliding. The surprise ending (don't peek ahead) explains it all. ENJOY!
WARNING:
ELECTRIFYING ORGASMS!!!
NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART
Miami Rattlers Cheerleader Cherie Redd is exquisitely beautiful, athletic, and very, very lonely. Romance: a puzzling phenomenon she figured had something to do with guys' fear of rejection or lack of self-confidence because they just didn't have what it takes to win someone like Cherie.
Titillatingly sexy and breathtakingly beautiful, Cherie and her other cheerleading friends often spent their lonely Saturday nights lamenting their beauty and available just for the asking. The prettiest single women around: lonely, loveless and forlorn.
Frustrated by too many quiet nights at home or with other cheerleaders, Cherie was oh-so-eager for romance and a man to seduce her lavishly. She wanted to feel what a real orgasm in the arms of an adoring man was like once again. So, she tucked her vibrator away and took to the Internet. Cherie had no clue how rapidly the seduction would begin or where her life would careen as a result. Painfully naive and overwhelmed by admirers before her spinning head cleared, Cherie was learning things her momma never even knew enough to warn her about.
Follow Cherie and her friends as their sexual scoreboards light up brighter than in any stadium as their downward spiral introduces them to hot m��nage sex, perversion and degradation. Or does it?
Young: What other books/short stories have you written?
(M.W.): My first book was The Para-Portage of Emily, a paranormal love story across the ages. That has been very well received and one of my favorites, no doubt, because it was my first. I wrote Moonbeams of Unintended Consequences next during Na No WriNoMo last November which I really love and I wish was doing better. It is such a wonderful story and one of my favorites about a brilliant black opera star and his love affair during one magical night with a design student in San Francisco.. The interracial aspects are timely and full of love. I have numerous anthologies and other stories that can be found on my Amazon Author Page but my very first publication was in 2010 called The Storm, about the kindness of strangers and lost love, and it was featured in Oysters & Chocolate, an online magazine that has since folded.
Young: Do you publish in e-book, print, or both?
(M.W.): I publish in both formats. It really depends on what it is, who is involved and how I think it will be received, how the readers want to see it. Real books are still in print to me. I love the feeling of the pages between my fingers and the physical experience of curling up with a good book, don���t you?
Young: Where can readers find your books?
(M.W.): Most all of my work is on Amazon, which is convenient for most readers, but I am also found on Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Inketera, Scribe, Smashwords, Goodreads, Kobo���.well, just about everywhere, I guess.
Young: What do you think are the biggest challenges for the type of writing that you do?
(M.W.): Well, erotica gets labeled as porn all the time. That is a huge hurdle to overcome. And there are tremendous differences between them both. Porn is all about the sex, nothing but the sex. Erotica has wide ranges of heat level and varying story genres from romantic to hard core. But the main difference between erotica and porn is that with erotica, if you remove the sex, the story can stand alone, on its own merits, and you still have a book. I also tend to the poetic and get a little purple prose-ish so I have to reel myself in more often than not.
Young: How did you get started in writing?
(M.W.): Through an old boyfriend from high school���.and my husband. I have been writing for years as a marketing manager and regional director but always business related. My husband has long encouraged me to write because of my love affair with words. He just never thought it would be erotica or provocative romance.
Young: Where and How can readers get in touch with you?
(M.W.): Website | Blog | Twitter | Email | DitterVerse | Facebook | FB Fan Page | YouTube Trailers | Mailing List Sign-Up | Google+ | Pinterest | Triberr | TSU | Wordpress | Amazon | Ganxy | XinXii | Kobo Books | iTunes Books | Barnes and Noble | All Romance eBooks | Smashwords | Goodreads | Yellow Silk Dreams Publishing | Secret Cravings Publishing | The Romance Review | Manic Readers | The Muffy Wilson Daily | Muffy Wilson Literotica | Cheerleaders in Heat News
They can always email me at Muffy@MuffyWilson.com and I will answer them. If they sign up for my newsletter, Mailing List Sign-Up, they will receive a free book and stay up to the minute on all my doings, appearances and giveaways!
Young: So with your latest work released/or being released, what comes next? What can we expect from you in the future?
(M.W.): I just released an anthology called, Put Your Ho Ho���s On, which is a compilation of great Christmas themed stories of all heat levels and genres by 21 NYT, USA Today and International Award-Winning Bestselling Authors. It just made the Amazon Bestsellers List and hangs in there with people having great fun reading it, together or alone! But, the following is my schedule, for now. I reserve the right to procrastinate!!
Nov 2015 ~This Beautiful Escape: Ataxia Awareness Fundraiser Anthology Vol 1 & 2
Fall 2015 ~ A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the War A Memoire of Lt.Col. Joe Lyle Jr
Feb 2016 ~Indulgence by the Erotic Authors Guild Anthology
Mar 2016 ~ Naughty Nights Press Anthology with Gina Kincade
May 2016 ~ Sequel to The Para-Portage of Emily
July 2016 ~ Sequel to Moonbeams of Unintended Consequences
Young: How much of your personality and life experiences are in your writing?
(M.W.): This sounds so trite and self-serving but I get ideas everywhere. Not all at once, mind you!! That would drive me insane. But, I will see or hear something that triggers a memory, a feeling or a pain. That seems to be the grain of sand in my oyster so as it rolls and gnaws at me, it develops. My stories are tied to my life. In one way or another, there is a piece of me in each in part or whole. The trick is for the reader to determine which.
Young: Do you have a set schedule for writing or do you just go with the flow?
(M.W.): I do not. I write or work marketing and promoting, all the time because I love it. So, I always have my laptop in my, well���.lap!
Young: What is your routine once you start writing a book?
(M.W.): I am not clever enough to write more than one book at a time and I certainly do NOT have that kind of self-discipline. Besides, my stories keep me up, pulling at me until I find out how the story ends���until they have had a chance to tell me their story. I write until I am done. In the beginning, I found it hard to stay on any kind of schedule, so as a result, it took me four years to finish Emily. I have gotten more self-disciplined over time and more importantly, I have retired so I have more unscheduled time.
I write on the couch while my husband watches TV! My office used to be in the living room, or my desk was anyway. I like being with him and I don���t want my work to take me away from him. After all, even though he is nothing like my characters, he is my inspiration for love and passionate human feelings���good and bad.
Young: What about you in general? What is it that makes you tick? Makes you you? Things you like to do and what prompted you into writing?
(M.W.): Me? Oh that is a loaded question! I have been told I am smart, funny, articulate, charming, playful, obsessive-compulsive, anal, overly competitive, a neat-freak, a typical Virgo. That was when I was young and single, in other words, available to bed. I suppose I am all of those things at one time or another, but mostly���.I feel like a favorite velour housecoat. I live, love, and laugh hard because of one thing, one person: my mother. She died at 61 and that seems younger and younger to me every year. I want as much as I can pack into my life on the off chance that fate will follow too closely my shadow. That is one reason why I waited to marry until I was 36. I was afraid my life, my living, would be mundane then, but I was wrong. Marriage only enriched my life. My husband���s youngest son was my redemption, my freedom. It was, indeed, the best thing I ever did.
Young: Among your own books, have you a favourite book? Favourite Hero or Heroine?
(M.W.): I love Emily, my first, and Moonbeams such a romantic love story and how children can knot together broken lives. I really cannot wait to get back to their stories and write the endings of these stories and the beginning to their lives.
Young: Where do you see yourself in five years?
(M.W.): I think I will be writing, adding to my books, and helping other authors navigate the industry for other authors. I was fortunate to have some great friends that helped me and I believe strongly in ���playing it forward��� and helping others as I have been helped.
Young: What kind of research do you when writing one of your works?
(M.W.): I research when the story calls for specifics. I write from the heart so I have already done my research living my life. But, sometimes a story requires for accurate details and the Internet has made that so easy.
Young: What does your significant other think of your writing?
(M.W.): He tells everyone I write porn, watches their reactions, and laughs his ass off! But, he thinks it is a good hobby for me and he knows I enjoy it. But, he really does think I have something untapped inside of my creative core.
Young: Have you ever experienced Writer's Block? If so how did you work through it?
(M.W.): I have. Everyone has, or they are fibbing about it! I walk away and try not to think about it. I do something else: I engage, pursue interests, help others���I try not to dwell upon myself. Would it sound pretentious to say, Life? I believe in paying it forward, to help those who cannot help themselves; I believe in the power of love and healing in the human condition. I love observation and exploration ~ communication. My pulse is magnetized, energized by the sun, the moon and the wind ~ a touch. A simple "Hello" or "Good morning" electrifies my interest....and I have a Havanese. His morning rituals are most important!
Young: Who are some of your favourite authors to read?
(M.W.): Oh, I have so many. I have read insatiably since I was very, very young. When we lived in France, I was 13 years old. We had no television so I read all the time. At the time I read a lot about judicial criminology. Like most writers, I have an insatiable appetite for words, in any combination or form or genre. But, to answer your question, in no particular order, are my delicious favorite authors: Virginia Wolfe, Pat Conroy, C.S. Lewis, Kahlil Gibran, Stephen King, Erica Jong, Robert Service, Rod McKeun, Jack London, Tom Clancy, James Patterson, Nora Ephron, Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, W. Somerset Maugham, Sylvia Plath, George Eliot, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Kerouac, Faulkner, Richard Price, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Bukowski, Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, Dylan Thomas, Margaret Mitchell, Stieg Larsson and in erotica, of course, Rachel Kramer Bussel. I could go on and on until we were a box of dusty bones���..to name a few.
Young: Anything else you'd like to tell our readers?
(M.W.): Honestly? What I do and don���t like about writing, I suppose. I love the quiet and aloneness. I have no distractions from myself. It can be revealing and painful. I love my poetic style. That sounds heady, I know, but sometimes when I read what I wrote, I step back and say to myself, wow that is pretty good. But, other times?���nothing!! I hate writing. It is so hard and grueling, constantly thinking it is crap and rewriting. I have the same insecurities all writers talk about. But, I cannot stop because one reviewer called me the Emily Bronte of erotica. That so feeds my ego. How could someone stop feeding that monkey once that was said about them?
Young: Lastly do you have any words of encouragement for unpublished writers?
(M.W.): Follow your heart. Write what you want, whether you know it or not: experiment, explore, examine! If we only write what we know, which is bad advice anyway, it would be pretty boring and we would not have trolls, vampires, Martians, soylent green or fifty shades of any color, let alone grey.
(M.W.): Writing is cathartic. Sprinkle your life, your dreams, your pain and experiences throughout your characters��� lives as they unfold. Give them your pain and resolve it the way you would have if you could have in your own life. The freedom is elevating. More importantly, love what you do; find your sweet spot and write what you want, when you want for as long as you want. But, just DO it!
And finally, pay it forward. You were new to this once, too. Your kindness and thoughtful generosity will make everyone feel wonderful!
