Thursday 5 March 2015

Dear Author

As you know I signed up for a prompt from the Goodreads MM romance Group Don’t Read in the closet, this year it’s called Love is an Open Road. Anyway, you can find the event here, as long as you are logged in.
 
Here’s mine, helped picked by Tracy G – and I say that as she picked it, I just chose between two and then commented, lol.
 
 
Dear Author,
 
Our group of 3-6 (your choice) college-age friends spend Spring Break roughing it on a trail ride on horseback. Each of us gets what he can carry in his saddle bags (30 lbs/14 kg) and half the load of a pack horse (100 lbs/45 kg each) in food, clothes, and camping gear. Our trail guide and some of the other guest riders are experienced trail riders (gay or straight, male or female). One or two of us are cowboys, but the rest of us are city boys with no experience in the wild or with horses. We are smart, athletic friends, and at least two of us will find first gay love or rekindle m/m romance on a trail fraught with danger, disaster, and memories to last a lifetime.
 
I hope to read hot, erotic romance, high adventure, and narrow escapes in the seven days of the trail ride. I’m fine with graphic eroticism, ménage (m/m/m), mystery, violence, paranormal, and even shifters in a largely contemporary setting, but would prefer no BDSM. I hope for passionate men, compelling action, and steamy interaction in route to a satisfying climax.
 
Sincerely,
 
Jay
 
 
Now, only the nitty gritty
 
The first thing you need to do in these events is come up with a title and character names. I have about a month for this one, but let’s face it, I may as well get it over with – at least the name part as that’s not that hard, right….
 
Title: A Road Worth Traveling
MC #1: Jack Schofield aka Schofield
MC #2: Tomas Stone aka Stone
MC #3: Mitch Crystal aka Mitch
 
First thoughts:
 
When I read through the prompt, I saw… a YA with sex. I’m not really sure if you understand what I mean by that, but simply it’s what I loved most about YA is the simple pleasure of putting their characters though impossible and highly dangerous and terrifying ordeals with a touch of love and having everyone come out of it relatively unstarched but with the love of their lives.
 
That’s what I plan on doing, I’m just not really sure what way this will go about
 
Option #1:  I will put a cowboy couple, of sorts, with a city slicker as they go on a trail that was taken by a famous explore – or what he’s father use to do
 
Option #2: we take a trip to the movies. Do a take of some sort off City Slicker but that would mean me actually watching the movie, and honestly not sure I ever truly enjoyed it.
This option also doesn’t really work with the idea of it being Aussie, which I want as many of my stories to me (it was hard to pick prompts from that fact to)
 
Option #3: … still working on it, but there’s something there, rattling, wanting out, I just can’t tell what it’s saying yet.
 
Anyway, the whole idea will end with rain – they will FUCK through a thunderstorm, and I’m hoping some other time, but if I’m honest, I might not get more than one full on sex scene, between the three of them, but we’ll have to see how it goes.
 
I’m hoping for a story between 12 and 20K as I think that’s what’s needed for something like this to really shine. For the thriller part to come out properly.  But we’ll have to see what comes, it’s a lot of words in a short amount of time, and we all know I’m not great at writing quickly.
 
The whole point is these are just what I have at the moment who know how the story comes out, but we do know it’ll be along the lines of what’s said above, I just need a bit more time to get it all worked out in my head.
 
I also want to point out that all I’m thinking about at the moment is the romantic connection, the rest of the group and reason behind and all that will comes when I get down to writing.
 
What I do know is I’m going to end up doing a lot of research because I know nothing about anything in this book – ok, I know what I can pull off in a bush like area, because I grew up in that, but for this, I’m going to be the city-kid trying to work heads and tails of cowboys shit.

From the Backlist #20

 

 
Bound and Determined by Jane Davitt & Alexa Snow
First Published 20th October 2009 by Loose ID
Contemporary Romance
 
When Sterling Baker discovers the wonderful world of BDSM, he's ready to literally throw himself at the feet of the spectacular Owen Sawyer, but Owen is unwilling to take on someone so new to the scene—or so he says. Determined to get what he wants, Sterling sets out to convince the doubting Owen that he can be the best sub in the world, the fastest learning, the most obedient.
 
It's not as easy as he thinks it will be, and things get even more complicated when Sterling realizes that he's fallen in love with Owen. With the stakes that much higher, Sterling's more determined than ever to win Owen over. But now he'll have to convince Owen they can have more than a teacher / student relationship, more than just good kink.
 
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