Thursday, May 5, 2011

Welcome Adrienne Wilder!



MM: Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Adrienne Wilder whose ebook City of Dragons: Blood Bonds is available from Liquid Silver Books, and she has many other dark, erotic tales to tell. Thank you for joining us today.

Adrienne Wilder: Thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity.

MM: So tell me, how long have you been writing?

Adrienne Wilder: Since I could hold a crayon. If memory serves me correctly, my first “real” story was titled “The Fat Cat Who Sat on the Hat.” It was written on purple construction paper and illustrated with Crayola’s best. By the time I was twelve, I’d written multiple books spanning seven hundred-plus pages. All tripe of course, but I didn’t care. They were mine.

MM: What is your favorite subgenre to write? Is there one that you haven’t tried that you see yourself doing in the future?

Adrienne Wilder: I took the liberty of combining these two questions, mostly because if I don’t, I will be repeating myself.

First off, I really dislike the word “subgenre.” It gives me hives.

I agree we need to be able to categorize stories via a “genre” so readers can find what they like to read, but do we really need to divide them again into a subgenre? That’s kind of like pulling off all the toppings on your pizza and putting them in separate piles. Who wants to eat pizza toppings like that? And keeping with the pizza analogy, the genre is the pie, any other variations are toppings. That way you can combine as many flavors as you want!

Anyhow, back to your question. I’d call what I write urban fantasy. I wouldn’t give it a subgenre, because I honestly don’t think it has one. Other genres I would like to dabble in range from science fiction all the way to steam punk.

MM: No problem, I love your answer. So, I’m of the opinion that erotica doesn’t have to be real all the time to make a good story, what are your thoughts?

Adrienne Wilder: I hope it doesn’t have to be real. The erotic parts of my story aren’t. In fact, they’re completely beyond the realm of real. My goal, when I write, when I open my world and bring the reader in, is to I do it in a way that makes them want to believe. More than that, makes them want to go and live there.

And if the story isn’t “realistic”—limited by what we “know” to be real—then your story ideas have no boundaries or limits.

MM: Who are the authors that you look up to?

Adrienne Wilder:: Anne McCaffrey, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, J. R. Ward, Z.A. Maxfield, Kim Dare, Jordan Castillo Price, Cat Kane, Willa Okati, and many, many more.

MM: What are you working on now?

Adrienne Wilder: Currently, I have three more City of Dragons:Gray Zone novels in the works, and the second book to the original series, Blood Bonds, is currently in edits. The second half of the Darwin’s Theory serialized story/novella series is on book two.

MM: When creating your characters, do you have models in mind or are they totally fictional?

Adrienne Wilder: Fictional. Although, sometimes I draw my characters to make them more real to me.

MM: As an M/M writer, do you feel that the trend is changing where it is becoming more mainstream?

Adrienne Wilder: Well, here is my dilemma with that question. I don’t see myself as an M/M writer. I see myself as a writer of urban fantasy whose stories just happen to have M/M elements. I think if people really and truly want M/M relationships to be accepted in “mainstream” we need to quit drawing attention and categorizing it as M/M rather than contemporary, science fiction, fantasy, etc. In fact, we need to do just the opposite. Write the genre then let your characters be who they want to be. I’m of the belief if we write a story that’s compelling enough readers are going to be too involved to really care about sexual orientation.

MM: That's the most different answer I've had to that question. Awesome. Recently, a writer sabotaged her career by answering a bad review on a blog. How would you have handled this and do you think authors should answer their reviews?

Adrienne Wilder: In a fairy tale world - lucky for me I write fantasy - we would all smile, and nod our heads, and take the words thrown at us with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, the last time I checked, fairies did not fertilize my garden, unicorns do not graze in my front yard, and puppies and kittens do not rain down from the sky.

I feel for any writer who gets a bad review on a book. We all have and will. I do think it’s only natural for any artist to want to protect their work. Remember, it’s a part of them. And I sometimes think readers forget the fact that there are real people on the other side of blogs, email, and forums. I’d like to think I would just ignore something like that. I’d be a liar if I said anything else, because I really don’t know.

As for whether or not authors should answer reviews? Honestly, we probably shouldn’t even read them.

MM: Do you think it’s time for publishers to begin calling gay fiction/erotica what it is instead of m/m? Why or why not?

Adrienne Wilder: Hives…I’ve got hives! Sorry, couldn’t resist.

In my opinion, it doesn’t really matter. It’s a label to let people know that any sexual relationships within the pages will be same sex. And that’s all it should be.

MM: As a fellow fem in the genre, what is your stance on the difference between male and female gay writers?

Adrienne Wilder: My question is, what does a person’s sex have to do with being able to write?

MM: Very good question. I'm very much in agreement. I read a blog about M/M writer’s losing their imagination because they are writing the same subjects repeatedly. What are your thoughts? http://www.reviewsbyjessewave.com/?p=42883

Adrienne Wilder: Maybe instead of losing their imagination, writers who choose to have same sex relationships in their stories are forgetting the fact they are supposed to be a story teller first. Characters can drive a story, they can anchor story, and they even supply conflict. But a story is more than the chemistry between two characters. It’s the chemistry between the characters and the world around them. If a writer writes the story—not the character—it’s highly unlikely they will ever run out of ideas.

MM: What is it about M/M that pleasures you to write it?

Adrienne Wilder: As I said before, I don’t write M/M, I write stories. And I love to write, simply because I love to create. I tend to choose M/M relationships because I prefer male characters. The City of Dragons world simply provides a very large garden for M/M encounters to grow. My characters do not identify with being gay or straight. They are what they are, by design and by fate. On the rare occasions I bring attention to a character’s sexual orientation, it’s brief and I never base my stories on it. To me, it’s simply a detail, like the color of a character’s eyes or hair. Would you base a story on that?

MM: Great answer. Where can we find you on the web?

Adrienne Wilder: www.theatlantadens.com, Facebook (of course) and Twitter Cityofdragons

MM: Thank you for taking the time to spend with us today, and continued success on your work.

Adrienne Wilder: And once again, thank you very much for having me.

Blurb taken from Goodreads:

Darwin's Theory #1 Pain

My name is Darwin De Groi, and I’m in love with Peter Forbes. But Pete has this dream of becoming a metaphysical scientist and that means all his time—his attention—is taken up by college and studying. So in order to deal with the pain of watching Peter and never having him I spend most of my time in the Gray Zone, the no-man’s-land between the city of Atlanta and the Dens. There I’m free to drown myself; with drugs, with booze…


With the inhuman.

Lesser-Breds. Kin hybrids. The offspring of Humans and Dragons.

But then an act of revenge led to a stupid college prank, which put Peter right into my arms.

A better man would make the right decision and tell Pete no.

I am so not that man
.

****

I love Adrienne's answers, truly unique, more so than any author I've interviewed. She raises some very good questions and I wish her nothing but the best.
Hope you enjoyed the interview. My next guest is Daisy Harris.
Until then!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fantastic interview, Adrienne! I agree with your statement about identifying characters by their sexual orientation. If we write about people, whose sexual preference is just another character trait, I believe the characters are more real for the reader.

Michael said...

Thank you for stopping by, Ken!

Michael said...

Thank you Adrienne for being a guest today!

City of Dragons said...

Thank you for having me!

Eden Glenn said...

Great Interview Adrienne. I lovephilosophyo. I see that we share some favorite authors. I can't wait to dig into your story.

Eden Glenn
www.edenglenn.wordpress.com
What's the good of having cake if you can't eat it too?

She said...

Good interview. I liked what you had to say about writing and not getting caught up in the sexuality of the characters. When I read I'm reading a story. I'm not reading a book for its specific characters.