Ally Blue and M.L. Rhodes

Ally Blue and M.L. Rhodes

Wildfire would like to welcome you to Part II of a two part series with guest interviewer, Laura Baumbach.

Laura is an author of fan fiction, screenplays and numerous short stories, novellas, and novels. She’s also the owner of Manloveromance Promotions, a company that she formed to help promote authors of a niche of male/male erotic romances called Manlove. These are erotic romances written specifically for the romantic-minded reader and they are literally flying off of our virtual shelves.

Manlove is hot, sensual, and exciting, bringing together two of the elements romance readers like best: gorgeous men and stories filled with sexual tension, desire, power, and love. Erotic scenes of sculptured bodies and powerful men loving other beautiful men and expressing desires and needs through physical strength, unexpected sensitivity, and raw, primal lust is proving to be a huge draw for male and female readers alike. Learn more about this exciting genre as Laura introduces us to two outstanding authors: Ally Blue and M.L. Rhodes.


Laura: First let me say that I’m excited that we’re doing this! Although I know all of you, I’m sure that I’m going to learn something new. My first question: What part of the manuscript writing process do you enjoy the least and why?

Ally: Rewrites. That obnoxious bit between the first draft and edits. At that point, the happy glow of writing a new story has faded, I’ve been staring at the damn thing for weeks on end, and I’m sick of looking at it. <g> By the time edits roll around, it’s usually been long enough since I’ve read it that I actually like it again LOL.

M.L.: Writing the first chapter. That’s always the hardest for me because even though I generally know my characters and plot before I start, I tend to tweak the first chapter ad nauseam to be sure I’m conveying the right amount of information and setting the right tone for the story. I write the chapter, then I go back over it and over it, sometimes a couple dozen times, before I move on to chapter two. But once I’m beyond the first chapter, everything tends to flow well for me.

Laura: What makes you sit down at the computer and start a new story? A deadline? An ingrained routine? The need to write something, anything? What?

Ally: New tales are born from so many things: an intriguing place, a colorful stranger on the street, a perfect line or evocative title that pops into my head for no readily apparent reason. When those things happen to me, that is what makes me want to sit down and write. Which is not to say that deadline pressure doesn’t play a part, because it does! A new plot bunny nibbles my ear, the ideas get typed into a (hopefully) coherent form and sent to my editor, then if she likes it and the publisher wants to publish it, I get a deadline for the final manuscript. This is a good thing, as it helps keep me focused so my fabulous ideas don’t get lost. :D

M.L.: I always have tons of story ideas in my head and they gnaw at me, wanting to be written. I can’t not sit down to start a story. I’d go crazy. LOL! At this point in my career, though, deadlines are a factor, too. Obviously I have to write stories in the order they’re scheduled for release. But I usually have several stories brewing in my head at any given time, so I’m never at a loss for what to write.  

Laura: What do you hope a reader takes away with them when they finish a story of yours? A message, a desire, a sense of emotion?

Ally: To me, anything creative is mostly about feeling. A good song is one which makes me feel something. A good book—or maybe I should say a good work of fiction—should have the same effect, in my opinion. I’d love to be able to make people think, certainly. But I write romance. The one thing I’d like my readers to get from my books is that warm, wonderful, satisfied feeling of having been on a journey with people they care about, and having seen those people through all their trials and tribulations to their Happily Ever After. I love feeling that myself after finishing a book, and that’s what I’d most like people to feel when they read mine.

M.L.: A sense of fulfillment that the story’s given him/her the complete package of arousal and emotion. I hope they’ve fallen in love with the characters the way I always do when I write them, and that even though the story’s over, they don’t want it to end

Laura: Do you ever envision yourself as one of your characters and is he a good guy or a not so good guy?

Ally: Now that’s one thing I’ve never done! My characters are quite real to me. They’re people in their own right, who just happen to live in my head LOL. I think that’s not very conducive to putting myself in their place. There are a few I identify very strongly with, but I’ve never imagined myself as one of them, nor have I imagined myself into one of my own books. One reviewer did accuse one of my secondary characters of being a Mary Sue. I had to laugh, as the only thing I had in common with that character was girl parts. All that said, however, I think it would be fun to be the villain. <g>

M.L.: When I write, I pretty much become my characters. Whoever’s point of view I’m writing from...I am that character at that time. I’m in his head, living what he’s living. Whatever he sees, hears, touches, or feels, I’m seeing, hearing, touching, or feeling. That’s just how I write. So I guess that means the answer to this question is yes, I do sometimes envision myself as one or more of my characters. :)  As far as good guys or bad guys...both. Although, I tend to write mostly from my heroes’ points of view, and they’re generally good guys. I’m sappy, I guess...I like the good guys.

Laura: What story would you like to write but haven’t gotten the nerve to yet?

Ally: Horror. Not like in Oleander House (which people tell me is pretty scary <g>). I’m talking pure, unadulterated, leave-the-lights-on horror. No sex, no romance, no happy ending required, just scaring the pants off of people. I’ve been trying to scare myself since I was eight years old and bought a second hand book of ghost stories that kept me awake for several nights running and gave me screaming nightmares. I would LOVE to write something that people would read once and be afraid to touch again, but would be unable to help themselves, and they’d end up memorizing it and thinking of it when they’re in bed with the covers up to their chin, staring wide-eyed into the dark. That is my unrealized dream.

I don’t know if I want to do that because I love the genre—which I do—or because it would make me feel like less of a freak to know I’m not the only one crazy enough to scare myself that badly on purpose LOL.

M.L.: I can’t think of anything I want to write but haven’t had the nerve to write yet. Pretty much if I want to write something, I do. I guess I don’t really have any qualms over stuff like that. If a story comes to me and I feel passionate about it, I write it.

Laura: During a sex scene what point of view (POV) are you most comfortable writing it from, the top or the bottom?

Ally: You’re talking physically rather than psychologically, right? As in, pitching or catching? I can write either, and have done so plenty of times, but I feel more connected to the bottom when it comes to sex as an experience. My knee-jerk reaction is to say it’s because, being a woman, I have pretty much always been in that role when it comes to sex. But honestly, I think it’s more complicated than that. I think that personally, I simply identify more with the one being “taken” because that’s what I like. I like that surrender, the sense of giving in.

Plus it feels sooooo good, which makes it fun to describe. :D

M.L.: Either one. I’m comfortable writing both.

Laura: Who is the one person in the world you’d like to receive a fan letter from and why?

Ally: Oh wow, that’s tough. I keep every piece of fan mail I get, because it makes me feel so good to know people out there enjoy what I write. It makes all the tearing my hair out over those difficult scenes worthwhile LOL. I love hearing from any and all readers, and no particular fan letter (or rather, fan email these days) is more special than another. They are ALL precious to me!

That said, if Patrick Wolf or Thom Yorke sent me a fan letter, I would probably die from being starstruck LOL. Isn’t it funny how when we catch the attention of people we admire, we feel somehow more validated in our existence? I recognize that fact for what it is, yet if one of these men were to send me a fan letter—meaning they know who I am and enjoy my sweet, angsty manlove—I would be so awed and thrilled I’d probably explode. I kind of don’t like that about myself, but hey, there you go. I think we’re all prone to that. We’re social animals, after all; we want to be acknowledged, accepted, and loved. Maybe that’s why we authors love our fan mail so much. <g>

M.L.: I hadn’t ever really thought of this before. But now that I am thinking of it, I can’t come up with any one particular person I’d like to get a fan letter from. I get quite a few letters from people thanking me for turning them on to the m/m genre. They’d never read a m/m romance until they’d picked up one of mine, and now they love the genre and can’t get enough of it. I get a lot of letters that simply say, “Wow!  Oh, my God...when’s the sequel coming out?”  LOL!  I also get a surprising number of letters from gay men telling me they hadn’t realized how much they’d been missing sensitivity and emotion in their m/m erotic reading until they read my stories.

Honestly...all of those letters are important to me and inspire me because it means my writing is touching people in some way. And to me, that’s what it’s all about.

Ally Blue used to be a good girl. Really. Married for twenty years, two lovely children,  house, dogs, picket fence, the whole deal. Then one day she discovered slash fan fiction. She wrote her first fan fiction story a couple of months later and has since slid merrily into the abyss. She has had several short stories published in the erotic e-zine Ruthie's Club, and is a regular contributor to the original slash e-zine Forbidden Fruit. Her books are available through Loose Id and Samhain Publishing.

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Award-winning and bestselling author M.L. Rhodes has been writing for a living for over twelve years. Along with the erotic romance fiction she currently pens for Amber Allure, she's also had published everything from poetry to magazine articles to steamy romantic suspense novels. In her fiction works, her characterization and emotional storytelling have received high critical acclaim from such places as Romantic Times Magazine, The Romance Studio, and JERR and have garnered her numerous awards in the writing industry. Her gay erotic romances have been on bestseller lists at Amber Allure and Fictionwise, and her two currently available gay erotic romance paperbacks have both been #1 bestsellers at Amazon.com on their gay fiction lists.

Stop by her website at www.mlrhodeswriting.com for more information on her books, to read hot excerpts, and more!

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The ManLoveRomance Directory is a co-op of male/male authors and artists that have come together to pool their financial resources to afford advertising on larger gay and women's web sites and publications. Many of these advertising avenues start their minimum ad rates at the thousands-of-dollars mark. We believe our readership is out there, but unreachable on an individual budget. As a group, we have the buying power to compete in the larger market and reach our readership—gay men and straight women who enjoy reading male/male erotic romances. For each new ad we run, the cost of joining the listing will be the cost of the new ad divide by the number of contributing authors on the current list.

Ally Blue’s Backlist:
Forgotten Song, Loose Id
The Burning Man (in the anthology A Kiss At Midnight), Loose Id
Easy, Loose Id
The Collector 4: Eight Arms to Hold You, Loose Id
Willow Bend, Samhain Publishing
Love’s Evolution, Samhain Publishing
Oleander House (Bay City Paranormal Investigations, book 1), Samhain Publishing
Eros Rising (also available in the print anthology Hearts From the Ashes), Samhain Publishing
What Hides Inside (Bay City Paranormal Investigations, book 2), Samhain Publishing
Catching A Buzz, Samhain Publishing

M.L. Rhodes’ Backlist:
The Professor’s Secret Passion, Amber Heat
Souls Deep, Amber Heat
Falling, Amber Heat
True of Heart, Amber Heat
Couplings, Amber Heat

Coming Soon by Ally Blue:
Fireflies, Samhain Publishing
Twilight (Bay City Paranormal Investigations, book 3), Samhain Publishing
Untamed Heart, Samhain Publishing

Coming Soon by M.L. Rhodes:
Never Let Go, Amber Allure
Hearts & Bones, Amber Allure
Paperback anthology containing Never Let Go and Hearts & Bones, Amber Allure
Out of My Mind, Amber Allure
Magic, Amber Allure
Innuendo, Amber Allure
Vertigo, Amber Allure
Lords of Kellesborne, Amber Allure

Ally Blue’s Links:
Ally Blue
MySpace
Fiction with Friction Blog
Slash and Burn Blog
Yahoo Group

M.L. Rhodes’s Links:
M.L. Rhodes
Newsletter


If you would like to request an interview, please send a query to
 info@allromanceebooks.com

Until next time!

Laura Baumbach filling in for Angela Lovell, Wildfire’s Interview Coordinator