Andrew Q. Gordon

One of the unexpected treats of doing author profiles is I get to actually meet the authors.  Not that I’m prone to hero worship, but there are a few authors I’ve wanted to meet because I really liked their work.  Kim Fielding is one of them.  When I first started to read M/M stories, I found a lot of them lacking.  Most were vehicles for writing erotica without calling it soft core porn or erotica. Story lines were thin, characters thiner and there were holes big enough for a cruise ship to fit through in the plot. Discouraging.  Then I read Speechless. Finally I found an author who understood we needed to care about the characters before they sex for us to care about the book.

Since then, Kim has release other books, but it was the recent release of Brute that cemented my desire to have her as a guest.  Knowing she had her newest book, Venetian Masks coming out, I went hat in hand and gave her my sob story about not being worthy and hoped she’d take a flier and be my guest.  Clearly she said yes.  I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did.

Author Profile: Kim Fielding

Tell us about yourself – where do you reside, age, family, pets etc.

I am ancient—or so say my daughters, who are 10 and 13. Antediluvian, in fact, is the term my older daughter prefers. I live in a boring part of California, and I have a very supportive husband who is also my accountant. Sadly, we’re petless right now and will probably stay that way for a while due to my busy travel schedule. We do sometimes name the spiders that make webs near the ceiling.

Do you have a day job besides writing and if so – what?

I’m a university professor. I also write textbooks, which are way less fun than fiction.

You’ve written several books that have been published.  The first one I read of yours was Speechless – that was my introduction to your work. Brute was very different and I gather the new one is different from either of those. What inspires you to write such different genres?

I think it’s because I have a lot of different interests and get inspired by many different things. Also, I like to challenge myself, and exploring new genres is a good way to do that. The newest book, Venetian Masks, is a contemporary suspense romance. I’m working on two novels right now—a sequel to Buried Bones, which is a paranormal romance, and a contemporary romance with some historical bits mixed in. That last book was inspired by my interest in the history of mental institutions.

As a follow up, what is your favor genre – is it the same for reading as writing? tackle

For me, the genre isn’t nearly as important as the characters, the story, and the quality of the writing. My moods for reading and writing vary, and I can’t think of a genre I won’t. That said, however, I have a special fondness for fantasy and magical realism.

I’ve caught a few of your tweets, so I know you work full time and you have a family – where do you find the time and perhaps more importantly, the quiet place to write?

Time? Quiet place? Hahahaha! I do most of my writing on my laptop at my kitchen table, often with the chaos of life in full swing around me. I always wanted to write, but I realized several years ago that if I waited for the perfect time and place it was never going to happen. So I learned to find little pockets of time to write—waiting rooms, airports, kids’ homework time—and I’ve become pretty good at tuning out background noise. My best writing time, though, is in the evenings when my kids are in bed and my husband’s watching TV.

An unforeseen benefit is that because my kids see me writing, they want to write too. My older daughter writes fanfic epics—Merlin, I believe—as well as original stories that seem to involve a lot of zombies and bloodshed.

We all have favorite books what’s yours? Is there a writer or writers who inspired you to write or whose writing style you look up to?

I wanted to be Neil Gaiman when I grow up. I love his work. Some of my other favorites are Isabel Allende, Kurt Vonnegut, Christopher Moore, Lynn Flewelling, Charles deLint, Clive Barker, Stephen King, and Mercedes Lackey. I very rarely reread books and it’s hard to pick a favorite. I know that The Book Thief probably packed the biggest emotional wallop of anything I’ve read. A couple of recent favorites were The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and King Perry by Edmond Manning.

Tell us about you most recent book. What was the inspiration for the book? Which character do you most connect to?

Venetian Masks just came out on February 11. I have a real passion for travel but I started wondering what it would be like for someone who didn’t share that passion—and who’d never been far from home—to find himself alone in a foreign country. That person is Jeff Dawkins, whose boyfriend dumps him shortly before they’d planned a month in Europe. Left with nonrefundable plane tickets, Jeff flies to Venice, where he encounters all sorts of unexpected things, including sexy but mysterious Cleve Prieto.

Now, I love Jeff, who’s very careful and hesitant and a trifle grumpy at times. And I also love Cleve, who hides his insecurities behind brash confidence and careless lies. But really, I think the location of this book is a character itself, and one I adore. I spent a week in Venice—a city truly unlike any other. Parts of the book also take place in other central European cities. One of those cities is Zagreb, where I lived for five months in 2011, and which feels like my second home.

What is your favorite book that you’ve written and why?

Oh gee, that’s a tough one! My favorite book is usually the one I’m working on now. I have to say, however, that Brute holds a special place in my heart. I totally fell for Brute and Gray as well as a lot of the secondary characters, and I had a lot of fun with the world-building too. Also, I got to explore some themes that are important to me, such as judging people on who they really are instead of the labels they’ve been given, and the power of love and kindness to transform us.

What’s your ‘next big thing’ after you Venetian Masks?

Dreamspinner Press will be releasing my novella Night Shift in March or April. The story is about an ex-con named Aiden Finn, who’s working the night shift as a motel janitor and trying to stay out of prison. It’s an uphill battle for him—and then he meets a security guard named Luka Gabor. There’s also a bit of a paranormal twist to this one.

After that, I hope we’ll see the Good Bones sequel. I’ve also written a short story in which Dylan and Chris from Buried Bones meet Travis and Drew from Speechless. I know a lot of people wanted to read more about Travis and Drew, so I think folks might enjoy this one.

So you recently had a guest author discuss negative reviews.  We all get them, we all say we ignore them or try to move past them, but do they ever cause you to pause and wonder if what they’re saying is true?  How do you deal with that gnawing feeling?

I’ll be honest—negative reviews hurt. It’s like someone criticizing my children. Sometimes, though, they contain critiques that are well-founded and can help me improve my writing. The rest of the time, I remind myself that you just can’t please everyone. If I’m feeling especially grouchy about it, I’ll go and read reviews of other people’s books—books that I know are wonderful—and sure enough, there are always at least a few negative reviews there too.

Did getting your first book contract change your outlook on writing? If so how?

A book contract has got to be one of the most affirming experiences in the world! I love to write and I’d write even if nobody but me ever read my words, but to know someone else likes what I wrote and thinks other people will too, well, that’s amazing. I have been known to squee, and I’m not generally the squeeing type.

My first book contract was especially exciting, of course. I’d always thought, Oh, it’d be great to be an author, but the contract meant I was one. And now I take very seriously my goal of writing full time.

Have you ever self published anything?  If so how does it differ from having a publisher buy your work? Now that you have a good size following, have you thought about self publishing instead of using a publisher?

I actually self-published before I had anything accepted by a publisher. My first novel, Stasis, was written during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and I was so excited about having written a novel that I didn’t wait to find an agent or publisher; I just asked editor friends to help me out and then self-published. I ended up self-publishing the sequels as well, Flux and Equipoise. And because my editor friends had helped me out for free I felt a little guilty about keeping the profits, so I donate all my trilogy royalties to Doctors Without Borders.

I see pros and cons to each method. Self-publishing gives you complete control over everything, of course. It can also be nice if your book doesn’t fit neatly into a genre niche. My trilogy is a dark fantasy in which the main characters happen to be gay. Sadly, I think the big publishers are still hesitant about fantasy books with gay protagonists—although that’s changing. And these particular books wouldn’t fit most people’s expectations for romance novels, even though Ennek and Miner’s relationship is central to the story.

With a publisher, you don’t have to worry about cover design and book design, which can be difficult and time-consuming tasks for someone like me, who’s not a professional. Good editing is also essential. I am fortunate to have a good friend who’s also a professional editor, but not everyone is so lucky. And I like having multiple people read over a manuscript. Also, publishers help with distribution and marketing, which most authors I know don’t enjoy very much. And finally, a lot of readers are leery about self-published work because the quality varies so widely. I’ve read some really excellent self-published books and some really awful. I think a lot of readers feel more comfortable buying books from publishers, especially when an author is new to them.

Do you ever model characters after people you know? If so in what way? Looks? Personality? Life events?

Not exactly, but I steal bits and pieces here and there. For example, Jude in A Great Miracle Happened There says he wanted to be a garbage man when he was a kid; that was my brother (who went to law school instead). The little girl in Brute, Quoen, shares certainbehaviors with my younger daughter. In Venetian Masks, Jeff learns that peperoni pizza in Italy is not the same as pepperoni pizza in California—that was my husband’s discovery originally. Jeff also sees an incompetent drill practice in a square in Trieste, as did I. In the novel I’m working on now, a character wears a t-shirt that reads “Total Dance Whore” in sparkly letters. I saw that one on a guy when I was in San Francisco last month. I’ve stolen locations, bits of dialogue, clothing… whatever catches my eye or ears.

If you could meet any writer, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

Mark Twain. I’ve always loved his writing and he led such an interesting life as well. I think he’d be a fascinating person to sit down with and share a few drinks.

What’s an ideal afternoon for you?

My ideal afternoon takes place anywhere but home. At a sidewalk café somewhere in Europe, perhaps. My husband takes the kids off to do something fun—so I don’t feel guilty—and I sit, drink espresso, people watch, and type away at my latest story. After I’ve written several thousand words and am feeling restless, my family returns and we eat a wonderful dinner together.

Since you just wrote a fantasy story with it’s pre-modern world, if you could go backward or forward in time, what time period would you like to visit?

In case you haven’t noticed already, narrowing things down to a single choice is not my strongpoint! So this question is really hard to answer. I love history, so I think I’d most want to visit the past, but I’m not sure when and where. Let’s say either the Dalmatian coast circa 305 AD or San Francisco and Alaska during the time of the Klondike Gold Rush—because I have future books planned in those settings.

Thanks Kim!

{keep reading for an excerpt from Kim’s new book!}

Venetian Masks

Jeff Dawkins’s last partner left him with a mortgage he can’t afford and nonrefundable tickets for a month’s vacation in Europe. Despite a reluctance to travel, Jeff decides to go on the trip anyway. After all, he’s already paid for it. He packs a Kindle loaded with gay romance novels and arrives in Venice full of trepidation. There he meets the handsome and charming expat Cleve Prieto, who offers to serve as his tour guide. Jeff has serious misgivings—he wasn’t born yesterday, and something about Cleve doesn’t sit right—but anything is better than wandering the canals alone. With Cleve’s help, Jeff falls in love with Venice and begins to reconcile with his past. For the first time, Jeff finds himself developing strong feelings for someone else. But he can’t be sure who that person is because Cleve’s background remains a mystery embroidered with lies.

Then a dark figure from Cleve’s past appears, and Jeff must choose whether to let Cleve flee alone or to join him on a desperate run through central Europe. Maybe Jeff will finally be able to see behind Cleve’s masks—if he survives the journey.

Facebook: http://facebook.com/KFieldingwrites

Twitter: @KFieldingWrites

I’m running a fun contest to celebrate the release of Venetian Masks. There are details on my blog: http://kfieldingwrites.blogspot.com

My books at Dreamspinner Press: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/index.php?cPath=603

At Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Kim-Fielding/e/B006FN2T78

Exceprt:

They stopped for lunch at a place Cleve said had decent pizza, but which he chose for the view. And it was spectacular. The restaurant was built over the water of the Canale di San Marco, looking out toward an island with a domed church. Right next to the restaurant was a little dock where boats came and went constantly.

“Why Venice?” Cleve asked him over their food and wine.

“Told you. Wasn’t my idea.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one who’s here now, so there must’ve been something about the place that appealed to you.”

“Nonrefundable plane tickets,” Jeff said with a sigh. And then, probably because he was finishing off his third glass, he looked out over the serene water and said, “It was my boyfriend’s idea. My ex-boyfriend’s idea.”

“Yeah?”

“He had this plan for a kind of grand tour, right? Probably he was trying to inject some spice into our relationship. We’d been living together for a while. But the spice didn’t come soon enough. He dumped me for another guy.”

“That sucks balls. But any guy who’d dump you obviously has shit for brains, and you’re better off without him.”

Jeff turned his head to look at Cleve, who was doing a pretty good job of pretending to look sincere. “Kissing my ass isn’t going to get me to hire you.”

Cleve waggled his eyebrows suggestively and then chuckled. “I’ll skip making a comment about ass-kissing. I really meant what I said, though. I mean… look at you.” He waved a hand in Jeff’s general direction. “You’re fucking adorable.”

“Adorable? Kittens are adorable. Chubby babies are adorable. Little cottages with gingerbread trim and flower boxes are adorable.”

Cleve reached across the table and pinched Jeff’s cheek. “So are you, man. I mean, you have these… wholesome boy-next-door good looks, and you blush, and you’re sort of cutely grouchy, and….” He bit his lower lip. For once, he was the one who looked embarrassed. Although that was probably an act too, Jeff reminded himself.

But Jeff was having trouble thinking straight at the moment, because the skin of his face burned where the other man had touched him, and he could suddenly imagine exactly what it would feel like for Cleve to trace his cheekbones with his broad fingers, to ghost along his mouth and then in, and—

“Why are you in Venice?” Jeff asked gruffly, very glad that the tablecloth covered his lap.

Cleve visibly relaxed, his usual demeanor settling over him like a well-worn mask. “Told you. I bum around.”

“Yeah. But why here?”

“Dunno. I like it. There’s lots of tourists around if I need to make a buck.” He flashed a grin. “And it’s kind of… in the middle. Easy to get to somewhere else if you want to take off in a hurry.”

Jeff decided not to ask why he’d want to leave so quickly. Cleve wouldn’t give a straight answer anyway. “Is it your favorite city?”

Cleve smiled. “It is this week.”