While Starling and Doves are under lock and key as we go into the editorial process with our publisher, there was one person beyond the first readers that helped us through our initial process who we’ve let read the books.
It’s Erin’s mom.
And she’s really into them and can’t wait for the next installment. Although she tells us she skips over the sex.
Which didn’t stop me from getting this hilarious email from Erin five minutes ago because her mom has just finished Doves:
I just talked to my mom.
Who was like “YOU NEVER ANSWERED MY QUESTION WHAT DID VICTOR DO TO THEM?”
I was like “Oh, that was a specific question? I thought that was like just, rhetorical, oh my god.”
“NO. NO WHAT DID HE DO?”
So now I get to write an email explaining, among other things, subspace to my mother!
Neither Starling nor Doves are BDSM novels, and BDSM isn’t a particularly overt part of any of the characters lives. But circumstances, often non-sexual ones, do crop up that are very much informed by power exchange. These circumstances tend to center around Victor, the creator and showrunner of a popular TV political thriller, who is for some of our characters very much a villain and for others, anything but.
I’m writing this blog post because Erin has to go face her mom. And also because I can’t stop laughing.
P.S. — Victor’s Twitter handle is @TheShowYouHate. Maybe you want to start following it now, so you don’t miss anything when we start letting him out to play.
York, but never in New York because when you say “I’m from New York,” to someone from out of state, the assumption is, always, that you’re from New York City. And although I’ve lived my entire adult life in major cities — first Toronto, now Washington, DC — cities, and NYC in particular, are not my thing.
YC is hard for our characters, too. Sometimes the city itself is a friend, sometimes it’s an enemy; sometimes it’s background noise while the dramas of human existence play out; sometimes it’s a refuge from that drama. It is never, however, easy.
f that is merely logistical, after all, I don’t even know how to drive. But much of that is rooted in cultural differences around status, communication, and propriety. Generally, however, New Yorkers will often just say they don’t like Los Angeles because it doesn’t have seasons. After this past winter, that it seems we’re still digging our way out of, that argument seemed particularly invalid.
Back in February, I was in Los Angeles. It’s a yearly trip, one I make to see friends and attend a Doctor Who convention, since it’s one of the properties I do a lot of my pop-culture writing on. This year, however, I had another mission, which was to do research for Erin and I’s books. After all, she’s never been to Los Angeles. So even the places I knew well, had to be documented for her.
hen you’re in the groove, when the story wakes you up in the middle of the night with the solution to a structural problem that’s been haunting you for months, and when the characters become so alive they don’t just tell you their secrets but sometimes hide them from you — you sound pretty weird.
erincmcrae
Racheline Maltese
Avian30 