I love bringing you interesting interviews and guest posts from different authors. All of these authors write fiction that contain an element of humour, drama, or romance. Today, I bring you a guest post by Sasha Brooke. Sasha lives in the UK, and writes BDSM erotic romance. Sasha shares with us, her journey to becoming an author, and what life experiences have, and continue, to influence her work. Sasha's work can be found in the links below;
Guest Post
In 2014 I downloaded a book onto my kindle. This book literally changed my life. The book was called ‘Shadowlands’ by Cherise Sinclair. It was an erotic BDSM Romance. At first when I started reading it, I wasn’t sure if I was enjoying the book at all, yet I couldn’t put it down. My husband noticed how on edge I was and asked me why, and I said the book was making me a bit edgy. He of course with the logic only a man can have said ‘Well stop reading it then.’ He did refrain from adding the ‘Duh.’
For some reason though I couldn’t stop reading, this book spoke to me in a way not many books have. It spoke of a world I never imagined existed, but of course I immediately decided that it was just fiction and it didn’t exist in real life. I went on to read the second book in the series and I was hooked. At the end of the second book was a link to the author’s website. I logged onto it and found lots of information and links to other sites.
I followed one link to the Fetlife website and created an account. From there I spoke to my husband about it, and we decided to explore the lifestyle and see what we thought.
During our exploring, I was faced with having to deal with many issues I had tried very hard to suppress, and I found it hard to cope with it all. I decided to start writing about my emotional journey and posted my journal entries online. These then expanded to short erotic pieces. I enjoyed writing so much that I started to write for writing challenges online, and I loved the fact that the words just seemed to come from nowhere. Sometimes I would sit, and the words would just flow.
The idea of a whole book was rather daunting. When I was off work for several months following surgery, I was so bored, I decided that if I was ever going to do it, this was the time. I wrote book one in seven weeks. When I look back on it now, I know it needed much more editing than I gave it, I have definitely improved over the course of the three books.
I love to be swept away to another time or place when I read, and I have always been in awe of writers who can do that for someone with their words. Part of the reason I started to write fiction was to try and inspire that in someone who read my words. To inspire someone to feel an emotion from what you have written is an amazing feeling.
When I was trying to create the cover for book one, I asked one of my beta readers for an opinion. She said, ‘You can’t use that picture because that’s not what she looks like.’ In that one sentence she told me that I had got something right with the book. I had created an image in her mind as to what the character looked like.
I don’t plan my story line before I start writing, the main character comes to me first, then I work on what their story will be. I always know where the story will end up, but the road my characters travel is usually a mystery.
My writing is directed by my characters, they let me know when I am getting it right, and especially when I get it wrong. At this point I need to make it clear that yes, my characters speak to me. If I try to fit them into a box, they will protest, and loudly. Then there are the characters that just seem to burst onto the page from nowhere. My Husband does try to keep reminding me that I am writing the book, and not the characters.
There ended up being a lot more of myself in book one than I ever intended, friends who have read it say that it was my voice reading it to them in their heads. I think for a lot of writers that is inevitable though, most of us write from experience, especially when it comes to emotions. I love to write erotic romance and I love to write BDSM into my books. I really want to show that BDSM is about trust and love, not abuse and control. People have inaccurate ideas about what BDSM is and it’s good to be able to show the true nature of the lifestyle for people who live it 24/7.
My books do follow on from each other and have a growing cast of characters, with each book focusing on one couple or dynamic. I wasn’t intending it to be a series when I wrote the first one, but then right near the end, two characters jumped up and down screaming ‘Us next, us next.’
So along came book two. Then close to the end of writing that book a new character appeared who seemed to really like the Sister of the main character from book one. I had also decided that there were quite a few issues from book one which needed tying up. So, a trilogy it would be.
Each book has forced me to tackle some serious issues which haven’t always been easy to write. Trust issues, then blackmail, and in book three there was the issue of pregnancy resulting from a rape. Book three was especially hard to write. Elissa and her Sister Sophie had a lot of secrets to find out about their past, and why their Mother treated them so differently.
So, there I was with everything all neatly wrapped up into a trilogy with a good ending. Little did I know, some of my characters had other ideas.
So, into book three appeared Sadie, Eve and………………Jason. Again, this isn’t an easy book to write. Sadie and Eve are a lesbian couple who have a full time D/s relationship. They are happy together and have been together for a couple of years.
Sadie however has her eye on someone else. Not to replace Eve, but to join her in the relationship. To make matters more complicated the person Sadie has her eye on is Jason.
This is where it becomes hard to write.
Jason is Dominant.
Sadie is Dominant.
Eve is submissive.
Sadie feels she is bisexual.
Eve is not interested in men at all.
Jason needs someone to Dominate.
Sadie can’t submit to anyone.
Eve doesn’t want to submit to anyone but Sadie, and definitely not a man.
For a while I didn’t think I was going to give them all their happy ending, I thought at least one of them would miss out. Then I tried to take the easy way out and fit Sadie into a box she really didn’t fit into. It felt wrong and she protested loudly.
So, I was left with three options, either scrap the story all together, have one of them miss out on the happy ever after, or suck it up and get on with writing them properly no matter how hard it would be.
I am pleased to say that although all three of them have been on a grueling journey, they have all arrived at the end of the book, all be it a little battered and bruised. I am almost finished with book four in the Club Entice series and so far, it seems it may be the last in the series. As with previous books though, I’m not holding my breath.
I am hoping book four titled, 'A Time for Change', will be ready in the next few weeks and I can’t wait to share it with the world.
Who knows what will come next; I have several ideas floating around in my head, including a Vampire story and a possible children’s book? So far, my imagination doesn’t seem to be slowing down any.
My ultimate goal is to be able to give up the day job and write full time, although I think that is wishful thinking.
All my books are available from Amazon either in kindle version, kindle unlimited, or paper- back.
My advice for new writers would be to just do it, write the book, short story, poem or whatever it is you write. Writing only exists if someone reads it so you need to put it out there for people to find.
I said for too long that I wasn’t going to write a book in case it was rubbish. Then my friend said to me that if I didn’t write it then it couldn’t be great either. If you have a story inside you, let it out onto the paper and let people read it.
The only other thing I would say is, don’t let the impostor syndrome take over. Believe in yourself and just do it.
