Guest Blogger: Sharita

Good morning! Please welcome my good friend and fellow author Sharita, who is actually three people one -

the infamous triad! Today she is answering my questions and talking about releases from two of her group, BL Morticia and Michael Mandrake. Shar, make yourself at home, I'll find us something to drink.

The Questions

1)      You’re marooned on a small island with one person and one item of your choice—who is that person and what item do you have?

SL: Well, I can fantasize since I’m a writer. I’ll take Jason Momoa and as long as we have the essentials, give me something that plays music! *winks*

2)      Take these three words and give me a 100 word or less scene using them:  cliff, café, artist

SL: Nathan, the artist, waited for his lover in a busy café near downtown New York. Bryant was never this late and because Nathan was a stickler for time, he impatiently checked his watch. “Ugh, good Lord, Bryant, you better have a good reason for leaving me here alone looking like a deadbeat. If not, I just might throw your ass off the cliff and forget the damn wedding!”

3)      You’ve just been let loose in the world of fiction, with permission to do anyone you want. Who do you fuck first and why?

SL: Oh wow, what a question. Can I steal this one? I’ve gotta say Louie from Interview With a Vampire

because he was still kind, captivating, and damn hot if he actually looked like Brad Pitt with the long blond hair. YUMMY.

4)      What is your idea of how to spend romantic time with your significant other?

SL: A quiet dinner with music, some drinks, and maybe a movie before bed. All at home of course.

5)      When you start a new story, do you begin with a character, or a plot?

SL: Characters usually come first especially if a certain picture speaks to me. Very rarely do I come up with plots before the characters.

6)      If they were to make the story of your life into a movie, who should play you?

SL: Oh no, not my boring life but let’s go with Angela Bassett. I love her!

   7)     Do you have an historical crush and if so, who is it?

SL: See I told ya I’m boring, I don’t. LOL

8)      Is there a story that you’d like to tell but you think the world isn’t ready to receive it?

SL: Yes there is one but I think I will eventually do it. It was a male/male about a man who falls in love with a serial killer. I’m sure a story like that has been done but I have some interesting twists. *smiles*

My two latest releases. One under BLMorticia, the other under Rawiya

Blurb: Bryant is still trying to convince his lover how great the holidays could be but Nathan isn’t buying into the holiday cheer. However, the Lieutenant has some tricks up his sleeve to show his husband-to-be the true meaning of Christmas.

ARe

Smashwords

Amazon

Blurb: Denny Brothers is upset about being alone. After spending it with the man he’d been gushing over for years, he’s wishing for his sad existence to be change and little does he know witch Shelba Marrisco already has plans in the works. Enter Paul Alexander, a charming and sexy package handler with a special after Christmas gift they both can enjoy for the rest of their lives but in order to have a chance, Denny has to let go of his beloved chocolate lab, Preston, in exchange for everlasting love.

Amazon   B&N   ARe

SCP Link

Author Sharita Lira: In one word, crazy. Just crazy enough to have 3 different muses running around in her head, driving her to sheer exhaustion with new plot bunnies and complex characters.

 This happily married mother of two beautiful children loves music, computers, reading, and still enjoys reading and writing fanfiction. She’s a proud member of the Erotica Readers & Writers Association, as well as an advocate for rights of LGBT citizens.  She’s also a contributor to the heavy metal ezine Fourteeng.net.

 For more information, please visit http://www.thelitriad.com as well as her Facebook fanpage, The Literary Triad.

 The Literary Triad - http://www.thelitriad.com/#!

 Michael Mandrake – http://tabooindeed.blogspot.com

 BLMorticia – http://blmorticia.wordpress.com

 Rawiya - http://rawiyaerotica.wordpress.com

TriadPromo – http://triadliteraryworks.blogspot.com/

Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/rawiyamikembl

 Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/TheLiteraryTriad

 AuthorGraph – http://www.authorgraph.com/authors/rawiyamikembl

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 Great answers to those questions, Shar! Of course you can steal that question! I don't think you're boring at all, I think you're a great person. Now sit back and relax, I invited a few friends over to visit with us.

Until next time, take care!

♥ Julie

Guest Blogger BL Morticia

Please welcome author and muse BL Morticia, one of the three nom de plumes/persona of my good friend and fellow author Sharita! BL is here to talk about her latest release, which was inspired by heavy metal music. So let me throw on some Metallica, fire up a bong, and get this party started, BL!

Inspired by Metal

BLMorticia

Greetings peeps. Welcome to another post from the wicked gal, BLMorticia.

Today, I’m posting about the music I use as inspiration while writing. What does that usually entail? Well, it could be anything from something simple like light jazz or contemporary to something heavy like Devildriver or some old fashioned Metallica.

A lot of writers complain they must have complete silence; the music distracts them when they try and create. Well, I’m different. I need the music, especially if the scene is highly emotional or filled with tension.

If it’s a light-hearted scene with a bit of comedy? Maybe something upbeat, or a dance tune that gets me thinking some happy thoughts. Or if it’s overly romantic with hot sex, like the first scene between Nathan and Bryant in My Lieutenant, it was some slow, “baby-making” tunes like Sade or the Love Jones Soundtracks, which all of us muses listen to frequently.

However, since I am the wicked muse, I mostly turn on the heavy metal to write by. During You Don’t Ask, We Don’t Tell, a lot of the moments with Cody, as he tried to deal with the fact he was gay, were tense and needed that rockin’ soundtrack to get him thinking of angst. For that, I turned on the iTunes satellite radio and left it on the Dark Metal station.

Perfect music for the angsty piece! Old Metallica, Megadeth, Lamb of God, Pantera, old Sevendust, Slayer, etc to get Cody in the mindset of anger over his father, his situation where he left behind his lover, and dealing with his own mistake of joining the army when he didn’t have to.

*raises the hands and flashes the horns*

Now for The Wretched Tales, my muses listened to a little of everything I’ve mentioned and brought it into this series. Corey even talks about real metal bands in the book, comparing his fictional band The Wretched with today’s biggest metal acts. Because I’m an avid listener of metal, it was easy to create my own series with distinct characters. Some of the same angst, tension, and adrenaline is portrayed in The Wretched Tales. Hope you’ll pick up the first book, Corey’s Debut!

Blurb: Corey Patrick has arrived, fresh out of Boston to perform with The Wretched, one of the biggest bands on the planet. Immediately, the bass player takes advantage of the perks provided including hobnobbing with members of the press!

All Romance    Smashwords   Amazon

Over the loudspeaker…

“Ladies and gentlemen, crowd surfing and/or moshing will result in immediate dismissal from the venue. Enjoy the show.”

 In a drug filled haze, I stood on the stage with my new band mates. The lights dimmed, the crowd chanting, “Wretched, wretched,” in unison, throwing up the horns as if in a similar trance. I’d been with several acts, toiling in the background as the spare, the fill in, the resident head banger while others gained the spotlight. Now was my turn to be the one. And even better in the most sought after metal act from the west coast of North America, The Wretched.

“You ready Corey? You better play your ass off tonight so they’ll forget about Randy’s stupid butt,” yelled Nicolai Zander with a wry smile.

Excited as a pig in shit, I responded with a nod and gave my bass a couple of plucks.

Once he turned his attention back to the crowd, he changed his expression immediately from smirk to scowl. The short, pudgy runt everyone came to know and love stalked the stage like Napoleon with a microphone in hand. As per usual, Nicolai donned baggy black trousers with pockets down both sides, chains hanging from every loop and hole. His Testament t-shirt and his trademark cowboy boots had both seen better days, but it made up the persona known as Nicolai Zander. The, ‘I don’t give a fuck ‘cause I’m the leader of this bunch of misfits’ kind of look. Glassy greenish blue eyes peered at his minions, and he returned their adulation with his own one finger salute and tongue wag.

Damn

  “Wretched, wretched, wretched…” the swarm of metal heads chanted, the spotlight shone on me, then Nicolai one after the other. Within seconds, the background music faded, and drummer Bryan started the first beats of our legendary song Devil’s Isle.

“YEOOOHHHH…” Nicolai screeched like a cat in heat and threw his gloved fist up in the air. True metalers formed a circle pit, running into one another, arms up, the looks on their faces, pure aggression. Others leapt on top of various shoulders, attempting to surf closer to the stage causing the security guys a lot of headache, but I fucking loved it.

This is what I’ve wanted other than a steady lay I could call my very own. This is my fucking life! This is what every young man dreams about from puberty in mom’s house to grown ass man living in mom’s basement.

I am Corey from the Wretched, and I have arrived!

For more info on the Wretched Series, follow Corey Patrick on Twitter and the Metalrotica blog

BLMorticia is currently a published writer with Naughty Nights Press and Rebel Ink Press. She entertains her readers with hot and smexy sex, humor, and lots of swear words. She attempts to incorporate metal music or the military in most of her works. Nothin’ sexier than metalheads or military servicemen and women! She also writes a biweekly column on Blak Rayne Books and blogs on the First Thursday of the month at NNP Blog. For more info, please visit, Erotica With Snark

Thanks for stopping by, BL! Always a pleasure!

Until next time, take care!

♥ Julie

Next Big Thing Blog Hop and What I'm Working On

My friend Sharita asked me if I'd like to participate and I said sure! I think the idea is to talk about a WIP, something that isn't released yet, either being subbed or still being written, so you can find out what your favorite authors are doing. So I'm going to post the questions for this and then follow it up with links to other authors and their blogs.

Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing:

What is your working title of your book? Be My Alien (Moonlit Skies #1), which I’m co-writing with M.A. Church.

Where did the idea come from for the book? It began as a story for a Valentine’s Day anthology. We were each going to participate, so then we thought why not write a story together? I’d edited two of MA’s books, Nighttime Wishes and Nighttime Dreams, plus I’m helping to edit The Harvest, which are all about aliens. So she rather put me in the mood for aliens, and as I’d never written an alien story, I thought it might be interesting. Once we started to write, we realized it was more than a story, it was going to be a series of books.

What genre does your book fall under? m/m sci fi romance

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 

Honestly, I don’t know. MA picked out Ben Barnes for Reed and Travis Fimmel for Taz. I’ll go with that.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A Southern boy in the big city takes in a lost traveler and gets more than he bargained for when he discovers a whole new meaning to out-of-towner

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?  We’ve already subbed the first book to a publisher.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? I think a month or so? I’m not actually sure.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? That’s hard to say, as I’ve only read Nighttime Wishes, Nighttime Dreams, and The Harvest, so I guess those are the ones I’d compare it to.

Who or what inspired you to write this book? I guess you could say that a really early inspiration might be My Favorite Martian. I used to love that show back in the day. But more specifically, it was M.A. and her obsession with aliens that was the true catalyst.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? Reed, the human in the story, owns a men’s boutique but it’s what’s in the backroom that is truly interesting—sexy clothes and toys and DVD’s. As for Taz, when he gets horny, you can see his stripes—and his tail. 

And now for the authors I've tagged:

M.A. Church:  http://machurch00.blogspot.com

Marian Lanouette:  http://marian-l.blogspot.com/

Lily Sawyer http://lilysawyerbooks.blogspot.com/

Message for the tagged authors and interested others:

Rules of the Next Big Thing
***Use this format for your post
***Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (work in progress)
***Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing:
What is your working title of your book?
Where did the idea come from for the book?
What genre does your book fall under?
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Include the link of who tagged you and this explanation for the people you have tagged.

Be sure to line up your five people in advance.

I'll apologize in advance if I've screwed this up lol

Guest Blogger Sharita Lira

Today I welcome my friend and fellow author Sharita Lira!Some of you may know Sharita from her literary triad - three writers/personas, each with their own distinct personalities and styles. Today she is going to discuss two thirds of that triad - the ladies, Rawiya and BL Morticia. Shar, why don't you have a seat, I'll make us something to drink,  like a chocolate choochoo martini, and you can go ahead and get started.

The Two Female Sides of Sharita Lira

BL/Rawiya

Rawiya: Hello readers. I’m sure those of you who know Sharita Lira are aware of the two females in the triad. Myself, Rawiya, and BLMorticia.

BL: The wicked gal. Yes I am…more like the snarky wicked gal who writes funny stories about romantic couples of any orientation.

Rawiya: And me, who pens tales of interracial romance in contemporary settings. In other words, real erotica for real people.

BL: And erotica with snark are our taglines.  So what’s the major difference? Me, I like humor in my stories.

Rawiya: And I like longer love scenes as well as more sensuality. I can do a little humor too, but I don’t do it as well as BL.

BL: And I’m a little too impatient for long love. I like getting to the climax a little quicker. My characters mimic me too except when I throw a monkey wrench in their plans. I do that a lot, by the way.

Rawiya: I do too, to a certain extent; nothing better than a little tension in a story.

BL: How about a lot? Some angst thrown in makes for a fabulous tale, doesn’t it? And better sex at the end. So, whichever you prefer. The snarky and angsty…

Rawiya: Or the long winded romantic…there’s a story for you, right?

BL: I’d say so. Thanks for listening to us. How about looking at our series?

Rawiya: Good idea since we’ve got five books. From NNP, the Something New On the Menu series, all m/m with romance…

BL: Snark and a little bit of angst. Check out the first four books of this collection from Naughty Nights Press.

Rawiya: Thanks for having us, Julie!

Something Fresh Served Hot from Something New on the Menu Series Book One

A gay contemporary comedy which features a Chicago homophobe by the name of Jimmy LaCosta who works at a diner called the Greasy Spoon on the Northside of Chicago near Boys Town. While working, Jimmy meets the incoming manager, Alex Seidling, a young British man who his present boss is hiring to take his place as he retires. 

After the initial meeting in which Jimmy feels uncomfortable with Alex's stares, Jimmy cultivates a friendship with Alex which develops into something totally different than he himself expects. This shocks him and he tries to fight it but because of his growing feelings he decides to pursue it despite all of what he has been taught.

Will he do what his body wants? Will Alex accept his advances even though he will soon become Jimmy’s boss?

Click here to read an excerpt

Buylinks - Amazon ARe Smashwords

Time to Make the Donuts Something New on the Menu Series Book Two

Blurb: Andre, a customer, comes in and pays him a visit. The two lock eyes and immediately connect on a personal level. Because of this, Christopher decides to pursue when Andre passes him his card. He wonders what the young man does for a living however, he’s so smitten by him, Chris doesn’t give it much thought.

Little does the shop owner know, Andre actually works for his biggest competitor as a secret shopper and has been told to use any method necessary to find out the secrets of the shop as well as convince him to sell his shop and become part of the national chain.

When Christopher finds out, he has a surprise for Andre and deals with him in a rather humorous way. Will he trust Andre once he finds out this fact? Will he give up his shop under the pressure the well known franchise?

Buylinks  ARe  Smashwords Amazon

Click here to read excerpt

Smooth Like Latte Something New on the Menu Series Book Three

Blurb: Brendan Walsh is an uptight business executive working for his father and missing out on real life due to his relentless drive for success. Fearing his homophobic father’s wrath - and the potential to destroy his financial future - Brendan hides is true orientation and lives a life of boring celibacy.

Upon meeting Davori Jenkins when the hunky barista serves him a latte just the way he likes it, Brendan takes a chance, leaving his number with the tip in the hopes of changing his future love life.

Will Brendan be able to come clean with his father - risking his fortune - or will he take a chance at losing a man who he wants as his future?

Warning: This is an m/m interracial romance. Real romance. Some sappiness is ahead with two very good looking men who are searching for that happy ever after ending.

Amazon, Smashwords, ARe

Click here to read an excerpt

Sugar Daddy Something New on the Menu Series Book Four

Blurb: Matthew Davidson wants a MAN! The setting shifts away from the America’s to Britain where Matthew and his childhood friend, Devon Peartly attend a cooking school to obtain their cooking certificates. The young man wants a partner so badly, he decides he’ll try an online dating service in hopes of finding a black man that can take care of and satisfy him romantically.

He finds that man, Antwon Bantu on an online dating site and is instantly intrigued. Little does Matthew know that Antwon is involved in a “convenient” marriage and is seeking a younger partner so he can finally get on with his life. Instead of confessing the truth, he decides to hide it, fearing he’ll lose the chance with Matthew if he informs him. To complicate things, Antwon’s wife claims to be in love with him. Antwon must choose what’s more important; loving Matthew or saving his impeccable reputation as a top barrister in the London courts?

Which will he choose?

Click here to read an excerpt

Amazon, Are, Smashwords

BLMorticia is currently a published writer with Naughty Nights Press and Rebel Ink Press. Her first two novellas, My Lieutenant and Something Fresh Served Hot are Silver star recipients on All Romance Ebooks. She writes bi weekly for Red Lipstick Diaries, guest blogs monthly on the Naughty Nights Press blog and a writes column twice a month on Blak Rayne Books. For more info, please visit, Erotica With Snark

RAWIYA is the more sensual erotica writer in the BLRawiya duo. Rawiya's first sole author book, “Time to Make the Donuts” is now available in multiple digital formats through online vendors and her first MMF Living In The Now was released in April from Naughty Nights Press.
Rawiya loves multiracial characters who overcome obstacles other than race. Sweet, sassy, and spicy would be the best way to describe her work. Happily married mother of two, loves music, computers, and travel. She blogs regularly at Wicked Sexy Writers. For more please visit the Rawiya’s blog on Wordpress.

The Literary Triad - http://www.thelitriad.com/#!

Michael Mandrake – http://tabooindeed.blogspot.com

BLMorticia - http://blmorticia.wordpress.com

Rawiya - http://rawiyaerotica.wordpress.com

Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/rawiyamikembl

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/TheLiteraryTriad

Kindlegraph - http://www.kindlegraph.com/authors/rawiyamikembl

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 Thanks for stopping by, Rawiya and BL!  Shar, have another drink? I made mudslides!  

Until next time, take care!

♥ Julie