Bear With Me Please

It's been pretty quiet around here lately. Have you noticed? Well, I'm working on a little project and I'm planning on moving from this little bloggy blog to another domain. I will post details as soon as it's ready. Since I'm pretty technologically challenged (OMG, have you noticed?? I'd say that it's pretty obvious, but whatever), so it might take a few minutes ... days ... weeks? Hopefully, not weeks at this point. Hopefully, we're close. So stay tuned, I'll be making an announcement for all three of you faithful readers! Okay, I'm kidding, I know there's five. And I love you all! All five of you. Alright, alright. Seriously, there will be an announcement and hopefully soon.

Sorcha Black in The Hot Seat!

Sorcha Black is one of the ladies responsible for the Badass Brats series and has agreed to appear in The Hot Seat. So, of course, I had to ask about her ink and who wanted to strangle whom during their collaborative love sessions of writing d00m. Check out my reviews of The Dom with the Safeword and The Dom with the Perfect Brats - both awesomely specimens of Mff romance (menage, BDSM, good writing, just buy it and read it). And, just as an aside, I have to say that I'm really excited for Sorcha's solo project, cause MffM. Yes, that's my reason. Well, maybe I'm excited about the story too. 

Anyway - here she is answering questions with ... answers.  

Sorcha - Hi Haydee – thanks for having me on your blog!

How did you come up with your pen name? Does it have special meaning or do you just like the sound of it?

Sorcha - I discussed options with Leia Shaw and Cari Silverwood for days. Originally my pen name was going to be gender neutral, but they convinced me not to do that. Sorcha is a name that I would have given one of my daughters, but it got vetoed by my husband. I wanted a last name that was simple and easy to spell – someone suggested Black because my hair and clothes are typically black.

What inspired you to write erotica?

Sorcha - It’s the way my brain is wired, honestly. People often tease me for seeing the world through sex goggles. I started out writing fantasy, but erotic elements always find their way into everything I write.

Your first three books have been a collaboration with the lovely Leia Shaw and Cari Silverwood. As an author who hadn't been published yet, how did you get involved with this project with these authors?

Sorcha - I met Leia and Cari online in the early spring of 2012. They offered to read the first chapter of the story I was writing, and did a detailed critique for me. They explained where I was going wrong with my writing, and encouraged me to keep at it. I admit that I was quite the adjective whore. Over the next few months I showed them I was a learning animal. After months of talking incessantly, we decided to try writing something together for fun. It was so much fun we’ve done it three times and will be starting a fourth in June 2013.

What's your favorite dinner and does it go with orange juice?

I’m a starchatarian. If it has potatoes and/or bread in it, I’m happy. I can’t drink orange juice, but I suppose it would go fine with starch.

Can you draw a map of all your ink, please? And what it represents.

Sorcha - I have photo-style, silly gargoyle faces all over my left upper arm, with virtue words in between them. Good and spirituality are topics I think about a lot. Some do-gooders are gargoyles rather than angels, but that doesn’t make their contribution to the world less important.

Sexiest tattoo you've ever seen - who was it on? what body part? did you lick it? did the owner of said tattoo file for a restraining order? (no shame in that)

Sorcha - The sexiest tattoos I’ve seen are the ones my girl got to represent me and our relationship. Yes, I’ve licked them. She never complains about it.

While working with Leia Shaw and Cari Silverwood on the Badass Brats series, what was the one/biggest issue that you couldn't all agree upon?  

Sorcha - The biggest issue we have is probably the ongoing balancing act we do between including the

love, kink, humor and angst in our books. We all have moments where the other two don’t agree with us, and sometimes those disagreements can get heated. But we’re friends first, so disagreements work themselves out pretty quickly.

Who was the biggest trouble maker?

Sorcha - I’d have to say that I’m the biggest trouble maker. I’m very opinionated about book titles and character names. I’m also the trite police. If you say “names” and “Sorcha” in the same sentence, my co-writers make a run for it.

What's the most embarrassing thing you've written?

Sorcha - The first few sex scenes I wrote were pretty embarrassing. It took awhile to get over being shy about writing sex, but now it doesn’t phase me at all.

What are you working on now and when will we be able to read it?

Sorcha - I’m currently finishing the novel that Leia and Cari read chapter one from last spring. It’s a fantasy novel called Ein.

Ein is a relatively unworldly, mid-caste young woman who loses everyone she loves and ends up destitute. Her country is in a trade war with its nearest neighbors, and poverty is rampant. She sees the suffering of the poor and takes responsibility to do what she can to help the people around her – including raising a huge, patchwork family of abandoned children. The idea of the story is that in fantasy novels we seldom hear about the lives of the poor, unless they’re involved in an epic quest. This book is about a girl who is doing the best with what she has.

Now that I’ve got you thinking it’s a sweet and wholesome book, I’ll mention the novel contains graphic sex scenes, BDSM and M/f/f/M polyamory. There’s also abduction, prostitution, murder, war, hunger, romance and true love.

The tentative release date for Ein is fall 2013. We’re hoping to have the next Badass Brats book published in September 2013.

Find Sorcha online: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Goodreads

About the Author

I write about people who are too busy fighting, suffering, loving, and generally getting shit done to think of themselves as heroes.

In my real life, I’m married to a lazy but well loved man and have a shoe full of children. I do my best writing on scraps of paper at red lights.

Currently, I have two published works and two works in progress. There is more information about all of them on my “Books” page.

I’m one of those writers that, as a teen, planned to write for a living. Like many others, I was guided away from the idea by well-meaning adults that wanted me to be in a position to support a family, and… well… eat. I finished my first novel when I was eighteen, printed it off on tractor-feed paper, and gave it to my best friend for Christmas. Two years of work and I never saw it again. It sounds tragic, but it’s probably best for everyone this way, because I’m sure it sucked pretty bad.

Ein has been my work in progress – on and off – for the past ten years. I wrote, discarded, wrote again. I realized the issue was that I was writing to get published rather than writing the story the way it needed to be told. Ein is a fantasy novel (with erotic BDSM ménage elements) written from the perspective of a woman who has been abused and marginalized. She has no special powers, no political influence and no money. Ein fights to do the right thing in a world scarred by war. She is nothing special, but by example shows others that they don’t have to be special to do good in the world.

As I struggled with rewriting the first chapters of Ein the way I should have written it to begin with, I met other writers online. I really hit it off with two of them, in particular.

One day, as we discussed the fantasy novels we were working on, we started to talk about how great it would be to work on a project together. For fun, we began a fantasy BDSM ménage that didn’t end up working out well. From there we tried again with a contemporary BDSM ménage that got addictive very quickly.

My first book, co-written with Leia Shaw and Cari Silverwood, came out in October 2012. We released a holiday novella in December. Our third book in the series is in the works, and will hopefully be published in March 2013. When we look back on how our Badass Brats series started, none of us can quite remember whose idea it was – but it is a true testament as to why you should be careful about whom you talk to on the internet. Lol. Innocent fantasy writer gets roped into writing kinky romances – except all three of us claim to be the innocent fantasy writer.

The iPhone Saga Continues...And What It Means For You

My iPhone was brutally attacked by a rabid two year old hell bent on destroying everything in her path. There were other casualties, but none were as important to me as my iPhone, so I won't mention them here. Or maybe I will - two plates and a potted plant did not survive the rabid toddler attack. It was sad. Let's have a moment of silence to honor their passing.

The iPhone, however, only suffered topical damage. It was cosmetic. The screen was cracked and looked like a spiderweb of doom.

Plan A was rushing over to the Apple store with tears in my eyes, toddler in tow so that I can point and say "she did it!" and hope for sympathy.

It went like this -

Me: "Please, please help me! My screen is cracked, my darling daughter smashed it into something. Please help me, my husband will kill me if he finds out." (I'm good at the begging.)

Apple Genius (they are actually called that, official title and all): "Sure, ma'am. We can replace your phone for $199."

Me: ... ... .... "Thankssomuch Apple Genius, my husband won't notice $200 missing from our account. You truly are a genius. How was it that I didn't think of that?" ... and then I cried.

Plan B - Husband was actually, surprisingly, understanding and claimed that surgery would restore my iPhone's beautiful complexion. So we opted for a screen transplant.

We chose a qualified professional, a friend who is an IT head at a prestigious university. He deals with Apple products all the time, so we thought, SCORE, his hands won't shake and the phone's prognosis just improved by 90%. Cause as tech savvy as my husband is, he's never had to perform such a difficult procedure before.

On the fated night of the transplant, I sat nervously in the next room, while husband and Apple-guru (our surgeon, we'll call him Apple Guru) performed the screen transplant. I couldn't help trying to listen in and what I heard did not reassure me.

"It's stuck," I heard Apple Guru growl.

Husband grunted in response.

Some time later:

"Just get the tip in and the rest will go in."

........

"It's your fingers, they're too big."

I was really hoping they were talking about the phone. More growls and grunts. My thoughts strayed to Apple Guru's fingers and what he might be doing with them. Or what he could do with them and where they may and may not fit. He did have big hands. But then I was jolted from my musings by a warm and sticky hand rubbing my thigh.

Life with a toddler is never dull. My favorite red jeans were now marred with a purple hand print on the thigh. Nice!

Back to our patient - my 4s iPhone - it is delicate and precise work, transplanting the screen. After five hours of intensive surgery - yes, FIVE hours! - the operation was declared successful! I was overjoyed. I was so happy that I forgot to spray stain remover onto my favorite red jeans. They will forever have a purple hand print as a commemoration of this blessed healing.

Okay, so happy ending and story over, right?

WRONG.

Yesterday, my iPhone suffered some serious complications post transplant. I thought it might have been that I got some water on it, but no. Apple Guru examined it this morning and declared it dead without hope of resuscitation. So, I will be phoneless until further notice.

Why do you care? Well, because this means I can't read. And, if I can't read or access books I've already read, then I can't review them for you. I read everything on my phone - Kindle app and iBooks - it's super convenient, hold the phone with one hand, while the other is free to be down my pants. Or not. But either way, there's no more reading for me until this is resolved, which will probably happen when husband will return from his business trip to South Africa (next Friday). So, I'm alone (well, not exactly alone, I'm with a rabid toddler - help? - whose birthday is today, btw) and phoneless and bookless.

What am I going to be doing in the meantime, you ask? Aww, I'm so flattered that you care!!!

I'm writing. Yes, I do write sometimes. I'm working on my snippets. I'm also working on another writing project that I will reveal when I feel confident that it's publish-able. Which may be never. But no, I'll polish it up and will release it soon...ish.

I'm also proofreading/book consulting (beta reading?). This is something I'd love to get off the ground as an actual money-earning activity. I love doing it and I'm good at it. After beta reading for a few authors, I've been told that I provide really helpful feedback and my typo catching abilities are admirable. I'm not so good at self promotion, as you can probably tell from my whopping 29 likes on my Facebook page, but when I feel that I have something to offer, I will say it. I am good at editing - seeing plot inconsistencies, characters who act out of character (har har), typos, phrasing that makes my brain hurt. I will point all these things out. Because if I don't, some really mean reviewer will, but it will be too late to fix it.

So, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the saga of my iPhone and how it has affected my life and your reading experience on my blog. Instead of reading, I now must write and edit. But don't worry. I'll be back (said in my best Schwarzenegger voice, which isn't very good, btw).