The Next Big Thing Blog Hop – Special Needs

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop – Special Needs

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop is a great way to look into a favorite author’s current work, as well as get to know new people in the genre, or simply discover a book that picks one’s particular interest. Each tagged author is supposed to answer a set of 10 questions about their newest or upcoming release. We’ve fallen prey to the lovely Josephine Myles and though it seems everyone has either done the Hop already or isn’t interested in doing it, we’ve managed to hunt down…

Zach Sweets to do it on the 6th of January 2013

S.L. Armstrong and K. Piet to do it on the 26th of December 2012

Salome Wilde to do it on the 26th of December 2012

and J.C. Harker to do it on the 26th of December 2012

1) What is the working title of your book?

The story’s going to be released as Special Needs. The title came out very early during the planning and it fit the story so well we decided to stick with it. It’s a short, memorable expression that somehow applies to many characters and situations in the novel, while also being a pun on disability. There are going to be two parts and we haven’t yet decided whether they’ll be simply labeled as volume one and volume two, or if we come up with separate titles for each of them.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

We both share this hobby of researching the most unusual sexual fantasies and fetishes. The extent to which individual needs differ is bizarre and fascinating at the same time and it’s no one’s place to judge. This time, we became interested in people who fetishize disability. Many amputees or paraplegics, especially females confess to have met people who expressed sexual interest in them because of their disability, but there are also those who enjoy pretending to be disabled and sometimes live in the wheelchair full time. For at least some of them, the impossibility of movement, even imagined, is a great turn on during sex, so for them, the simulated disability is a form of permanent bondage.
We thought it would be interesting to have a pretender fall in love with a guy, who has nothing to do with the scene. He brings in another aspect we wanted to incorporate into the plot: the normalization of a disabled person. From this angle, it’s a story about two fun, alternative guys falling for each other, one of which happens to be disabled, because our pretender is actually a disabled person.
We also didn’t want to write a story about disability, where low self esteem or lack of acceptance for the disability is the issue and plot arc.

3) What is the genre of the book?

It’s an M/M contemporary erotic romance. Expect saucy banter, sparkling chemistry, angst and humor that’s just plain wrong 😉

4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition.

Liam is a sort of alternative jock. He loves sports: gym, surfing, jogging, you name it; but he’s also into metal, hard rock and bondage. Daring, impulsive, with a wide grin permanently glued to his face, he should be played by a hybrid between Chris Hemsworth and Josh Holloway, because we need both the manly cuteness of Chris and the slightly less bulky body and angular features of Josh. Just imagine a man like that in just a pair of low-hanging surfing shorts, with lots of pretty random tattoos. Yum.

Ryan is a quirky goth, who looks way too young for his age of 25. Because he runs his own, alternative business, he dresses in whatever he wants, sports blue hair and a lot of piercings. He’s the kind of non-muscular slim guy, small enough to still look boyish.

A cross somewhere between this guy

And this Kaiden Blake’s hair with a bit of a shave on the side 😉

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Liam is a hot cook who wants to kick the unhealthy habit of sleeping with his superiors, but he has no idea what he’s getting into when he accepts the job of assisting Ryan, the cute disabled owner of a fetish sex hotel.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency/publisher?

We have the feeling this one should be self-published 🙂

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

We never work on one project at a time, so it took us about one month and a half to finish the draft of the first volume with a word count of 90k. The second part of Special Needs is planned, but we’re waiting for a glimmer of inspiration to start writing, but it’s safe to assume the first draft of this one will be finished by March 2013.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

There are several M/M books that feature wheelchair-users, but other than that, Special Needs doesn’t have that much in common with them, maybe with the exception of Anel Viz’s Dancing for Jonathan, as this one also depicts a romantic relationship between a disabled man and his caretaker, even if it’s vastly different from Ryan and Liam’s. Because of the humor and awkward characters, I think it could appeal to those who enjoyed  Anne Tenino’s Frat Boy and Toppy.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

We inspire each other. Anything, from a movie, to a person spotted in the street can sparkle a conversation leading to character or universum creation. In this case, it started with what we wrote in section 2) and it went from there to character development. Ryan and Liam have a lot in common: they like similar music, horror movies, they also share a love for tattoos and a snarky sense of humor. The attraction that slowly grows between them is a natural development and has nothing to do with Ryan’s disability, which was exactly what we were going for.

10) What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

We are planning to commission an amazing artist to do the covers, so they will be pretty eye-catching. Other than that, the word “bondage” wasn’t mentioned two times so far for no reason ;D The boys are pretty kinky and living in a sex hotel with themed rooms does make living the fantasy easier.

We’ll just leave you with that thought ;D