Interview with Gem Sivad

Hello everyone, I am here today with the extremely talented author Gem Sivad. Hi Gem, and welcome to Paranormal Romantics. We are so thrilled to have you here!

So, let’s get started. The first thing I want to do is ask you about Intimate Strangers available now from Liquid Silver Books. Here is a blurb, first, so everyone can follow along.

West Texas, 1878

Bad, bad things happened to Lucille Quince. And there were those who spitefully said she brought it on herself. She’d been a spoiled wife playing at grown-up all the years of her marriage-until someone kidnapped her.

Ambrose Quince was left on the Double-Q believing that she’d run off with another man. Then the rumors began-whispering that he’d killed Lucy and buried her on open range.

Maybe Lucy should have died when her attackers dumped her bleeding body in the dessert. But she didn’t.

Three years later, she’s spotted cooking in a diner two counties over. Glad to finally have someone recognize her, she returns to Eclipse in time to save her once-husband from hanging for her murder.

With no memory of yesterday, Lucy can only go toward tomorrow; and Ambrose intends to accompany her on her journey. Together they battle thieves, rustlers, murderers, and most of all the passion that reignites between them.

Having read the blurb, I have to say, it seems like a personal nightmare. Not only is the heroine injured in a terribly brutal way, she has no memory of even who she is. Was she hard to write? Was it hard to ‘go there?’

Once my story evolved…you know the what if moment but not quite the, I’m ready to write moment…once in that spot, it wrote itself. Intimate Strangers is a love story about second chances. Yes, bad things happened to Lucy Quince, but bad things happen to every person at some point in life.

I’m more interested in exploring how characters deal with tragedy.

Intimate Strangers became my Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment. If people are given a second chance, will they make the same mistakes again? I don’t think so, and I wrote the story plotting it with that in mind.

What draws you to the old West?

I have a series I named The Women Who Settled the West. I think that explains my position. Women were present, and endured the same dangers and hardships as men. How can a story go wrong if it combines action, panoramic history, and erotic romance? At the same time, the women of that time period are finally given credi, long overdue.

So here is a question from one writer to another, what happens to your characters when you’re done writing them? Do they just quietly fade away in your mind of do they hang around and pester you for a while?

My characters are so bold, sometimes I quote them as if they were real. For instance, in the words of Lucy Quince after she shoots a hole next to the sheriff’s foot, “I just hate it when a man tries to beat a woman down with words.”

That line is a signature line for Lucy. I hope readers recognize and remember that line. She told them right there—this is who I am.

My characters are family. I don’t see them all the time, but they are always in my mind.

How long have you been writing? What made you decide to take the plunge and do it professionally?

In one capacity or another, I have written all of my life. Several friends who acted as beta readers, encouraged me to submit a manuscript.

So, I subbed a western to Liquid Silver Books and they offered me a contract. I’m very comfortable in this world and enjoy being a published author immensely.

Tell me about the Saga of Misery Hess. Do you like writing Paranormals? How do you find it different from writing other genres?

#1 Misery Hess is a serialized story I post in installments on my blog. It started as a joke. I’m surrounded by paranormal writers and wanted something to post on a forum on paranormal excerpt day. Why not a shape-shifter in the Old West?

It evolved into a Text Novel that is in the Dorchester Text Novel Competition at http://www.textnovel.com/stories_manage.php in case anyone wants to comment, vote or follow the series. Both Cat Nip and Hunter’s Pride, are now novellas and are offered as Free Downloads on my blog at http://gemsivad.wordpress.com/

The next step for the series is a graphic novel. It is being evaluated by an artist at this time to discuss a collaboration on a print serialization.

#2 I like creating believable characters in quirky situations regardless of genre.

#3 I think writing paranormal is basically the same as writing any genre. There is a world with certain parameters that the author establishes within which the story is told. The story depends upon external events and individual character’s decisions and actions. That is the same premise in any story.

Every author builds a world for their story. If anything paranormal is easier because if you don’t know it, and it doesn’t exist in reality, it can’t be checked for accuracy

Research is time consuming and necessary for historical novels. The very nature of the reader dictates that they will want historical truth surrounding their fiction.

What is next for you?

Liquid Silver Books has accepted The Bounty Hunters, a three part erotic western series. The first in the series, Wolf’s Tender is coming soon. In addition to that series, I have two more westerns, Breed True, and Whisper My Love, that also are set in 1878-1885 Eclipse, Texas, the fictitious town of Intimate Strangers.

Okay, I ask this of everyone. Tell me about your muse. What is she like?

My muse?

I write continuously waiting for the sneering bitch to appear and savage most of the words.

When she appears, she is beauty. She knows what the characters would say. She knows what gesture, what nuance…without the insight of my muse, my words are heavy and pedantic. So we have a lot of tension in our relationship, I expect her to come on cue, she prefers her own timetable.

How do you feel about writing sex scenes? What, in your opinion, constitutes a good sex scene?

I love writing sexual tension, the scene that makes a reader swallow and squirm or grin silently knowing what’s going to happen next, anticipating it as much as the heroine or hero in the story.

I expect the sex scenes to fit the plot and be consistent with the character’s personality. Spicy is good, flaming hot is better.

What do you do about writers block?

Write

Thank you for being with us here today, Gem. It’s been my pleasure having you here with us at Paranormal Romantics.

Rebecca Royce.

You’re welcome. Thank you for the opportunity.

Gem Sivad