Inkwell Guest: Daisy Harris

Today, I welcome fellow Ellora’s Cave author/FF&Per/Tweeter to the blog – Daisy Harris! 🙂 She’s got a new book coming out tomorrow from Ellora’s Cave. What? You didn’t think I was going to tell you that up front? You’ll have to read the interview to find out more about that and her. 🙂

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You’ve had a unique journey to being a writer. Why don’t you tell us about that?

Starting with a tough one, aren’t ya? On the one hand, my journey was relatively short. I started writing fiction (for the first time since 9th grade) in February of 2010. By summer, I had two stories contracted to Siren Publishing, and my new release Studenstein with Ellora’s Cave is my seventh tale.

On the other hand, I started wanting to be a writer at about 11 years old, so I put it off for a while. LOL. As a kid I was better at science than English, so I veered in that direction. Eventually I became a medical writer—which encompassed collecting and analyzing studies and writing synopses, creating reports, etc. Eventually I started doing some editing as well. In the process, I learned a lot about research and a ton about writing. I took courses in grammar, style, composition. I wrote copy that ranged from conversational to academic. Most importantly, I learned to get words on paper, reliably, and on a deadline.

Years later, I started reading young adult romance, then urban fantasy, and finally paranormal romance. When I had a lull between editing jobs, I decided to write one of my own. The rest is history!

Where do you find your inspiration?

I’m a big fan of comedy. Seattle, where I live, is a quirky, snarky place. After all, it’s the home of Dan Savage! For years, I dreamed of writing like Dan Savage, or maybe Jon Stewart. Humor writing about sex and politics is, in my opinion, as good as it gets! Alas, I wouldn’t want to write about politics, so sex it is!

What is the one writer’s tool you can’t live without?

My notes from Holly Lisle’s How to Revise Your Novel Course. Honestly, without having taken that course, I would never have gotten published. I still take out my class notes every time I revise.

Part of her course involves creating a series of notecards for the scenes in your books. And for me, that’s the most important part—breaking down the story into a series of pieces and seeing how they all fit together.

So yeah, course notes and notecards. Without them, my stories would be a hot mess!

How many words/pages do you do in a day/week/month? And how do you keep yourself motivated to do them?

It depends if I’m brainstorming, writing, revising, or in edits. And sometimes I have to take breaks to do guest posts, blogs, or other forms of marketing. But when I’m actively writing a book, I write at least 1000 words per day.

Lately, I’ve been pushing myself to do a lot more. Instead of slow and steady, I’ve aimed for a week of heavy brainstorming, followed by Blitzkrieg writing—between 1.5 and 7K per day, with an average of around 2-3.5 K words. But when I write a lot for a few days I burn out faster. So after 3-4 days of heavy writing, I take a day off for other tasks.

Whose work has influenced you the most?

I’d say Larissa Ione and Shelly Laurenston. Larissa Ione because she was the first writer I read who blended paranormal and erotic romance, and Shelly Laurenston because her Dragon’s Kin series (written as G.A. Aiken) blended humor and romance with over-the-top characters.

I also love the works of the writing duo Sydney Croft as well as Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series. But I don’t write like Nalini Singh at all! I love her style, but she writes much more “pretty” than me. 🙂

Tomorrow is the release of your novel, STUDENSTEIN, book two in the Love-Bots series from Ellora’s Cave. Where did you get the idea for that?

Well, the first book in the series, Lust After Death, was initially called “The Bride.” And it was about a girl who was manufactured to be the perfect wife. It followed naturally that the next book I’d want to write would be “The Stud.”

Studenstein is about a male love-bot (Royce) who gets rescued from his makers by a freedom fighter named Shani. She wants to set him free, but Royce doesn’t see what the problem is with being a sex-slave. He’s perfectly happy, thank-you-very-much.

Hilarity ensues!

Tell us a little about the book.

Oops! I sorta answered that above. Well, Royce is a mega-hottie, and by most normal definitions the perfect man. But he has a problem: a hellcat from the Zombie Underground wants to drag him back to her people in Seattle. She kidnaps him, and after a while of being disconnected from his makers’ server, he starts to malfunction.

The nature of the malfunction is sexual…as you can imagine. Or perhaps you can’t imagine… Well, read the blurb and find out!

I understand this is part of a series. Can you tell us a little about that?

The series is Love-Bots, and it’s about re-animated humans called “steins.” They can be programmed to be anything—fighters, sex-slaves, pilots. However, they’re solidly a slave class. Though sometimes referred to as “zombies,” they don’t decompose, and have the potential for free will.

It’s a fun concept as it allows for a plethora of mad-science and ridiculous situations. (I LOVE mad science.) The series also contains a lot of soul searching—do the steins want to be free of their makers? Do they want to change their programming? What are the pros and cons of free will?

What can readers expect from you after this?

I’m working on revisions for Love-Bots 3: Built 4 It right now. That one’s a male-male novella that takes place largely inside a lab (not to mention inside the shower.) I’m expecting that to release in November-ish. After that? Well, I have another Love-Bots story or three on the back-burner. I’m also eager to start a new world, but am not sure yet just what that will be. wrings hands together evilly…

 Tell us a little about your other books and where we can find them.

All my books are available at the Nook and Kindle store. I have a three book series about mermaids and other Ocean Shifters: Mere Temptation, Mere Passion, and Shark Bait. Then I have a male-male story called Mercury Rising. Otherwise, check out my website for links to free-reads and other fun stuff!

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?

It’s become abundantly clear over the course of my life that I can’t do anything but write. If I weren’t writing fiction, I’d be writing non-fiction. And probably having a much more boring time. 🙂

What’s your favorite genre to read? What’s your favorite genre to write?

Paranormal and sci-fi erotic romance! Both to read and to write.

Where can we find you online?

I’m on Twitter as @thedaisyharris, on Facebook, and at www.thedaisyharris.com.

I’ve also got author pages at Night Owl Reviews, Fresh Fiction, The Romance Studio, and gosh…prolly some other places I can’t even remember!

Thanks for stopping by, Daisy! Your book sounds great. Can’t wait to read it! 🙂

About Daisy:

Birkenstock-wearing glamour girl and mother of two by immaculate conception, Daisy Harris still isn’t sure if she writes erotica. Her paranormal romances start out innocently enough. However, her characters behave like complete sluts. Much to Miss Harris’s dismay, the sex tends to get completely out of hand.

If you like science-y subplots, fantastical creatures, and red-hot chemistry, you’ll love Daisy Harris. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook and at www.thedaisyharris.com.