Author Interview: Lola Rayne

Title: The Monster Within Blog Tour (Mounting Darkness Series #1)
Author: Lola Rayne

RELEASE DATE: 10/2/12
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance/ Erotica
Length: Novella

Available eBook Formats: .pdf, .mobi and .epub
Author Website: http://lolarayne.wordpress.com/

Goodreads Link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16003331-the-monster-within

Book Synopsis:

Sometimes the monster that haunted you as a child truly is real…

All it took was one phone call to bring Nicole Jones’s life crumbling down around her. Now a nightmare she thought she’d left in her past is back, and he’s not exactly bringing her candy and flowers. While fleeing, in a non-terrified fashion, she meets a menacing man in a dark alley. Then promptly passes out at his feet.

Gideon Evans hasn’t exactly been having the best run of luck, but all that changes when a buxom little blonde collapses right in front of him. Or at least he thinks it has. It doesn’t take him long to realize that bombshell is an appropriate description for more than just her looks. Now he’s facing several problems, including a surprising enemy, his own dark past, and a rather inconvenient case of lust.

Can they work together to battle the nightmare that’s chasing them? Or will they succumb to the monster within?

1. If you could work with any other author, who would it be and why?

This is the question I've most been dreading... because I don't think I could handle collaborating with anyone else which makes me sound like a total jerk. Really I just don't trust myself to be able to give up that much control. I might be a teeny tiny bit of a control freak. And if you just heard laughter, that was my husband...

Which means I'd really like to meet (and gaze in wonderment at) Ilona and Gordon Andrews and Donna and Bree who make up Moira Rogers. Then I would demand they tell me the secret to writing as a co-op.

2. What would be a typical working day for you? When and where do you write?

I have a two year old, I have no typical days. If I did though, then I'd stumble out of bed around 6 and stare bleary eyed at my computer until about 7, when I swear because I'm now running late again. I then work at my day job from 7:30 until 4:00. After that I try not to scar my child's emotional well being too much (or pass out... she's very active) until she goes to bed between 7 and 8.

After she goes to bed I get to write... but since my computer is the same one I game on and is right next to our TV and I have the attention span of a chipmunk on cocaine, it usually turns into "HEY LET ME DO ANYTHING OTHER THAN WRITING."

Oh, and sometimes I find that I've curled up with my husband to watch whatever he's watching on engaged in a heated debate about item levels and who has the best loot and now it's midnight and don't I have to get up in the morning?

3. What is the hardest part of the writing for you?

Other than finding the time? Finding the focus and inspiration when I have the time. Nothing is more of a kick in the pants than realizing that all those ideas you had while at work/in the shower/driving/were too lazy to get out of bed are gone now that you've got a blank word document sitting in front of you.

I swear that blinking cursor lives to taunt me.

4. When and why did you first start writing?

In fifth grade I wrote a truly horrible story about a princess named Buttercup. Not that I stole it from the Princess Bride or anything... I remember because I was using literary techniques beyond the fifth grade level apparently and my teacher tried to edit it out for me. Thanks teach!

I stopped for awhile after high school for undisclosed reasons that I'm hoping will give me an air of mystery (but is actually just an embarrassing story trashing someone else that I've since forgiven) and didn't start again until after my kid was born. I was reading a lot and during one particularly horrid book decided that "even I could do better." So I put my money where my mouth is.

5. How did you come up with the idea for your book?

Well after kick in the pants towards a more smutty style of writing, I started thinking about a plot that would work for... you know... smut. Something that would translate to a 100 page story but would still be compelling and allow for sexy times.

The more I struggled, the worse my ideas were until one day, there was Nicole. The rest, as they say, is history.

6. Are you a big reader? If so, what are you reading now?

Big reader might be a bit of an understatement. I read to the point of absurdity. Right now I'm reading "The Iron King" since I loved the "Immortal Rules" and have the first book in the Iron Fey's follow up series. By the time this interview is posted I'll have moved onto some new book. Probably not one of the 400+ in my to-read pile.

I've got a problem

7. Do you have any advice for other aspiring writers?

Just write, all the time, every day. Write nothing. Write everything. Write just to stay in the habit of writing. Find friends that you trust and show them your writing. And most importantly, never give up.