Ask the Author: Kirby Quinlan
Answered Questions (6)
Kirby Quinlan
Though I have more ideas for books than I'll ever have time to write, for some reason, when you're staring at a blank page, writer's block sometimes happens.
What I do is take out a notebook and write the scene title at the top and bullet-point everything I know about what's going to happen in the scene. Then I start asking myself a series of questions that employ the five senses. What do I see? What do I hear in this place? What does it smell like? Is there something I would touch or taste? That's usually enough to get me running again. If not, I accept the fact I'm not ready to write at that moment and go take a long walk to ruminate on my bullet point list. If that still doesn't work, take the day off. LOL
What I do is take out a notebook and write the scene title at the top and bullet-point everything I know about what's going to happen in the scene. Then I start asking myself a series of questions that employ the five senses. What do I see? What do I hear in this place? What does it smell like? Is there something I would touch or taste? That's usually enough to get me running again. If not, I accept the fact I'm not ready to write at that moment and go take a long walk to ruminate on my bullet point list. If that still doesn't work, take the day off. LOL
Kirby Quinlan
The best thing about being a self-published writer is that I'm my own boss. The vision I have for the book is what's ultimately printed on the page. After writing the book, I make my own book covers too and promote it myself, so I get to wear many hats. It's never boring, that's for sure.
Kirby Quinlan
Perfect is the enemy of good. I wrote for years and plotted and planned lots of stories that have never seen the light of day because I kept editing and re-editing as I wrote the first draft.
Let the first draft flow out of your fingers with the knowledge that most of it is going to be re-written during your next draft. And that's okay. Push ahead and finish, then go back and perfect it the second or third time around. Soon, you'll have a finished book you're proud to release.
Let the first draft flow out of your fingers with the knowledge that most of it is going to be re-written during your next draft. And that's okay. Push ahead and finish, then go back and perfect it the second or third time around. Soon, you'll have a finished book you're proud to release.
Kirby Quinlan
My next book is called "Mike Hawk and the Cult of Kings".
It's an erotic time-travel adventure story, inspired by the likes of Indiana Jones, Dick Tracy, detective fiction, men's pulp, and film noir... I jokingly refer to it as a gay version of "Outlander", but told in the style of a saturday matinee serial.
Present Day: Michaelangelo Hawk, III works in an elite task force for an international organization dedicated to keeping LGBTQ people safe around the world.
When passengers on a gay-themed cruise ship are taken prisoner by a terrorist organization during an excursion to the pyramids at Giza, Mike’s team is called in to rescue them. During an intense firefight in the necropolis, Mike is forced to jump into a metal sarcophagus to escape a grenade blast.
When he emerges, however, he discovers he's been mysteriously transported back to the year 1948; to his father’s hometown, a city called Bulger Beach near Miami, Florida. Due to an eerie resemblance, he is soon mistaken by everyone to be his grandfather, Mike Hawk, Sr., a private detective who happens to have disappeared while investigating a dangerous case involving a local sex cult obsessed with Egyptology.
Assuming he is Mike, Sr. suffering from a case of amnesia, his grandfather’s young, ambiguously gay Cuban secretary Eduardo and a grizzled, former bootlegger named Shep who runs an all-night diner help him try to “regain his memory”. In the process, Mike learns way more about his long-lost grandfather than he ever wanted to know, and has to avoid the amorous advances of the young woman who will become his grandmother in the process.
Hoping the cult may have information about how he can get back to his own time, he picks up the investigation where his grandfather left off, quickly entangling him in a sordid web of sex, politics and power. With a lounge singer named Ruby hiring him to find her brother and a sexy male assassin from an ancient Egyptian order trying to kill him, Mike has his hands full.
Inspired by the pulp adventure serials of the 1930’s and 40’s, Mike Hawk and the Cult of Kings is the story of a tough-as-nails gay hero fighting to survive in the less-than-ideal world he’s been caught up in.
With the whole city at stake, through daring shootouts, thrilling car chases, breathtaking orgies and other orgasmic adventures, he’ll race to get to the bottom of the mystery before the whole thing comes crashing down on him, all leading to a terrifying revelation even Mike doesn’t expect.
It's been a whole lot of fun to write and I'm sure it's going to be just as fun to read. So, look for it soon. To keep updated on all my new releases, please sign up for my free mailing list at kirbyquinlan.com
It's an erotic time-travel adventure story, inspired by the likes of Indiana Jones, Dick Tracy, detective fiction, men's pulp, and film noir... I jokingly refer to it as a gay version of "Outlander", but told in the style of a saturday matinee serial.
Present Day: Michaelangelo Hawk, III works in an elite task force for an international organization dedicated to keeping LGBTQ people safe around the world.
When passengers on a gay-themed cruise ship are taken prisoner by a terrorist organization during an excursion to the pyramids at Giza, Mike’s team is called in to rescue them. During an intense firefight in the necropolis, Mike is forced to jump into a metal sarcophagus to escape a grenade blast.
When he emerges, however, he discovers he's been mysteriously transported back to the year 1948; to his father’s hometown, a city called Bulger Beach near Miami, Florida. Due to an eerie resemblance, he is soon mistaken by everyone to be his grandfather, Mike Hawk, Sr., a private detective who happens to have disappeared while investigating a dangerous case involving a local sex cult obsessed with Egyptology.
Assuming he is Mike, Sr. suffering from a case of amnesia, his grandfather’s young, ambiguously gay Cuban secretary Eduardo and a grizzled, former bootlegger named Shep who runs an all-night diner help him try to “regain his memory”. In the process, Mike learns way more about his long-lost grandfather than he ever wanted to know, and has to avoid the amorous advances of the young woman who will become his grandmother in the process.
Hoping the cult may have information about how he can get back to his own time, he picks up the investigation where his grandfather left off, quickly entangling him in a sordid web of sex, politics and power. With a lounge singer named Ruby hiring him to find her brother and a sexy male assassin from an ancient Egyptian order trying to kill him, Mike has his hands full.
Inspired by the pulp adventure serials of the 1930’s and 40’s, Mike Hawk and the Cult of Kings is the story of a tough-as-nails gay hero fighting to survive in the less-than-ideal world he’s been caught up in.
With the whole city at stake, through daring shootouts, thrilling car chases, breathtaking orgies and other orgasmic adventures, he’ll race to get to the bottom of the mystery before the whole thing comes crashing down on him, all leading to a terrifying revelation even Mike doesn’t expect.
It's been a whole lot of fun to write and I'm sure it's going to be just as fun to read. So, look for it soon. To keep updated on all my new releases, please sign up for my free mailing list at kirbyquinlan.com
Kirby Quinlan
I'm inspired by everything I'm exposed to, whether it be books I read, TV shows, movies, history, public figures, people I've met...even the simple act of going out to dinner can inspire a scene. The Brazilian Barbecue scene in this book, for instance, is something that actually happened. My writer's brain is constantly filtering good material, from whatever or whoever I come into contact with. My favorite thing is to take two familiar things that don't normally go together and drop them into a story and see what happens when they collide with each other.
Kirby Quinlan
In 2009, singer Chris Brown was sentenced to 1,400 hours of community service for assaulting his girlfriend Rihanna. There were pictures taken by the paparazzi of him picking up garbage on the side of a Virginia highway, wearing a bright orange work vest. I remember reading an article about it on my laptop at the same time the reality TV show "Hoarders" was droning in the background. I thought to myself, "if they really want to punish him, they should make him clean out one of these hoarded houses." That's how the genesis of the idea was sparked.
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