Ask the Author: Danielle Austen
Answered Questions (6)
Danielle Austen
I'm not one who can just be struck by the idea for a sordid sex scene and then bang out a quick short story around that fantasy. I like writing full-length novels where the story comes first and the sex comes second; so I'm very slow when it comes to writing as ideas take a while to formulate and blend in my mind. The inspirations for my current work in progress are wide ranging and include the current state of the erotica market, David Lynch's avant-garde "Lost Highway", my feelings on art and creativity, a trip to San Francisco, cop drama The Mentalist, and the result of some of my very personal meditations on death and sex.
Danielle Austen
Halo: The Master Chief Collection. But if you mean in terms of writing, I'm about to start work on my fourth full-length; a dark standalone tale in which I intend to turn the overdone "rich guy with a penchant for BDSM" genre on its head.
Danielle Austen
The Harlot's Lie, my short story featured in the recent anthology Gratis: Transformation, was essentially a "deleted scene" from the Prophecy Girl Trilogy which had always existed in my head. I'd always wanted to include the moment of Cereza's conception and address the fallout from the end of The Magician's Lover, such as how Lindsey reconciles her actions during the book and how she could possibly choose to have a child after discovering the truth of the prophecy. I'd just never found a place for it until the opportunity arose to write for Gratis, and Xcite kindly allowed me a temporary reprieve from my exclusivity contract to do so.
Danielle Austen
Make sure that you're writing for the right reasons. While everyone gets into writing thinking that they're in a unique position, the reality of it is that there are hundreds of thousands of struggling authors worldwide and only around 0.001% of them will ever find critical or commercial success. As an author it's 99.999% certain that you will spend a huge amount of time working to scrape together a miniscule three-figure salary and being ignored by almost everyone out there. That's not to say it's not worth it - but make sure you're writing for the love of it, rather than for any expectations of money or fame.
Danielle Austen
There are many great things about writing: having your name on books which will exist after you've gone; receiving comments from strangers across the world who've read your work; the creative process itself, through which you take whole worlds from inside your head and put them on paper. But for me the best thing is how therapeutic it is. While I'm generally a happy person with a wide range of interests, and I find plenty of relief from the stresses of the modern world via things like running and videogames, there is no getting away from a small part of me which simply *needs* to create something. Through writing I get to transform my negativities and neuroses and worries into something beautiful and uplifting and arousing.
Danielle Austen
As writing isn't my primary income and I'm not (currently) tied to publisher deadlines, I have the freedom to write only when I want to write. As such, if I'm experiencing writer's block I simply won't write. I would much rather a book take an extra six months to complete and be something I'm truly happy with, than force myself to put words on paper and end up with a book I'm not proud of.
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