Interview & Giveaway with Vicktor Alexander

~ I have Vicktor Alexander on the blog today and he's answering all the questions and bringing a good time. He even brought us a giveaway, so be sure to enter. Lets give out a warm welcome.~

Tell us a bit about yourself and how long you've been writing?
Hello everyone! I’m Vicktor Alexander. I’m a Southern gentleman (okay, okay, yes, I’m kind of a cowboy, but without the whole riding horses every day, working on a ranch thing. But I have the Stetson and the clothes and the whip –clears throat- but that’s for something else entirely), out and proud, living in Florida. I’m a Messianic Jew. I love to read, write, cook, paint, sketch, watch Criminal Minds, Torchwood, Spartacus, Happy Endings and Scandal –like obsessively- I love sports (Go Red Sox! Go Patriots! Go Celtics!) I am hopelessly in lust with John Barrowman and Shemar Moore (who I am waiting to realize that he’s gay or bisexual and destined to be with me). I come from a large family. I want to change the world. I have a 19 year old adopted daughter, whom I call Princess Chipmunk, who is preparing for her freshman year of college (-sobs- My baby!). I love to laugh and make people laugh. I have plans to start three different non-profits. And did I mention that I want to change the world?

Oh yeah, I’m single too. Although I do write letters weekly or bi-weekly to my future husband that I post online.

I’ve been writing since I was 10. My first story was about my baby sister Lisa and the way she destroyed the world with her breath. It was an oral story that I wrote on the spot as we were coming back from a family reunion. My family liked the story so much I came up with another story, it was about my brother Steve and how he destroyed the world with his body odor (I was a mean older brother wasn’t I?) and the third story was about my other sister Tina and how she destroyed the world with her feet odor. When I finished that story we still had a few hours to go until we would get home and my family was clamoring for more so I came up with another story, “The Tale of the Doll’s Eyes.” It was a story about a little girl’s baby doll whose eyes were put under a voodoo curse and at night the eyes would leave the body of the doll and go around killing anyone that was mean to the little girl. When we pulled up to our house no one left the car until I’d finished the story. That was when I realized that I might just have a gift for writing. I went inside and tried to replicate what I’d come up with in the car (couldn’t do it). I promptly gave up on it and instead wrote “Summer Oaks” about a little girl who meets a talking squirrel. My first paranormal.

Was gay fiction something you always wanted to write? Or did you develop it as an interest over time?
Oh no. I was a good little Messianic Jew for a very long time. It was all heterosexual romances when I did read any, and when I did write books it was a lot of poetry, general fiction, children’s books, and interracial, heterosexual romances. Then when I got into high school I met my first “gays”. My best friends Angel and Justin and I attempted my first gay porn story about them (because there was NO romance in it. I believe the first line of the story was “I want your big ass dick in my ass”). They laughed at me and told me a lot of what I’d written was impossible or would cause serious damage and I stopped writing it for a long time. Then I started reading gay fiction (enter Mary Calmes’s “Change of Heart” book which introduced me to the M/M romance genre) and my sister told me about “slash” fanfiction on fanfiction.net a site that I was already obsessed with because of all of the Criminal Minds, Supernatural, Friends stories on there (and I was writing some fanfic as well “Agent Kara Morgan”). I found slash stories on there (the Criminal Minds Hotch/Morgan ones are HOT and so are the Hotch/Reid ones-those are my FAVE) and I wrote my first “slash” story on there around the same time I started writing a blog story entitled, Unthinkable. I got feedback on “A Child of Their Own” from people who read slash and who read M/M and it helped with Unthinkable. Before I knew
it Unthinkable was done and I was writing the sequel, Inconceivable and next thing you knew both stories were edited, published by Rooster & Pig Publishing and… well, here I am!

You have a few releases that are upcoming. Can you talk a bit about them, and you future plans in writing?
Absolutely! My newest release actually released today (February 17th, 2014): The Beginning which is the first book in the Sons of Adam series from Rooster & Pig Publishing. It’s about Ronny Parker, a black, gay, human male from Harlem, NY, who works as a barista at Starbucks who comes upon a fight between two shifters, a lion shifter and a wolf shifter one of whom, Cole Tronk, a white, gay man, the lion shifter, tells Ronny that they are mates… right before he gives Ronny the mating bite. At this time the paranormal world is hidden from humans and paranormal law prevents mating with humans and homosexual pairings as well, so Cole has essentially broken two laws by mating Ronny. He doesn’t care, however, but when he exposes the truth of the paranormal world to humans, thus breaking another law (a pretty big one too), he doesn’t just put his life and the life of his mate in danger, but the life of every single paranormal alive. The Beginning is an interracial, contemporary, paranormal, gay romance and it was so much fun to write it, especially because of the fact that the reader finds out that Adam was not the only one created on the sixth day. He had six other brothers created at the same time and there’s an entire Bible, The Real Holy Bible, that proves it, and Ronny has been chosen to be one of the people to help change the world. –happy clapping-

My next release is Dakota which is the first book in The Sevion Brotherhood series from MLR Press. It has a tentative release date of May 2nd and it’s about Dr. Dakota Sevion, a vampire, who meets his mate, single father, Nishon “Nimo” Moore, at the Gelreen Memorial Hospital where he works when Nimo’s son, Isaiah, has an accident at his daycare and has to be rushed to the hospital. In this world vampires only have two weeks to consummate and complete the “blood-bond” with their mates or they will die from starvation (they go mad from it and eventually die), so Dakota is on a bit of a timeline. However, Nimo’s son is a forziq, a human with three special gifts, one of which is the ability to see the true form of vampires, and according to vampire law, Isaiah is to be put to death immediately. There’s also the added problem of Nimo’s negative reaction to finding out about Dakota being a vampire. He runs and Dakota’s thirst sets in. And while these two men are dealing with these issues there’s someone out to kill them all. Dakota is an interracial (I love my interracial couples!), contemporary, paranormal, gay romance set in Mississippi so you can imagine what kind of fun I had with this book.

Can you tell us how you get inspired to write most of your stories, and the process that goes into writing the story?
A lot of times it’s a matter of “What if?” Either I’m watching a movie, listening to a song, having a conversation, or even reading a book and my mind goes into a whole “what if?” scenario. “What if the police officer that arrested the man in the park for urinating found out that the man was homeless and he came back later on to check on him? What if he decided to get the guy some help and they ended up falling in love?” Or like what actually happened with The Beginning “What if paranormals actually exist? What if when YHVH (the Jewish word for G-d) created Adam, he created paranormals and elves and witches as well and they all ate of the Tree of Knowledge and the curse made it so that now paranormals have to hide their true identity from humanity? And what if paranormal men can actually get their male mates pregnant and paranormal females can actually get their female mates
pregnant? What would happen if the truth came out because a shifter and a human mated and revealed the existence of all paranormals to the world?” And thus the Sons of Adam series was born.

My process starts with the main idea first. I quickly write down whatever the idea is that sparked the book or series. Sometimes it’s a title, sometimes it’s a series title, sometimes it’s a blurb. It varies. Once I write down whatever sparked the idea depending on what I’m doing I get back to it. If I’m not doing anything then I fill out the Character Information Sheet that details what each character looks like, their quirks, habits, where they went to college, their family, where they work, favorite music, favorite color, etc. because I never know what may come up during the course of the book. After that I do world building. Even if it’s a contemporary romance, I still do world building. Raising Shawna was a contemporary romance with just a little bit of the supernatural thrown in there, so you wouldn’t think that I would need that much world building. You would be wrong. I researched and did world building based on the state of Florida. Laws, Government, Economics, Education, Crime, History, Marriage Laws, Views on Homosexuality, Religion, Views on Race, etc. It’s something I do for every series and every book that I write. Sometimes it’s my favorite part of the whole process. Once I finish world building then I work on the title. Sometimes it’s just a “Working Title” in which case it’s something funny, my freebie “An Angelic Meeting” started off as “Angels are Hot & Chunky Guys are Too”. That changes once I get a title that I like. If I don’t get a title that I like by the time I save the document for the day it’s saved as is and that’s how I sometimes end up with books that wind up being titled their working titles, like “Super Gay.” After I get a title, if it’s a standalone I start writing the first chapter (or prologue). If it’s part of a series, then I figure out how many books are in the series and I title them as well. If there’s an overall arc I figure out what that is and I get it down on the same document with all of the series titles. After I write the first two or three chapters I usually have a good idea of the direction the book is going in and I make an outline of the entire book, chapter by chapter, figure out how long the book is going to be (estimate) then I get back to writing, whereupon my characters promptly laugh at my outline and do whatever the hell they want.

What is your stance on interracial romance in the M/M genre?
I LOVE IT! I write it and there needs to be more of it. PLEASE!!! I know, just from talking to other authors that a lot of them are afraid of tackling different cultures and ethnicities for fear of getting it wrong and offending or insulting someone (I’ve heard this a LOT when it comes to writing black, gay men) but one of the things I point out a lot is that we’re not really THAT different. While they would have to take into account racism from a different POV (as the one being profiled instead of the one doing the profiling), and they would have to realize that upbringings and familial structures might be different, the same is true for all ethnicities. As I told one author “I’m actually more offended that you think my family and I sit around listening to hip-hop, eating fried chicken and collard greens, living in the projects on welfare, speaking Ebonics and moaning about racism than if you’d have written a character based upon your actual interactions with me. I come from a two-parent household. My family is middle-class though we weren’t always that way, I’ve never lived in the “projects.” I don’t listen to hip-hop. I don’t like greens. I rarely eat fried chicken. I had a college-level vocabulary when I was in middle school and while I have to deal with racism on a daily basis and it sucks ass it’s not something my family and I sit around talking about every day. It’s a truth, a sad, unfortunate reality that we fight against through protests, petitions, the law and education, but one we have grown used to. Thinking that I am so vastly different from you that you are incapable of writing a character like me is probably the most insulting thing you could say to me.”

I’m not saying everyone has to write interracial romance. Dear gods, don’t write anything your muse and your characters aren’t telling you to write, but don’t say that you “can’t” because you haven’t done the research and it’s so complicated. That’s a cop-out. One of the greatest interracial romances I have EVER read in this genre was written by Amy Lane, entitled Bolt-Hole. It was raw, gritty, angsty, emotional, hopeful and so fucking real that I saw myself splashed across the pages of that book.

We need more interracial romances because when I was growing up I was told that being gay was “a white man” thing and that “black men, and Jewish aren’t gay.” While we’re seeing this lie slowly being disproved almost daily in the news as more and more minority men are coming out (Frank Ocean, Jason Collins, Michael Sam, Ricky Martin, etc.) I think that for those of us who have a platform we can make a difference and show men, and young boys that being gay is not something that is restricted to a certain ethnicity and that it’s okay for them to live their truth. I believe that we as writers can effect a lot of change and writing interracial romances as being okay will go a long way towards doing that.

What book/books are you currently reading, and is it causing a pants losing?
Right now I’m reading Stormy Glenn’s “Whatever He Desires” with “Prince Snow and His Snow King” by Scarlet Hyacinth up right after that and then “Their Fallen Angel” by Lynn Stark. And then I’m going back to reread the “Wylde Boys” series by Lynn Hagen. Cowboys…. Mmmmm. What I’m currently reading is most DEFINITELY causing a pants losing. At one point I was reading it while sitting outside and my body started to heat up, at which point I was glad I was outside because the cold wind cooled me down. I was also a little disappointed, because I was hard and outside and couldn’t do anything about it. LOL.

Who has it better Top or Bottom?
Fuck. The versatile has it better. Best of both fucking worlds. Because while there’s nothing like something tight and warm squeezing your shaft while you pump inside of a willing hole, harder and harder, pursuing that bliss that’s waiting for you just at the edge of the cliff. Nothing like feeling the slap of flesh against your groin. There’s also nothing like the feeling of a hard cock slamming inside of you. Hands holding onto your waist or your shoulders. The plunge deep in and out, hitting that pleasure spot deep inside of you making you cry out to the heavens. Making you clutch the sheets and claw at your partner’s back.

Both of those things are AMAZING. One isn’t better, they’re both equal so who has it better? Someone like me who does both. –nods-

Pants is it better to write with them on or off?
If I’m settling in for a long writing session in my room then I write in nothing but my boxer briefs. If I’m writing and I’m going to be around other people or moving around or in and out of my room then I wear a t-shirt and sweat pants. I would much rather write in nothing but my boxer briefs though. I can’t write naked because I’d be too distracted. I’d want to “meditate”, shower, fuck, or sleep because that’s what you do when you’re naked, right?

How do you feel about a 3-way romance in books? Believable or Not?
I LURVE ménages! They’re fucking hot as hell. I do think that some of the conflict and tension that can happen when you have three or more people in a relationship gets glossed over sometimes but it’s sooooooo hot. And hell yeah it’s believable. I know people who are a part of 3-way/poly relationships. They’re sexy as fuck.

Thank you Vic for being here today!! If fans want to keep in touch, how can they get in contact?

Thank you so much for having me! It was fun! Sorry for the long-windedness and ranting I did. Whew! –wipes brow-

If readers want to keep in touch with me here’s how to contact me in order of MOST LIKELY to LEAST LIKELY to respond quickly to:

http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/VicktorAlexander

http://www.facebook.com/VicktorAlexanderB

http://www.twitter.com/VVeeB

http://www.facebook.com/AuthorVicktorAlexander

vicktoralexander@vicktoralexander.com

Blurb:
Ronny Parker has always been aware that there was more to life outside of his Harlem apartment. When he goes to work one morning at Starbucks, he finds himself coming face to face with a reality that he was not prepared for. He finds himself the eyewitness to a fight between two shifters, a wolf and a lion, one of which bites Ronny and calls him “mate.” When Ronny wakes up the next morning he finds himself thrust into a world neither his family, nor his teachers ever taught him about and he does the only thing he can do. He starts to investigate.

Cole Tronk has been taught from an early age that he is never to mate a human, never reveal his true nature to a human and that he cannot be gay. But when he gets into a fight with his oldest friend outside of a Starbucks and finds himself smelling the most intoxicating scent ever, he throws all of those rules out of the window. Before long, Cole and his mate, Ronny are on the run from the governing body of the paranormals, humans who have now discovered that paranormals, magicks and supernaturals exist, and someone from Ronny’s past who is determined to kill them both.

Along the way, Cole and Ronny meet up with a group of paranormals, magicks, and supernaturals who are also gay, and who are researching the true history of the world and creation. What they find will not only change their lives, but the entire world and the future. Will Ronny and Cole’s mating survive all of these obstacles and when a millennias old lie comes back to bite them in the ass, will Ronny and Cole be able to deal with the consequences?

Excerpt

Cole let out a bark of laughter before leaning forward to sniff at the column of Ronny’s neck. He let out a low growl before licking the skin there. Ronny shivered so hard he thought he would fly apart as the front of his pants grew wet with his pre-cum.

“Oh, fuck,” he whispered and clenched his fists against the wall.

Something inside of him wanted to reach out to Cole. He wanted to bring the other man against his body, preferably with both of them naked. He wanted to feel Cole thrusting inside of him. He ached deep inside for… something. He didn’t know what, but he knew that it was somehow the most important thing ever. He noticed that his breath and Cole’s seemed to be in sync and he watched, amazed that whenever he breathed out, Cole inhaled and vice versa. It was as if they were each other’s air.

Riiight, he mentally scoffed. I am not some fucking twink in a romance novel.

Giving himself a mental shake, Ronny raised his hands to push Cole away, who seemed to have gotten so much closer to him in the few seconds it took for Ronny to think. His hands landed on firm pecs and, though he’d told himself that he was pushing the other man away, he found himself squeezing the flesh instead, his palms grazed by the puckered nipples on Cole’s chest.

“Shit,” Cole growled.

It was Ronny’s only warning before sharp pain pierced the join of his neck and left shoulder as Cole, the lion man, buried his fangs into Ronny’s skin. Ronny let out a loud yell, that quickly turned into a moan as the pain became pleasure. Sweet, overwhelming, delicious pleasure. The kind that had him humping Cole’s thigh where it rested between his own legs. It was a pleasure so amazing that it took him a moment to realize that not only had he just cum in his work pants, effectively ruining them, but that he’d just let some fucking lion man bite him.

He told himself that he was going to push Cole away, but his hands seemed to not be listening to him and instead they rose to wrap around Cole’s neck as the other man groaned and drank Ronny’s blood. After a moment, when Ronny was starting to feel just slightly weak, Cole let go of his neck and licked the wounds. He kissed the skin there and began to purr. At first, it freaked Ronny out, but, after a moment, he found himself more turned on by the purring than he’d been by the bite to his neck.

The bite to his—hold the hell on!

Ronny shoved Cole away from him. Jabbing a finger into Cole’s chest, he glared and let out his own growl. “You fucking bit me, you psycho!”

Cole smirked. “You loved it,” he pointed out, crossing his massive arms across his broad chest.

Since it’s the 17th The Beginning is now available for order and download from Rooster & Pig Publishing: http://www.roosterandpigpublishing.com/new-releases

Giveaway (A backlist or new release digital copy book by Vicktor Alexander)

• Must be 18yrs or older
• leave a comment along with email
• Winner has 48hrs to reply to my email or another winner will be chosen
• Contest ends Saturday February 22nd 11:59pm EST