Name:
Jacky Lang
The Title of Your Work or Group:
Passion Shorts (free short stories): PassionCon, Passion Streaming, Passion’s Probability, Paint by Numbers, Passion Symbiotic
Novellas: Love & Money, The Book Club
Where are you from?
Pacific North West
In what genre do you write?
Modern romance/erotica
In your own words, what is your book about? If you were not the author and trying to explain this awesome book you just read to a friend, what would you say about it?
My first Novella, Love & Money tells the story of a smart girl who makes some questionable choices. She, and many of her acquaintances are driven into the world of high end escorts by student loan debt. This story was inspired by the real news stories of young men and women selling themselves to pay for higher education. Since it is fiction, my story is much more romantic and less brutal than the news items.
What is your writing style? Do you follow all guides and rules? Synopsis, outline etc. or do you just sit down at the computer and type to see what happens?
I’ve only been writing a few years, and I’ve tried a few methods to see which one serves me the best. A general outline really helps me get started; I don’t do well with blank screen syndrome.
Have you ever written anything and thought; " The world has got to see this!" ?
Every once in a while a passage just flows and I think, “Wow, I might really be a writer.” However, my partner who is also one of my beta readers can usually find something to criticize that gets my ego back under control right away.
Do you have an editor and Cover Designer or do you do this yourself?
I do the covers for my free short stories myself, due to time and budget constraints. The novellas have covers by http://coversbykaren.com/. She was super wonderful to work with and I love the results.
Who is your favorite author? Not just someone that you read allot. I wanna know whose book you read that made you suddenly know that if you didn't do this for the rest of your life then you would never be happy.
For someone who reads as much as I do, it would be hard to have a favorite. Moods change and so does my reading pile. Frankly, seeing the commercial success of not-so-great authors gave me the courage to try my hand.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
I started playing with fiction on the side and so I’ve learned everything on my own. It can be terribly difficult to stick to a writing schedule for the “fun” part of my career. The more I write and learn the more I realize how all-consuming the calling can be.
Do you write your characters or do they write themselves through you?
I create them and then they grow and develop in ways that often surprise me.
Do you ever write yourself into the characters?
It happens, but my goal has been to give my characters their own voices. I rewrote a huge section of The Book Club when I realized all the women sounded like me. Ugh, how boring.
Is writing your full time job or are you "Keeping your day job"? So to speak.
I do have a day job and that is the source of many scheduling problems. However, I’ve found my work as a fiction writer greatly improves my performance in the “real world.”
If you could go back in time and meet one famous person or legend in history, who would it be?
I think that’s a lovely fantasy that writers play with all the time and the person probably changes as we grow and change as writers. At this point, I’d love to meet Catherine the Great of Russia. She was a survivor, smart and sexually empowered in a repressed age. I’d love to know how she managed all that.
There are millions of new books released every year. What in your mind makes yours stand out from all those millions in your genre?
I stumbled upon the difference in my writing by accident—I write about geeks. Well, not just geeks…I write about all the people who usually don’t get a lot of print in the world of romance or erotica. Not all my romantic leads are twentyish models and all my male characters are not white, billionaires. I want the bookish, quiet, diverse readers of the world to see themselves in a romantic or sexy plot line.
In the world of Indie, marketing is very difficult, especially if you don't have the funds to pay for it. Have you found a great free way to market your work that you think other Indies will benefit from?
Because I’m doing the dual life thing, I haven’t done a ton of marketing. So far, Twitter has been really good to me. I try to carve out scheduled times and really engage there and it seems to be (slowly) working.
Links to find and follow Jacky's work:
My stuff on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cp_27%3AJacky%20Lang
Smashwords (the only place to get the freebies): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JackyLang
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyLangBooks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jacky.lang.547
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