1: Thank you so much for being here, First up is the obligatory question. When did you first begin writing?
It’s a pleasure being here with your readers. And regarding my writing, I started early, back in high school, my junior year, for fun at first. But when the Crestwood Journal published my short story “Nostalgia”, I thought…gee, there just may be a future to this.
2: What inspired you to write?
Something from inside I had to say and didn’t know how else to do it. I’ve never been very talkative, always more of a listener, also because I’m very choosy about people. I’m not an outgoing type who likes to be in a crowd or be with people simply because it beats being lonely. I always chose my friends very carefully, getting to know only the ones who spoke to my soul. As a result, I don’t have many friends, but the few I have, are very special people and the relationships have been so close and lasting I couldn’t imagine my life without them. But I guess some things I just can’t keep to myself, so that’s why I started writing. Take the short story I told you about, “Nostalgia”. It was a cry of homesickness for my native land, Italy, while living in the US, in a foreign place that didn’t belong to me, and whose people I didn’t understand. And just as nothing silenced that early cry, nothing later—not even later life’s many ups and downs—could either.
3: What do you like the most and least about writing?
I love how words flow easily when I’m seated at my computer, the story developing under my fingers, so to speak. Then the editing is great, too, for that’s when the story really takes shape, all the pieces coming together to define my characters and their paths. But I’m not too hot about deadlines and schedules, which seem unavoidable when dealing with publishers and the promo world.
4: What do you do for fun and relaxation when not writing?
I go to the beach to lie under the sun, listening to my mind running through a dialogue, the beginning of a new story, a new character, music or simply sleeping it off when I’m really tired LOL
5: Which authors do you like to read?
The list is infinite, but here are some of my favorites: Philip K. Dick, JRR Tolkien, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Mitchell, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Jane Austin, Robert J. Sawyer, John Grisham, Michael Crichton, Lindsey Davis, Ellis Peters, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Evelyn Waugh, Somerset Maugham, Ellery Queen, Katherine Kerr, Emilio Salgari, Umberto Eco, Elsa Morante, Alexandre Dumas, Fiedor Dostoievski, Lev Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Oblomov, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Thomas Mann, Eric Maria Remarque, PD James, Marguerite Yourcenair, Simone De Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Miguel De Unamuno, Albert Camus, VC Andrews, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Albert Camus, Luther Blisset, and many, many more.
6: What’s the one thing you’d most like people to know about you?
That in spite of some of the grueling things I write, I abhor violence. To make it clearer, horror—whether movies or books—terrorize me. And while I write about some pretty violent scenes between humans, I’d never, ever, write about hurting an animal, not even if it were healed the second after.
7: Tell me about your current novel, where I can find it and your website/blog.
It’s a new fantasy series, Virtus Saga, which is really hitting off. With already two books released, The Sex and The Game, it takes the readers into an imaginary world, Sendar, an apparently peaceful planet without the usual pestilences connected to human beings, wars, hunger, violence. But is it really so? Unknown to most, powerful forces dominate their feudal-like society, the ability to wield destructive energy so strong in some people, it’s threatening to devastate their world if a hero did not come forth to control it. Or maybe more than one as the leader of the High Council summons the prince, his lover and his woman, three like the sides of the mysterious pyramid they vow to retrieve if sex, power, passion and jealousy won’t get in their way.
Virtus Book 1
GENRE: GLBT, Gay, Fantasy, Paranormal, Ménage, m/m, m/m/f, m/f
HEAT LEVEL: 4 flames
PUBLISHER: eXtasy Books
BUY LINK
http://www.extasybooks.net/ebjmsite/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_comingsoon&product_id=7318&category_id=54&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=44
BLURB
If Sendar stood a chance perhaps it would be thanks to the arbitrary twists and turns of a blind destiny. Or maybe someone would discover the truth about the ancient ways and compromise our peaceful existence forever. Either way, people needed a hero to shed new light on the age-old mysteries. And he was just about to answer their prayers.
The Game
Virtus Book 2
GENRE: GLBT, Gay, Fantasy, Paranormal, Ménage, m/m, f/f, m/m/f, m/f, m/m/m, m/f/f
HEAT LEVEL: 5 flames
PUBLISHER: eXtasy Books
BUY LINK
http://www.extasybooks.net/ebjmsite/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=ebook_flypage.tpl&product_id=7879&category_id=54&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=50
For more info, you can check out my:
Website www.lallagatta.com
8: Do you have any tips for aspiring authors?
To be patient, very patient. It takes time to get publisher to notice your work out of the hundreds they receive every day and once they do, it’s only the beginning because it’ll take even longer for readers to get to know you.
9: Do you base your characters on real-life people?
Not entirely. Let’s say I take bits and pieces, then blend them into a creation all my own. This is what happened for Leon Sterling, for instance, the main character of Tasting Leon’s Mark—available at Whiskey Creek Torrid—and Re-Scue—available second half 2010 from Romance Divine. I honestly can’t remember if I had the idea of the character or if it came from watching a colleague of mine, a man whom I admired for his work style, the way he manages people and business. Either way, Leon Sterling is one of my best creations yet, although in the end he’s nothing like my colleague, except in his business style. Also another of my favorite characters is based on a real person, Martin from To Seduce A Soul Mate, only in this case, I didn’t even know the actual guy. All it took was to listen to a friend talking about him for me to come up with my Martin, the seducer, which in part is like the real Martin, but his twists and turns were entirely my doing. And finally, there’s my husband, a character himself, the best one for me, and nothing I could ever hope to recreate in any fiction of mine, however much I try. So I steal bits and pieces from him, and maybe that’s why my male characters seem larger than life in the end LOL
10: Where do you get your ideas and what inspired you to write this book?
First off, myself, my life, my music, my cats, my movies, my TV series, my readings, my travels, the people I know or I hear about. Secondly, all the rest. Yes, actually anything can be inspiring to create a story, a setting or a strong character. Could be something I hear on TV, something someone tells me—for Spying the Alcove, my mate told me of the finding of a Roman medallion depicting a man and woman having sex on a triclinium and it inspired me to write the story. To Seduce A Soul Mate, instead, a friend told me so much about one of her colleagues, Martin, that it set off my imagination until I wrote his story. Sometimes, it can simply be passing a shop in a street like it happened with Tasting Leon’s Mark that began when I saw an auto repair shop and imagined what it would be life for a woman to work in one. Other times, it’s enough to have the hot sun roasting my skin to spark off my fantasy and this is how Virtus began.
11: What are you currently working on?
The Festival, Book 3 of the Virtus Saga, where the journey continues as Duncan Caldwell will have to carry out his legacy and return the stolen pyramid to its rightful place. But the journey will prove harder than expected, having to balance the whims of not just his lovers, but of David and Cecilia, too, which won’t stop the passion from running wild and sweeping away every obstacle.
Then I have the final edits of Re-Scue, to be released second half 2010 @ Romance divine, the bloody and passionate prequel to Tasting Leon’s Mark, the beginning of a connection that spans time and space as two souls chase each other from one lifetime to another to fulfill a dark desire neither can or want to control.
12. Is there anything else you’d like us to know about you?
Yes, I’m always available for any reader who wants to discuss my books or has questions, doubts about it and they can reach me @ lalla_gatta@yahoo.com.
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