The Next Big Thing Blog Hop – Leta Blake, Dancing Shoes

Amelia C. Gormley, the author of the wonderful Impulse Trilogy, tagged me to participate in The Next Big Thing Blog Hop, which was incredibly kind of her! Thanks, Amelia!

What is the working title of your book?

The original working title was Spanish Dancing Shoes, but over time it’s been shortened to just Dancing Shoes.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Keira and I have been working on our fairy tales series for the last year. After completing Earthly Desires, and while Keira was hammering out the details of Ascending Hearts, our upcoming tale based on Jack & the Beanstalk, I started reading the story City of Blind Delights by Catherynne M. Valente. Something about it sparked a whole fairy tale world in my head–nothing like the world of her story, but a world all the same. That all came together while reading The Twelve Dancing Princesses to my daughter at bedtime, and inspired by both, the flow of the book came easily at first.

What genre does your book fall under?

Fairy tale romance/erotica.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?

I don’t have any particular actors in mind, but I did create this Pinterest inspiration board to help guide my focus while writing the story.

This is Matteo.

And this is Ópalo. Well, except that his hair is actually pink feathers.

What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?

In an effort to discover where his sisters disappear to at night, Matteo follows them to a new world and finds a new life he never expected.

Will your book be self published, published by a small press, or represented by an agency?

Assuming that all goes according to plan, the book will be published by Ellora’s Cave as part of Keira’s and my Tempting Tales series.

How long did it or how long do you anticipate that it will take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Too dang long! Haha! But there were several reasons for that. First, I stopped in the middle of the book to work on a long-running work in progress and that got us off track for a little while. Then we thought we’d really like to have a Christmas tale out this year, so we made a stab at that for a month or so, but in the end it was just not viable and we basically scrapped it. Third, the book was fighting us because it wanted to be longer than the novella length first two books in the series. Once we gave in to how long the book wanted to me, the characters really opened up and started sharing more with us. So, all in all, a first draft took about six months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

You know, I’m not sure I’ve read another book quite like this one. We are trying to keep each book in our series unique. I suppose that in terms of the kind of fairy tale world, the romance, and the sexual nature of the book, the closest really would be the other two in our series, Earthly Desires (inspired by The Light Princess) and Ascending Hearts.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I believe I covered that above to a large degree, but I wanted to give a quick nod to Jim Henson’s The Storyteller series for giving me the kick in the behind I needed to start writing and working on this series with Keira. I’ve had several ideas for fairy tale reworkings for years, but last winter I indulged in a rewatch of The Storyteller as a kind of Christmas-comfort-winter-warmth and it lit me up inside with all kinds of ideas. I’m sure Jim Henson never intended someone to get inspired by his show and write a lot of gay romance and erotica, but that’s what happened. We owe it all to Jim Henson. Haha!

What else about your book might interest the reader?

I think it is imaginative and surprising. If you’ve read other reworkings of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, I can guarantee you that this one is different in substance and style. It’s a sweet, spring book, and I’m hoping we can have it out in April or May, because it just seems like the kind of thing people should read when flowers are blooming.

This is where I was supposed to link to four more blogs. But I’m only posting a link to one (wonderful! awesome!) blog. Apparently, otherwise, the buck stops here, because everyone I asked except Nisha-Anne–and I asked a ton of people–have already done this and so, just like in P.E. class when I was a kid, I was the last chosen for the game. *sniff sniff* Haha! No worries. I suppose that it had to eventually peter out. I’m just disappointed that I couldn’t round up even more participants. Oh well! Thanks, Amelia, for this opportunity! It’s better to have been chosen last than never to be chosen at all?

Check out Nisha-Anne D’Souza on January 2nd! She’s the author of the book Calling Pomegranate and a brilliant woman. I’m sure that her work in progress is going to be worth waiting for!