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Golden Flogger nominee
Shoshanna Evers
Speaks out

 

Why did you begin writing BDSM novels?
I had been writing books for about ten years before I was published, because when I first started out I submitted a book to a publisher and got a much-deserved rejection letter. I had no industry experience and felt the rejection meant I shouldn’t write professionally. The problem was, I couldn’t stop writing. It’s always been my passion. So I kept writing books and putting them aside in a drawer.

I started to read the BDSM erotic romance ebooks from Ellora’s Cave (this was back in 2009-2010). While those stories were amazing, none fit exactly the sort of story I wanted to read, so for fun, I wrote one that was the perfect story for me personally (I thought I was the only one who would ever read it!).

My husband insisted I try to get published, so I submitted Punishing the Art Thief to Ellora’s Cave, and after some revisions, they accepted it. That started my career.

What is the hardest part of writing your novel?[easyazon_image align=”right” height=”110″ identifier=”B00QTU1GO4″ locale=”US” src=”http://bdsmwriterscon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/51ekpm66CeL.SL110.jpg” tag=”doctorcharley-20″ width=”103″]
I have written a lot of novels and novellas (20+), and each one has its own difficult spot within the story. For Beauty and the Beast, it was a challenge to write in old-fashioned “fairytale” style instead of my usual modern style.

Coming up with ideas is always the easy part for me. I have more ideas than I will ever be able to write. The hardest part for every book, I’ve discovered, is having the discipline to sit down every day and actually get it written! Lots of people say they want to write a book “someday” or that they will write when they “have more time.”

The truth is, someday is actually today, and you’ll never have enough time. But if you want to write, you write. You sit down and you just do it. I’ve written while pregnant, with a small baby/toddler/preschooler etc, while working full time as an RN, while moving between four different states in the past five years I’ve been published, through injury and illness, while homeschooling my son, and so forth.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy or that I magically have more hours in a day. It just means I know by now that the hardest part of writing is actually getting the writing done, so I make sure that it happens no matter what!

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing works.
My name is Shoshanna Evers, and I’m a bookaholic 🙂 The best way to answer this is with my bio, so here it is!

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shoshanna Evers grew up in New York, met her husband in Los Angeles, then escaped from city life by moving her family and three big dogs to the mountains of northern Idaho.

Her twenty-plus romance novels and novellas include I Am Not Your Melody, The Enslaved Trilogy, The Tycoon’s Convenient Bride…and Baby, and How to Write Hot Sex (for a full book list, check out ShoshannaEvers.com/books).

She’s published with Simon & Schuster/Pocket and Entangled Indulgence (among others) while continuing to self-publish. Shoshanna Evers has been listed on Amazon as one of the “Most Popular Authors in Romance,” as well as on the Contemporary Romance, and Erotica “Most Popular Authors” lists.

In the past she was a syndicated advice columnist in New York and a registered nurse, but now she’s a full-time smut writer and a home-schooling mom.

Evers is also the cofounder of SelfPubBookCovers.com, where she represents hundreds of artists from around the world and maintains the largest selection of instantly customizable, one-of-a-kind book covers in the world.

[easyazon_image align=”left” height=”160″ identifier=”B009K54LKG” locale=”US” src=”http://bdsmwriterscon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/41l5MyjAvWL.SL1601.jpg” tag=”doctorcharley-20″ width=”103″]Will you be attending BDSM Writers Con or other events where we can meet you? I am not sure if I will be able to attend the BDSM Writers Con at this time, unfortunately. I will, however, be at the RT Convention and Giant Book Fair in Dallas in May 12-17, 2015, and at the RWA National Conference and Literacy Autographing in NYC at the New York Marriott Marquis, July 22–25, 2015.

Is it important to you to write realistic safe, sane, and consensual D/s relationships?
It is most important to me to write the story the way it needs to be told. While my books do often have the facets of a safe/sane/consensual D/s relationship, with negotiations, safewords and aftercare for example, I also have stories where the fantasy comes from riding on the edge.

In Beauty and the Beast, Belle is held captive by a fearsome Beast who is really a prince trapped by an enchantress’s curse. The virginal Belle doesn’t willingly choose to be held in the Beast’s dungeon when she first arrives. It’s probably not safe or sane when she is so frightened for her life that she tries to physically harm the Beast. None of this should ever happen in real life, in a realistic D/s relationship. Certainly not with a someone we expect the heroine to fall in love with.

But it’s fiction, and it can be fun to let fictional characters experience situations that we would never knowingly put ourselves in. If every author made all BDSM stories exactly like an ideal D/s relationship in real life, for fear of being told their story is “not right” or not “the one true way,” then we’ll miss out on a lot of fun stories.

I love connecting with readers and writers, so find me online!

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