Here’s an author interview with Dustin LaValley. Take it away, Dustin…
- How did you start writing erotica?
Unintentional. I began writing a memoir of my college years, and what followed was a semi-autobiographical erotic thriller.
- What’s your favourite published work of yours and why?
I have no favorite. They are all experiments, in style, voice, format and formula. Some more than others, but no one is more loved than the other.
- What erotic authors do you enjoy reading?
I enjoy those who write what can be called “alternative adult” or the old saying, transgressive fiction. Not much used anymore. But, authors like Bret Easton Ellis and Jerry Stahl, who may have some hardcore erotica within a book without that book being a piece of erotica.
- Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Music, true life, limitations, and the aspirations to concur those limitations.
- Do you have any unusual writing rituals?
I don’t believe so. I like instrumental doom metal on to drone out the outside world when typing, and sometimes I like to be outside, perhaps on a beach with a notebook or at a bar with a notepad.
- Where’s your favourite place to write?
Judd’s. A bar at the lake, which is also featured in my book, Swallowed: A Hypersexual Romance.
- Who is your favourite character from one of your stories and why?
Perhaps Henry Spinner. He’s notorious, infamous, and wanted by all.
- Do your nearest and dearest know what you do, and if so, what was their reaction when they found out?
They do. And having known me for years, they weren’t too surprised.
- What was your ideal career when you were a child?
I wanted to be a “Cowboy-astronaut.”
- How do you get yourself in the mood to write?
Reading, watching a movie, observing people in public… when the mood hits, it hits. Like sex. If you happen to want it in the city library, and she’s willing… write her up.
- What’s the best writing tip you’ve ever been given?
Let the genre find itself after the book has been written.
- If you get writer’s block when you’re writing, how do you get around it?
I wait it out. Sometimes writing micro-fiction helps when working on longer pieces. My book Odds and Ends: An Assortment of Sorts is an illustrated collection of micro-short stories, some erotic, though it’s mostly cross-genre, fringe.
- If you could bring one of your characters to life, which one would it be and why?
The Bookworm from Swallowed: A Hypersexual Romance. Why? Well, if you read it you’d know, and probably from the context here, you likely know.
- Which author, erotic or otherwise would you love to meet and why?
Jerry Stahl. He seems like an interesting guy who has lived many lifetimes.
- What’s your favourite genre within erotica and why?
Contemporary, it’s closer to home.
- What are you working on at the moment?
Many things, a few manuscripts and a few screenplays…
- What’s the biggest writing challenge you’ve ever taken on? Did you succeed?
Writing about women from my past. I believe I did, yes, I did succeed.
- What’s your biggest writing achievement? Why?
I am yet to claim my biggest achievement. When it happens, I likely won’t realize it until some time has past. Perhaps it has already, and I haven’t noticed.