The Art of Collaboration

By A.J. Llewellyn

My fourth book to be released with Amber Quill Press is The House of Driscoll (Book 1), coming out on June 6. It's a spanky-new collaboration with the uber-talented (and mega-sexy too!) D.J. Manly.
My work with D.J. has been the highlight of my writing career.
People often ask how D.J. and I write together when he lives in Canada and I live in Los Angeles.
It's easy thanks to the Internet, phone calls and that hard-to-find symbiosis that is any artist's dream.
Ever since he first approached me with his idea of a collaboration on a contemporary M/M book Black Point, which became the first in a series of best-selling books, this has been a magical experience.
I mean this in many ways. After writing a few books together, D.J, asked me how I felt about a vampire book and I was excited to collaborate on yet another series.
Blood Eclipse surprised us both, I think. We began to realize more and more how much we like working together. From the start, D.J. and I have found we have our differences as well as our complementary styles and the lines have started to blur--deliciously so--to the extent that our readers often can't tell who wrote what.
There was even a funny incident where D.J. and I got confused over who wrote a certain sex scene (he did) but still, it meant the world to me that our styles mesh so well that even we get lost.
It was a thrill to me when I was invited to submit to AQP and after my first release with Deeper Blue, asked D.J. to co-write Fawnskin with me. I hoped he would not find the book too dark since it revolves around a man hired to sit with the dead in a funeral home. I was ecstatic when he loved it. I like to think we are both versatile.
I do know we are both extremely dirty-minded. I think our readers love that about us.
D.J. was the one who came up with the entire concept for The House of Driscoll, our latest creation and I felt a good vibe...the same one I always feel when we start to work.
Whoever starts the work usually writes a few chapters and emails the other. The other one reads it and starts to work. As our series have progressed, we have stopped writing only from one character's POV. We overlap, interject, add, subtract, you name it.
I think the key is absolute trust and a total lack of ego. I think we share the same viewpoint. The story and characters must feel true, regardless of genre. I would say this is essential in any collaboration and I've learned over 17 books (and counting) that D.J. and I just 'click' creatively.
I don't think I am telling tales out of school by saying this but I never like the names D.J. picks for my characters.
Marcus became Matt in the Black Point series and I think our readers love him. And his husband Thomas.
In The House of Driscoll, the lead character Max Driscoll is a vampire who has been on this earth since the time of the French Revolution and has been summoned to modern day New York City to destroy his former lover turned nemesis, the vampire Galien.
D.J.'s original name for this character was Graham, of course, I hated it. With a bit of research, I discovered the name Galien, which was fitting for a man during the French Revolution.
Together, we've cooked up what I think is a damned fine story.
And it is only the beginning since it's the first in our new series.
I think D.J. and I are both visual writers. We love the power of story and we both love to write.
The symbiosis I was talking about was there from the moment he pitched the idea to me.
I love Max, Blue, Galien...all the characters who define The House of Driscoll. We hope our readers do, too.
To check out more about The House of Driscoll, please visit the Amber Allure site:
http://www.amberquill.com/amberallure/AA_upcoming.html


Aloha oe,

A.J.

Playing Nicely Together

By A.J.Llewellyn

One of the questions I'm often asked by readers is how does a collaboration work between two writers living far apart?

I have been extraordinarily lucky that D.J. Manly first contacted me 19 months ago and asked me if I wanted to collaborate. I'd always seen myself as a lone wolf - and so did D.J. - but he had an idea and sent me the first few chapters via email. I loved it.

I've said this before so I am not telling tales out of school, but D.J.'s idea of two romance writers meeting over the Internet and falling in love just grabbed me.

He wrote the chapters from Thomas' point of view and his growing feelings for Marcus.

As I read the pages, I realized I'd be writing from Marcus' POV.

I emailed D.J. saying I couldn't get into the name Marcus, would he mind if I changed it to Matt.

He didn't mind at all and I jumped all over the story that became Black Point. The funny thing is, I've sat in rooms with people and had difficult collaborations, but not this time.

A friend of mine is an author and approached me to write a book with her. She had a wonderful idea but presented me with sloppily-written pages and inserted A.J. - SEX SCENE NEEDED HERE.

I don't write like that. Neither does D.J. Thank God.

The sex scenes must be organic to the work, I think.

She also freaked when I did write the first sex scene - a blow job. She thought it was dirty.

I knew right away we couldn't work together. It saved our friendship and our sanity.

To write in any genre, it's important that you both have a love for it. If one author is squeamish about explicit sex, you are doomed to failure.

Trust me on that.

If one of you has trouble writing and the other keeps pulling the wagon, ditto, as Patrick Swayze was fond of saying in Ghost.

Oh, D.J. and I didn't always agree, but it was one point we argued and D.J. turned out to be right. I think the success of any collaboration lies in trust.

At some point, one of you is gonna jump the shark. So somebody has to be unafraid to paddle the canoe back to the right pool of water. Sometimes it's me, sometimes it's D.J. To be honest, it doesn't happen much with us, because we seem to be so in tune.

I trust D.J.'s heart and his mind. He loves the characters we have created as much as I do. As we wrap up the final work on our 15th book together, Blood Eclipse 4: Apocalypse, I find it hard to do anything except think about Rory, Carden, Dennis and Thiago.

We have become so comfortable writing together now, our styles blend so well even our editor can't tell who wrote what. Neither can many of our readers.

I think this is the sign of a successful series. I've had conversations with other authors about their collaborations and from what I see I am lucky. Some collaborations become volatile and painful. I feel especially lucky because I now also have a fantastic partnership with Stephani Hecht.

We have the same wonderful discussions, nutting out ideas, leaving each other to float and dream and when sharks approach, we yell, "Ahoy!"

As D.J. and I wind up work on Apocalypse, I feel a sense of sadness saying goodbye to our characters. This is our last book in this particular series but D.J. and I have many more lined up. It's just so hard to say goodbye.

I think this is a good sign though, that the characters cling to me, and I to them. We play so nicely together.

Aloha oe,

A.J.

The Colors of Death

By A.J. Llewellyn

Many authors depict death in their works and since I am an erotic fiction author I think long and hard before killing off ANY character. I have done it a few times now, the first with Kimo, my hot Hawaiian Kahuna killing off his ex-wife by returning her own death-curse to her in My Hawaiian Song of Love and secondly, well, I've offed a few bad guys - always bad guys in my Waikiki Vampire books and my Blood Eclipse books with D.J. Manly.

I never linger over the killings, I don't glory in death. But it's a subject that interests me, especially since witnessing the passing of a friend this week.

He had been diagnosed with Stage-4 colon cancer and his sister, one of my dearest friends flew him to Los Angeles to be with her once he was given three months to live.

It's been anguishing to see his rapid decline, especially in view of the fact that this is the same disease that killed my mother.

My friend was in Hospice in the final weeks of his life. The staff were wonderful and very loving They kept him heavily medicated so that he was comfortable, but when I went to see him, he'd stopped eating and drinking and refused to lie in his bed.

He was sitting in an armchair and smelled terrible. I won't go into details but he wasn't taking trips to the bathroom...

"If I lie down, it will mean death," he said.

He began to hallucinate after 72 hours of no sleep and the heavy drugs to control the pain of the disease eating away at him.

His sister called me, frantic, saying he appeared to be talking to himself. "He's waving to somebody," she said.

"The angels have come for him," I said. "Maybe he sees your mother."

My friend became hysterical and I went to the Hospice and her brother, looking absolutely skeletal, but strangely at peace, lay perfectly still, only his hand rising from the bed. He was so out of it at this point that the staff were able to put him to bed and monitor him.

"I see colors, such beautiful colors," he said and I nodded. My mother had told me the same thing. Only she fought to stay on this planet because she had three small children.

My friend's brother never fought until the very end. He feared death until it claimed him at 5.03 PM when he saw his mother and grandfather waiting for him.

"I'm going home," he said.

I have thought about his passing since it occurred two days ago. I don't know if I can convey the horror and heartbreak, and yet the mysticism of what he saw in his final hours.

I wonder if I will be ever able to put this scene in a book. Do writers really think about the emptional weight of their death scenes? I know I've resisted overt and gratuitous dispatches and I feel now that it's unlikely I will write one again in a lets-get-this-over with way.

Death, when witnessed is a profoundly upsetting experience. I've yet to read a single book that pinpoints the sheer horror.

Nothing in life prepares us for the moment. Nothing anyone writes can do that. I don't wish this experience on anyone. I do know though that this encounter with the colors of the benevolence of 'the other side' has convinced me more than ever that only love is real because it is so much stronger than death.

Aloha oe,

A.J.