Adriana Kraft is the pen name for a happily married pair of hopeless romantics who love to read and write hot sex about bi women, and the loves in their lives. What else do they love? Well, read on and you'll find out!
By day Adri Ana are serious academics with backgrounds in social science and human services. At night? Possibilities seem endless as they love to come out and play. Their erotic romance novels celebrate more than consensual mind-blowing sex – they feature strong story lines, heroes and heroines you’ll fall in love with, passion, and profound connectedness.
Join us as we welcome this erotic writing duo to our blog today. There's giveaway and how to play is the at bottom. *wink*
Brenda & Steve: Welcome to our blog Adri Ana! LOL
There’s two of you, so clever. How long have you been writing as a duo and are
there parts one ‘dazzles in’ over the other (besides the hero & heroine parts).
Like is one better at location scenes; inner thought scenes; high-tension
scenes? We know you both rock on sex scenes. LOL How do you work together and
make it blend?
Adriana: Thanks for picking up on our stage names – Adri for
him, Ana for me! Just for that I’ll give you both our avatars to post!
Our solution might not work for everyone – we start with an
idea kernel, spend a lot of time together getting to know our characters and
developing the broad plot arc, and then one of us starts putting the story on
the page. We read each segment out loud together and discuss it before moving
on to the next segment. Sometimes one of us has to go back and add scenes in or
seriously modify something that’s on the page, but we keep going until we have
a draft. Then we take turns editing the heck out of the entire draft – so much
so, that usually we lose track of how many times each of us has been through
it. Tedious, but it pays off.
Brenda & Steve: Was one of you already a published
author before teaming up?
Adriana: Both of us were pubbed in other fields (academic,
social sciences, if you must know!) but not in fiction. In the beginning that
made for a pretty steep learning curve!
Brenda & Steve: What inspired you to write erotic
romance? Was this your first choice of genre?
Adriana: Hmm. Both of us harbored secret dreams of writing
fiction since childhood but took other career paths. Over a decade ago we
decided to make those dreams a priority. We’d both been avid romance readers
and thought it would be fun (and not too hard!) to write them. I think we
started pretty blindly – but we took lots of workshops, read books on the
craft, joined RWA National and our local chapter, and started submitting
romantic suspense to publishers and agents. We actually got good feedback from
an agent who said she couldn’t use what we’d sent her, but she thought we
handled sexual tension well. That was our launching point, pretty much –
writing something we enjoy and write well.
Brenda & Steve: Tell us a little about your latest
release Dare to Adventure, from the
Swinging Games series.
Adriana: I think we both have a soft spot in our heart for
the hero/heroine of this series – they’re a baby boomer couple, kids are grown,
and the wife has finally figured out she’s bisexual, but just turning on to hot
f/f fiction and videos isn't enough. She wants the real thing, and she want to
share it with her husband. They turn to swinging, both to spice up their own
sex life, and so she can share her new-found sexuality with her husband. It’s a
series of quick reads – short stories or novellas, actually. Perfect to devour
in an evening, alone or together *smiles*. Dare
to Adventure is Book Seven in the series, and drops in on the couple just
as they’re getting to know a single female – in swing lifestyle terms, the
ever-elusive Unicorn. Here’s the blurb:
Brett and Jen Andrews enjoy a decadent weekend with their
latest lover – the recently widowed Sarah Preston. Have they finally found
their Unicorn? But Sarah is called away to care for family members before they
can reconnect. Undaunted, they take their newest young protégés to an
on-premise Swing Club for a stupendous evening of raw sex and voyeurism. They
follow up with another house party, but this time their best friend Ryan
discovers Brett is bi. Will Ryan flee, or will he join in?
EXCERPT
“I checked email this morning.” Jen arched an eyebrow and knew she had Brett’s
attention.
“And?”
“Sarah’s coming back next weekend. Sounds like her parents are settling
in nicely at the retirement complex and she’s getting bored. Also, she’s getting
tired of hotel living and restaurant food.”
Brett chuckled. “I bet you’ll volunteer to have some home cooking ready
for her when she gets back.”
“Oh, yeah. We chatted briefly
about it online this morning. She’s thinking a large serving of cock a la mode
would go down quite nicely.”
“Damn.”
“And she wanted me to tell you that she’s warming a tangy dessert for you
and me to share.”
Brett wet his lips. “And we have to wait how long till she gets here?”
“Six days. Sarah’s really eager to get together again. Apparently she’s
thought about us a lot—with vibrator in hand.”
“Jesus. What don’t you women talk about?”
Jen blew him a kiss. “She was
also wondering if you might be up for a little phone sex tonight to tide us all
over.”
“Phone sex?”
“It would be a first.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Sounds like Sarah thinks she knows how to begin. I
expect you’ll know how to finish.”
Brett shook his head and then broke into a wide smile. “How did I get so
lucky to fall in love with you?”
“Because I had a rope strong enough to tie you down. Now then, I’ve got
lots to do yet today before we call Sarah.” She stood and brushed her lips
across Brett’s. “You might want to give a little thought before tonight to how you’ll
turn on a widow nearly two thousand miles away.”
Brenda & Steve: How many books are published in this
series and do you plan to write more installments?
Adriana: Seven are published, Book Eight is due out in
January, Book Nine is drafted and we really don’t know where this series will
end – we keep thinking of new adventures we’d like to send them on. I’m pretty
sure we’ll give them a lifestyle cruise, maybe a convention, and a tropical
lifestyle resort. But first they’ve got to sort out what it means to be in a
three way relationship – will Jen really want to share Sarah with anyone else?
Trouble looms!!
Brenda & Steve: With 30 books or more published, do you
outline a new book or do you write by the seat of your pants (a pantser?)
Adriana: I suspect when two people write together it’s hard
to be a pantser – it takes a lot of coordination and planning. We don’t create
highly detailed outlines, but we do plan a broad story arc, and we get to know
our characters in depth. By the time we start writing, they feel pretty real to
us, and we have much more information about them than will ever go on the page.
All that background drives who they are, what they care about and why, what
they’re afraid of, what they’re willing to go after. It’s amazing, actually,
how much of the story the characters themselves seem to write once we’ve gotten
to know them.
Brenda & Steve: Do you keep notes and how do you keep
your work organized?
Adriana: Your question got me thinking – funny thing is, our
books actually start their life on a traditional yellow pad! The first sketchy
ideas go on a physical page with a pencil, in not much order, with lots of
scribbled add-ons. The yellow pad stays active throughout the process as we
read the scenes out loud and plot the upcoming details. That might seem archaic
in the computer age, but it seems simpler. It works for us!
Brenda & Steve: What is the best advice you have given
or received as authors?
Adriana: One and the same: Never give up! I heard Judith
Viorst (Necessary Losses, Alexander and
the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) speak a couple decades ago
at a women’s conference – she spent something like ten years religiously
sending manuscripts out and getting rejected before she was finally published.
That has always stuck with me.
Brenda & Steve: What was one of the most surprising
things you learned in creating your books?
Adriana: In the beginning, how difficult it really is to do
this work! I think something we’ve struggled with throughout is that the
characters become so real to us; we sometimes attribute qualities and
intentions to them that we haven’t necessarily made clear to the reader. We’ve fallen in love with the
characters, but we have to make sure the reader
falls in love with them. I find we have to get really tough minded in the editing
phase and question everything to accomplish this.
Brenda & Steve: What are some of your other
interests/hobbies when not writing?
Adriana: We love to travel, and have a motorhome (that we don’t
get to spend enough time in). Being outdoors and active, whatever the season –
hiking and biking in the summer, cross-country skiing in the winter. Just
watching and absorbing this incredible natural world we live in (and sometimes
taking photographs). And of course reading! We’re also social activists, so working
with others on campaigns and causes we care about is another priority.
Brenda & Steve: Tell us about your current and future
projects. What is on the horizon?
Adriana: Two series that are continuing – Swinging Games, as
I’ve already mentioned, and a series at Whiskey
Creek, set in New York
at a (fictitious) Center for Sexuality and Sex Practices. Two full length
novels are out in the Whiskey Creek series: Smoldering
Passion and Ripening
Passion, and two more are drafted and currently in edits.
For the future? We started out writing suspense (Adri is a
criminologist), and we’ve begun working on some manuscripts that combine a
suspense line with erotic romance. Kind of going back to our roots, but
bringing everything we’ve learned with us.
Brenda & Steve: Ohh, we love suspense reads! Now for the fun question. Milton Bradley is venturing into
creating erotic board games for two or more players. Their design team has
asked you to create a game that involves a board, dice or cards and the
ultimate sex toy. What board scenario would you design, what would be the name
of the game and what toy would you design? And give us brief instructions on
how to play.
Adriana: Sounds like the perfect ice breaker for meeting a
new swinging couple! Hmm, seriously, can we patent this? It’s for four or more.
We’ll call it Let the Games Begin! The
ultimate sex toy is kind of like a wireless central control panel with multiple
apps – a rabbit, for her pleasure, a vibrating masturbator for him, vibrating
lace panties with a remote control, a silver bullet for anyone’s fave orifice,
finger-vibrators, haven’t decided what all else we’d add! The game involves
both cards and a pair of dice. The dice are rolled to advance the player on the
board. The gameboard is set up a little like Monopoly – you advance from start
to finish, some squares will send you back a few spaces if you land on them,
some squares tell you to pick up a card and some squares tell you to take the
next item of clothing off someone. The cards tell you what toy to use – and one
of the rules is you can only use the toy on flesh that’s already exposed. In
all cases, the rule is you must carry out the action on an opposite sex
participant who is not your partner (swingers who are bi can vary the rules
about who does what to whom, of course). First person to reach the finish gets
to completely choreograph what pleasurable experience they’d like the other participants to deliver
for them, and hopefully all parties are pretty much naked and aroused by the
time someone wins (I think they all win, though, in the end)!
Brenda & Steve: Ummmm, this game sounds awesome and so naughty. What are some of the promotional methods
you use? What works or doesn’t?
Adriana: If we truly knew what works, we’d patent that too!
The book world and the internet in general are changing so fast that whatever
worked yesterday has to constantly be re-examined and upgraded. We’re getting
our website overhauled in January, focusing on Twitter and FaceBook for
connecting with readers, still dropping occasional promos at reader groups, and
starting to publish our own reviews of other authors we’ve read and liked over
at Amazon. Plus, as you can surely tell, guest blogging and hosting authors we
like at our blog!
Brenda & Steve: Is there anything else you would like to
share with the readers?
Adriana: After that game? It might be time for a break *winks*!
Here are some places to find us:
Author Pages:
Thanks so much for inviting us – and we’re looking forward
to a joint blog with you in January. It’ll be so much fun to compare notes on
writing erotic fiction as a couple!
Brenda & Steve: LOL A break? More like a a couple of shots! Thank you for visiting with us. It was so much fun. Can't wait to do the joint couple writers blog!
Readers, Adriana is featuring a giveaway to one lucky commenter. Winner will receive a copy of Dare to Adventure to download. Winner will be chosen through random draw. Comments are open but will close tonight at 11 PM PST.
Let it snow!
