Interview and Guest Post with Sarah Daltry.

I'm Super Happy to Welcome Erotica & Romance Author Sarah Daltry, for an Interview & Guest Post explaining a little about her New Romance Novel the Quiver in a Kiss.

Interview:

What do you do when you are not writing?

Work. A lot. I would say I primarily am working, but I try to get my writing done in my down time. When I am not doing either, I like to travel. I am always on the go for work and in my personal life. I have a hard time settling down, so I tend to enjoy being somewhere new. I really love to lose myself in a new place, especially one where I don’t speak the language. It feels so anonymous and yet so refreshing.

When did you first start writing and when did you finish your first book?

I have been writing my entire life. I wrote several “books” in college, but I have a hard time finishing anything. It takes a lot to settle me!

How did & why did you choose to write erotica/romance?

I am overwhelmed sometimes by our demonization of sexuality. Love is the thing that connects us to other people as well as to other creatures. Why do we deny such a normal thing? Why have we made it evil? I am amazed at the way we perpetuate violence and hatred, yet we cannot do something as simple as embrace desire. I chose to write erotica because I like sex and I think it is great that technology has made it possible for people to enjoy sex in private in ways they could not before. I also write it because I think there is something sexier about words than images. I don’t hate porn, but it is simple. It does not get to the heart of sex or love; erotica does even when it is hot and heavy smut, because you have to be active in the experience in a way that you are not when you are just watching it happen.

Do you ever experience writer’s block?

Heck yeah! I wish I had some words of advice to get around it, but I don’t. I try to write every day but when it is not happening, it is not happening. Readers don’t want to read a story written by an author who doesn’t want to write it. Usually I have several things going, though, so I can work on a different story in the meantime.

Is there any particular author or book that influenced you in any way either growing up or as an adult?

There are many, but in terms of erotica, I would say my greatest influences were Anais Nin and the Marquis de Sade. I don’t write like de Sade, but I have always admired them both. They were willing to take so much from society because of their ideas but they stood by their work. That is the most admirable trait I can think of – standing up to oppression. (I suppose it is ironic because many argue that de Sade was an oppressor himself, although I do not think he was really the person portrayed in his writing. I think there is always a complicated story behind a man like that. Perhaps it is naïve on my part.)

What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?

The hardest criticism is about the genre in general. I do not hate women. I do not degrade women. I do not believe women should be objectified. However if you look at studies done about women and sexuality, there are a great deal of women who report fantasies of being ravished, of being treated like a sexual object. It can be hard to differentiate between fantasy and reality, but that says more about a social problem than it does about writers of erotica. I don’t like the personal assumption that I am a bad person, that I am immoral, or that I am moving women backward. Everything I write comes from my own desires and experiences; I will not write something that I feel is wrong. Still, not everyone agrees, but they don’t have to read it. It should not give them license to assume anything about me as a person.

The best compliment I have had is when a reader tells me she or he enjoyed something I wrote. It is a simple compliment, but it makes me smile every single time!

Guest Post by Sarah Daltry:

"Why Write about Helen of Troy?"

I have studied history and literature a great deal during my lifetime and, growing up, something always stood out to me. Women never make an appearance in these stories and, when they do, they are always weak or they are evil. It got me to thinking - why do we never get their side of the story? There are countless tales of men who have been ruined by women: Samson, Agamemnon, John the Baptist, John Lennon, Adam, probably even Gandhi somehow. I don't understand how a man falling in love with a woman always results in something bad. And I really never understood how the women were always portrayed as simply obstacles in a man's way to being successful.

So Helen of Troy seemed like a natural choice. We have all this mythology of this war that was caused by this one woman, basically because she fell in love with the wrong guy and left her husband and family. There had to be more to that story, I figured. In researching Helen, I realized that there really is no story. There are references to her in both Homer and Virgil's works as well as in some obscure art and poetry of the time, but she is always used as an idea more than as a person. There is no one version of the story, which also freed me to write her story as I chose. 

I liked getting into the mind of a young girl who was assigned to marry a man based on her father's political needs rather than her own interests. Imagine if she wanted someone else - what then? And what if the man she was supposed to marry wanted her as little as she wanted him? I wanted to make Helen sympathetic, because we have all made bad choices, especially when driven by the desire to be happy. 

One of the challenges with this story is that there is no way it ends well. We all know Troy falls and we all know that Helen went back to Greece eventually. So how to find a HEA for a character who never had one? One of the considerations was that it would not be possible, but there were ways to bring her peace. I attempted to give Helen happy memories that would at least be a comfort in the days that followed the war. 

Overall, this was a really fun book to write and I learned a lot. I would love to write more stories of the women of this period. For example, since I went with first person, I did not get to do much with Clytemnestra and I would be excited to write about her. It is something I am considering, but a lot depends on this book's success I suppose!

About Sarah Daltry:

Sarah Daltry writes books for adults that range from romantic to hot and heavy. She is always connected to her phone or laptop, so feel free to send her an email at sarah.daltry@gmail.com. She has a website as well and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and basically anywhere you can find people.

Buy Quiver of A Kiss on Amazon: Here