Today on Love Bytes we have the blog tour for Rattlesnake, written by the wonderful author, Kim Fielding.
Welcome Kim 
Author Name: Kim Fielding
Book Name: Rattlesnake
Release Date: August 31, 2015
Pages or Words: Approximately 80,000 words
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: L.C. Chase
Blurb:
A drifter since his teens, Jimmy Dorsett has no home and no hope. What he does have is a duffel bag, a lot of stories, and a junker car. Then one cold desert night he picks up a hitchhiker and ends up with something more: a letter from a dying man to the son he hasn’t seen in years.
On a quest to deliver the letter, Jimmy travels to Rattlesnake, a small town nestled in the foothills of the California Sierras. The centerpiece of the town is the Rattlesnake Inn, where the bartender is handsome former cowboy Shane Little. Sparks fly, and when Jimmy’s car gives up the ghost, Shane gets him a job as handyman at the inn.
Both within the community of Rattlesnake and in Shane’s arms, Jimmy finds an unaccustomed peace. But it can’t be a lasting thing. The open road continues to call, and surely Shane—a strong, proud man with a painful past and a difficult present—deserves better than a lying vagabond who can’t stay put for long.
Categories: Contemporary, M/M Romance, Romance, Western/Cowboy
Hi Kim, thank you for being here today. Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your current book.
Thanks so much for letting me visit! I’m celebrating the release of Rattlesnake, my 13th novel. I guess that makes me sufficiently seasoned as an author to give a few tips on writing. So here we go!
Read. Sounds simple, right? But it’s necessary. You can’t write well if you don’t read. Not just because good books can inspire you, but also because so much of the craft is instinctive. When you read a lot, you get a gut feeling for what works and what doesn’t.
Read outside your genre. I write mostly m/m romance, and I read a lot of it too. But I also read fantasy, horror, magical realism, modern and classic literature, biographies, history… and a lot more. I do so because I enjoy these genres, and also because I never know what might strike a chord. I was listening to a Stephen King book when the idea for Rattlesnake hit me. There are no monsters in Rattlesnake, yet somehow that’s the pathway that King led me to that day.
Write—a lot. If you wait until you’re ready to write The Great American Novel, you’ll never get anywhere. And even if it’s not ready for publication, it’s better to write crap than nothing at all. Sometimes you might think it’s awful while you’re typing, but when you reread it later, it’s not so bad. And with practice, you’ll improve.
Reach out of your comfort zone. I love to give myself challenges when I write. For instance, Drew, one of the main characters in Speechless, has aphasia and can’t communicate with words. The story’s told from the other character’s point of view, so everything we know about Drew is filtered through Travis. So how can Travis—and the reader—know who Drew is and what he’s thinking? You can also stretch yourself with new settings—15th century Bosnia, anyone?—or unusual situations.
Write what you love. Don’t worry about what other people will like or what will sell. I can tell when an author was passionate about her book or when she was just dialing it in, and so can you. You’re probably not going to get rich by writing, and it’s damned hard work, so you gotta do it out of love.
Relatedly, listen to your muse. I know exactly what mine looks like: a cross between Kathy Bates and Meryl Streep, with penchant for dominatrix-wear. And let me tell you, she is a cruel bitch. But she’s always right, and if I listen to her, she’ll do me good. I learned this the hard way—early on, I argued with her now and then when she said the story had to go one way and I was certain it was supposed to go another. In the end, my way didn’t work and hers did, and I got all beat up and bloody in the process. Forget what you planned to write, what you ought to write, and listen to your muse.
Write even if you’re busy. Hell, we’re all busy. I have a demanding day job, two kids, a husband, a busy travel schedule… yadda yadda yadda. I make time to write. It means I’ve had to give things up. I watch hardly any TV, for example. I’ve learned to multitask. I can’t read as much as I’d like, so I listen to audiobooks during my daily walks. I grab bits of writing time while waiting for the kids, while sitting in airports, while waiting for dinner to cook.
This is one of my biggest sources of inspiration. Now, I realize we don’t all have the ability to jet off to Europe, but we can still travel closer to home. The fictional town of Rattlesnake is based loosely on a real town, Angels Camp, California. It’s about an hour from my house. We can even travel without leaving our home base. I often get story ideas while walking around my neighborhood—and I have a really boring neighborhood (unless you have a fetish for beige stucco houses). The idea is to see things with a fresh eye. That can happen easily if you fly far away, but you can also manage it in your own backyard.
Find people who will edit you brutally. That’s not you. I don’t care how skillful your grasp of grammar and language, nobody can be objective enough to self-edit well. And it’s not your beloved or your bestest buddy (although I’m very good friends with my beta editor—but she was my editor before we were friends). You need someone who won’t pull any punches. And I can’t tell you how freeing it is to have editors you trust. When I’m writing and I get to a sticky part, instead of agonizing over it forever—wasting a lot of time—I do my best and leave it to my editors to bail me out.
Develop a thick skin. Your editors will change your beloved prose. They are doing this to help you, not to torture you. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer. And if you’re fortunate enough to get published, not everyone will love your stories. You will get critical reviews. Take a deep breath. You cannot please everyone and you’ll drive yourself nuts if you try. For the same book, I’ve had some readers complain there’s too much sex and some complain of too little. Some think it’s too sweet and some too dark. Some think a character is a hateful sonofabitch and others want to have his babies. We are each entitled to our opinions. If you get a lot of people saying the same thing, you might want to pay attention. But otherwise, move on. Keep writing.
Their waitress appeared beside the table. “Anything else?” she asked Jimmy.
He didn’t want to go just yet. But his belly was full, and any further conversation with Shane was probably going to frustrate him. Already Jimmy wanted to reach across the table and touch Shane’s hair, maybe run a finger across his scars. “Just the check. Thanks.”
“Mine too,” Shane said, but his thoughts were clearly elsewhere. As soon as she took their plates away, he leaned forward. “You don’t have to go, do you? I mean, you’re not, um, on the run from the law, are you?”
That made Jimmy laugh. “I’ve done some stupid shit, but never bad enough to make me a fugitive.”
“If I Google you, I won’t find you on the Ten Most Wanted list?”
“Afraid not.”
“So.” Shane traced his finger through a bit of spilled sugar on the tabletop, worrying at his lip and not meeting Jimmy’s gaze. He finally looked up again. “So you could stick around here for a while. If you had a place to stay and a job.”
God damn it! You don’t hope. You don’t want. That only leads to destruction. But Jimmy felt himself nod. “I could. For a short time.”
Sales Links:
Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.
After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls the boring part of California home. She lives there with her husband, her two daughters, and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.
Where to find the author:
Twitter: @KFieldingWrites
Tour Dates & Stops:
24-Aug
25-Aug
26-Aug
27-Aug
28-Aug
Book Reviews and More by Kathy
31-Aug
1-Sep
2-Sep
3-Sep
4-Sep
Rafflecopter Prize: $20 Dreamspinner gift certificate plus an e-copy of my novel ‘Astounding!’
added to my wish list! Congrats!!!!