(dani) Pre-pandemic, we wrote nearly everything either at our fave coffee shop or this cute little breakfast place. And we had a weekly night out at a local pizza parlor. They started calling us “the writers” and had our iced teas on our table as soon as we walked through the door. It was kinda fun to be a local celebrity!
(curtis) But suddenly everywhere we loved going no longer had dine-in and the whole world was crazy scary. It actually really impacted our writing patterns and slowed us down for a few months. But then we discovered 4thewords.com, an online video game that lets you fight monsters by writing. That was something we could do at home and Dani LOVES video games. It really picked us up and put us back on track. Now we write at home in our pajamas and it’s weird to think that we used to do almost all of our work outside of the house.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
(dani) I really wanted to be a teacher, but then I found out that they didn’t make any money so I decided that being famous was a better bet. But I never really specified how that was going to happen until I was like 12 or so and decided writing books was going to be my thing. Still working on that whole money thing though…
(curtis) Santa Claus. No joke, I wanted to design new toys and bring presents to everyone. But it was mostly about the magic of bringing joy and as a storyteller I think I still get to do that. There is a song in the musical PROM that I play whenever I forget how important what I do is called “We Look To You.” I think. That makes me feel like I did even better than becoming Santa Claus. That we as storytellers can heal the world.
What are some day jobs that you have held? If any of them impacted your writing, share an example.
(dani) Mostly I worked in fast food. Did my time at a gas station and worked security at a medical center for a little while. Weirdest thing I ever did was I spent about a year and a half working on a sex text line. Made damn good money too. If the laws hadn’t changed, I might still be doing that. It was freaking wild.
But everywhere I worked, I was a people watcher. I definitely think that affected how I write my characters.
(curtis) Well, here’s one. I was a guard at a state prison. I learned a lot about human nature there. I saw guards abuse prisoners and I had inmates protect me from other inmates and everything between. It made me see people as complex and not as easy to judge as the world suggests. I try to put that in my work. I have no room for black and white thinking. My characters make horrible mistakes, awful choices, then can turn around and act out of shocking kindness. Most importantly, they all deserve love.
As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
(dani) A very nervous house cat. Like, I want you to leave me alone because I’m scared of people, but also LOOK AT MY TOE BEANS. Which, in this analogy, are my books. LOL.
(Curtis) A magical crow that goes and brings me little bits and bobs of all sorts of things. Sometimes it’s a dust bunny or a missing sock and sometimes it’s a great story idea. They work in tandem with a sparkly, snarky unicorn who never shuts up and has an opinion about everything and drinks half my coffee .
How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?
(dani) SO many. So, so many. Not everything is suitable for public consumption. Some of them are a mess in need of editing, while others are self-indulgent tripe. But every time I worked on a different project, I learned something about myself and I made myself a better writer.
(Curtis) We don’t talk about the abandoned. It’s like thinking about ghosts… Okay, sometimes we talk about them. We consider the entire box of unfinished, or unpublished works every time we come to the end of a project. Sometimes we resurrect one but lately, we’ve been opting for new stories over rescuing the old ones.
Monarch Springs is full of hot guys… So why is Aiden determined to be in love with the only one that he can’t stand?
Up-and-coming interior designer Aiden Hart came to Monarch Springs for an intriguing job and an escape from his old life. Redecorating the tourist trap that is the Monarch Mansion in a small town in Pennsylvania sounded like the exact opposite of his trainwreck of a life in Miami. Not to mention a way to jumpstart his DIY celebrity career.
Aiden didn’t want to think that his new start was cursed. But being assigned to work with the disgraced former TV carpenter Brett Jeffries at the last minute and breaking down by the side of the road not two minutes later made being cursed sound reasonable.
Things started looking up when a hot mystery man in a beat up truck stopped to rescue him. This flannel-wearing angel was not the kind of hot that happened in Miami. This was salt-of-the-earth, lumberjack, bearded, knows how to change a tire, H-O-T hotness.
Of course, his hot savior turned out to be none other than Brett Jefferies.
And that was only the start of Aiden’s problems. From a traitorous cat to exes showing up at the worst possible times, he still has to somehow get this remodel done before Christmas.
However, falling in love with the job, the town, and, worst of all, Brett, was not on Aiden’s Christmas list.
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Aiden Hart lifted his sunglasses up so he could read the roadside sign as he drove by it. His cat, Chartreuse – Char for short – barely acknowledged his derogatory snort with a lift of her head and a yawn from the carrier in the front seat.
“Yeah, I doubt we’ll find it here either, but hopefully it will be a nice change of pace,” Aiden told the absolutely disinterested cat. “If I have to do another retired couple’s front room just like in the catalog, I’m going to scream. But Monarch Springs is supposed to be gorgeous in the fall and we are going to get to create the entire Monarch Mansion’s Christmas look for the year. That’s something, right?”
Monarch Springs was also about as far away as you get from the designer-clogged heat of Miami. And for Aiden, that was just fine. He had no intention of moving permanently to some tourist trap in the hills of Pennsylvania that boasted a magic hot spring as its main claim to fame.
But when the call had come with the offer to basically re-imagine all of the public spaces of a historic mansion in time for its annual holiday parties and cookie walks, Aiden couldn’t possibly say no. Even if he could have, when he was asked to document it for a weekly web series for a pretty big deal travel-and-leisure network, nothing would have kept him from packing his things and relocating for the rest of the year to the quaint resort town.
Driving away from Miami also meant driving away from all those memories of his failed relationship with the man Aiden had thought he’d spend the rest of his life with. So that was a bonus. An excuse for a new start. He’d deal with what next year would bring next year. Hopefully, enough fame to pitch his own design series.
“Find me a good diner.” Aiden pulled the sunglasses from his dark wavy hair, deciding it was getting too dark for them anyway. He waited for the ancient GPS to respond as he spoke to Char. “A place like this should have one of those right? Like the best pie in the world or home of the biggest steak sandwich in Pennsylvania.”
Char made a noise somewhere between a growl and a purr.
Aiden chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right, Char. They better have so much bacon you can smell it three streets away.”
The GPS just started giving directions when the car made a bit of a hop followed by the telltale clump-clump-clump of a flat tire.
“Are you kidding me?” Aiden sighed as he pulled off to the side of the highway. He dropped his forehead to the steering wheel and let himself whine for a full sixty seconds. “This is no way to start a new adventure. Who do I even call? Don’t even start, Char. I know I should have renewed my auto club membership.”
Aiden opened the door and drew out his long legs from where they had been cramped for way too many hours of driving. He walked around the flat with a grimace as he went to get Char’s carrier out.
“We’re going to be here a while. Don’t go too far.”
He set the big white cat’s carrier down on the grass and opened the door. Char had been a feral beast when she’d first decided to move in with Aiden and his then-boyfriend. She’d become massively attached to Aiden and rarely went far from him, so he wasn’t worried about anything but maybe needing to give her a bath after she romped in the mud by the side of the road for a little bit.
“Well, how hard can this be?” Aiden asked himself as he opened the trunk and pulled out his suitcases, transferring them to the back seat to avoid the mud. It took what felt like forever to get to the compartment that held a spare.
Having never checked before, the interior designer was surprised to discover he had a nice replacement tire but no car jack. Or at least, nothing that looked like it was a car jack. He was just now realizing that he had no idea what a car jack even looked like. Not that he’d know how to use it if he did. He wondered if he should use his phone to Google how to change a tire, but that sounded positively exhausting.
He shut the trunk and leaned against it. “I can see it now. Barely famous decorator murdered outside of Monarch Falls or Springs or whatever. That’s if they find any part of me that wasn’t eaten by bears or whatever blood-thirsty cryptids live around here. Why didn’t I notice how creepy these woods are? Why didn’t I rent a car with a better extras package? Then I could be calling them to come to fix it.”
Aiden watched a pair of headlights coming towards him and made a hasty decision to wave at the driver with a hopeful smile while whispering, “Please don’t be an ax murderer. Please don’t be an ax murderer.”
The dusty pick-up truck slowed down but passed him by. Though it only went a short way before the brake lights came on. The driver seemed to have changed their mind. The truck backed up and pulled onto the side of the road behind Aiden, highlighting the back of his car with its headlights. A few long moments later, the driver hopped out. He didn’t say anything as he looked at Aiden, then at the flat tire. He turned around and went to the bed of the truck, rummaging for what Aiden hoped was a jack and not an ax.
It has been a rocky road full of pitfalls and potholes that has lead to the current format of writing boy’s love serials that are becoming the bedrock of the Hermit & Star brand.
Author Website: https://hermitstarbooks.com/
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Author Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dani-Hermit/e/B00BG3335E/
This sounds great!