Renae Kaye
  • Home
  • Bookshelf
    • Novels >
      • Loving You Series >
        • Loving Jay >
          • Liam & Jay interview
        • Don't Twunk With My Heart
        • The Straight Boyfriend
        • Knowing Me, Knowing You
      • The Tav Series >
        • The Blinding Light
        • You Are the Reason
      • The Shearing Gun >
        • Free extra scene
      • Safe Series >
        • Safe In His Arms
        • Safe in His Heart
      • Shawn's Law
      • Royal Powers
    • Novellas >
      • Bear Chasing
      • Hard Feelings
      • Out of the Rain
      • Yes, Professor
      • Slow Summer Heat
    • On A Night Like This
    • Audio Books
    • International translations
  • Coming Soon
  • Contact

Renae interviews Renae on Shawn's Law

15/2/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
Name of book:  Shawn’s Law
Date Published:  6 March 2015
Available in: ebook / print / audio
Other forms coming:  Not at this moment
 
When did you start writing this book?  February 2014

What gave you the inspiration for the story?  You may’ve guessed it, but I’m one of these people who always looks at the funny side of things, or tries to put a good spin on it.  Yes, I swing to the depths of despair and predict that the sky is falling, but it never lasts more than 30 minutes.

If you read the interview from last week about Safe in His Arms, you will find that I tried to “tone things down” when writing that one.  It was hard.  After finishing it, I really needed a pick-me-up.  I’d read TJ Klune’s Tell Me It’s Real and wanted funny like that.

Then an evil, evil, wonderful thought hit me.  I know how hysterical some people can get over the (so called deadly) wildlife in Australia, so I thought, “Why not show them?  I wonder how many native animals I can have attack my hero before the end of the book?”

What was the working title?  This one was always titled “Shawn’s Law.”

Where did the title of the book come from?  The title is obviously a play on “Murphy’s Law.”  I had an idea of a character where everything went wrong for him, so much so that they named a law after him.

I have a “thing” about the way that words look on the page.  My character’s names and often the words I use in sentences are chosen for their sight value.  I wanted something that “looked” good with the word “Law”.  Some people asked me why I spelled Shawn like I did, but consider the words “Sean’s Law” and “Shaun’s Law” – they just don’t look as good.

What challenges did you face with writing this?  There’s always the research.  I had to look into the consequences of being bitten by snakes, ants, spiders, jellyfish, etc. 

And as an author, I knew I was walking a thin line with the physical description of Shawn.  I knew there would be readers out there who didn’t like the fact that Shawn wasn’t buff or good looking.  I knew there would be those who disliked him because I described him as rounded and meaty, but I wanted to have someone real.  It was a challenge to me to write him in a way that I hoped people would fall in love with him, warts and all, but be realistic about his appearance.

The hardest part of this book was the bleak outlook of Shawn’s mother.  As a sufferer of Alzheimer’s she was never going to get better.  I did a lot of research on the disease, and each zany thing Estelle did was backed up by a site that explained the results and progression of Alzheimer’s.  That our parent is going to die is something that we may wish to shy away from, but it’s real life.  I’ve faced it and lived through it.  It’s not nice.  But it happens.

Tell us about MC1 – where did the inspiration come for him?  **laughs nervously** Oh, okay.  The guy at my local pools.  I don’t know his name, but I was watching my kids’ swimming lessons one day and he was on duty.  He was short, rounded and curvy.  But I could see from his attitude he wasn’t standing there all day apologising for his physical appearance.  He was interacting with his workmates in a way that I could tell he was well liked and respected.  He did his job without once losing the smile on his face.  He just drew me.  I wanted to capture that in Shawn.
​
Tell us about MC2 – where did the inspiration come for him?   The day after I saw the guy who I knew would be perfect to model Shawn on, I was driving along a suburban street and spotted Harley.  I only saw him from the back, but he was walking his two dogs down the path (or rather they were walking him!) and I could see he had this long blond plait down his back.  He was wearing a black shirt and jeans (which Harley would never wear!) but I looked at him and wondered about the hair.
From there the story of a promise to his father grew, and before I knew it Harley had emerged as Shawn’s perfect match.

Is there anything special that happens in the story that you think readers would like to know about?  I was speaking to a friend the other day and I pointed out the little idiosyncrasies an author has.  Apart from the title of the book—Shawn’s Law—in which I deliberately spelled Shawn with an “aw”, you may’ve noticed Shawn and Harley’s names?
Shawn O’Hara and Harley Lawson.

To fit with the look of a name, I chose Lawson as Harley’s surname.  It mimics the form of Shawn and contains the word Law.  And to mirror that back, Shawn’s surname has “Har” in it to mimic Harley’s name.

I also snuck in a reference to another book.  In the last chapters, Harley meets a male nurse at the hospital he calls “Steroidal Man.”  You met him in Safe in His Arms.  It’s Paul, Lon’s friend.

Paul’s story will be released in a couple of months.  (The countdown is on!)

What is the best thing that has happened about this story, post-publication?  I had no illusions about the release of this book.  It’s funny in a way that has been described as slap-stick.  If that’s not your thing, I’m not offended.

But I have had an amazing response to the book.  People who obviously share my sense of humour.  Every time someone writes to me and tells me they nearly peed themselves laughing, or that they laughed out loud on the bus, I give them a mental thumbs up.  Welcome to the club!  You share my humour.
​
Do you plan a follow up story?  Not at this moment.  Shawn has a friend called Kris who briefly knocked on my inspiration nerves.  I started his story.  But I didn’t get very far with it.  I have enough stories I want to write that will last me for years.  Maybe I will bash away at Kris’s story every now and then, but for now, I don’t have any further plans for Shawn and Harley.
Picture
2 Comments

2015 - My Year in Review

31/12/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
Goodbye 2015

I sit at my desk writing this blog with only a couple of hours to go on 2015. 

To be honest, I’m glad.

There’s something about “wiping the slate clean” and starting again fresh for a new year.  Okay, most of our resolutions probably don’t last a month, but it’s wonderful to put the past behind you and say that you’re never going back there.

That being said, 2015 was a wonderful year for my writing and for me learning. 

I had two new novels released – Shawn’s Law and You Are the Reason.  They are very, very different books, and I’m proud of them in two very different ways.
​
Shawn’s Law was for me.  You often see a writer say that, and I can tell why.  This book was just the inside of me all bubbling to the surface.  I’m the Crazy that you get when you read this book.  Some people really connected with my Crazy.  Others weren’t sure.  I know my editor wasn’t sure about it either.  But I wanted Shawn’s Law and I hold it close to me.

Picture


​On the other hand, You Are the Reason is for my readers.  Yes.  This one is for them.  I had no intention of writing Davo’s story.  Nope.  Jake and Patrick were it.  You would have to leave the rest of their story to your imagination.  But the readers of The Blinding Light weren’t satisfied.  They hounded me until I broke and gave into their demands for a story about Davo.
​
I’m not sure if they got what they wanted.  When you write a story, you need to take the good with the bad.  Davo’s character had some bad spots to it.  He needed something very pure to make it to a good place.  Lee was perfect for him, but this is no white-washed story.  There were some tough yards that one had to go through to get there.  However I’m a so glad the way the story turned out.  Didn’t you love it?

Picture
2015 also saw me release two short stories – Hard Feelings in the Queermance Anthology and Out of the Rain as my first self-published story.  Both of them taught me very valuable lessons.  I adore the story in Hard Feelings and I have begun to expand the love affair between Moe and Sam to make the story more in depth, so if you can wait a little longer, I will put this out as a standalone.

Out of the Rain was a little project I worked on to dip my toe into the self-publishing pool.  I’m not quite sure if it was successful.  I will need to be more courageous and self-publish more books.  Although the pet peeve from reviewers about this story seemed to be that it was too short.  Hmm.
​
On the writing side of things I’ve added a lot of words to a lot of stories during 2015.  Now the push will be to get these stories out to the public (the ones that are finished) and finish off those that aren’t.

I’ve been nominated for a swag of categories in the Goodreads M/M Romance Group’s Member’s Choice awards which has me BURSTING my buttons with pride.  I’m becoming more comfortable with telling people “I’m an author” which was really hard in the beginning, and I’m getting more comfortable with bragging about my work.  So I’m going to put these pictures right here.
​
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
I’m very satisfied with how 2015 went professionally.  It was the other parts of my life that tumbled out of my control.  My husband has continued to have health problems, and now my son has a mystery illness and symptoms that the doctors can’t nail down.  We did the hard yards with one teacher this year, and I’m hoping for a much better teacher next year.  And my baby-girl finished Pre-Primary with only one anxiety phase in the whole year.  Yay her!

So, do I have New Year’s Resolutions?  Not really.  There are things I want to do better this year, and I write them down here to remind myself if I get stuck:

1.  A more organised approach to my profession.  This will mean less fum-bumming around on social media when I should be working, more working when the kids are at school, and making my family appreciate this is my work and they have to respect the boundaries.

2.  A more balanced home-work life. Ugh!  This one will be hard.  But I need to spend less time in front of the computer, and more time attending to my hobbies and my garden.  So I’m going to try for a more structured routine so that my writing time is more productive, so I have more time for other things.  I’m going to make time for other things.

3.  Try out a new form of social media.  There, I said it.  I need to do more on the promo front.  I need to expand my horizons, hopefully find some new readers, and keep at it.

4.  Write more and write better.  Okay, this one’s a little silly.  But I’m currently going through first edits of a new story, and during first edits I always think I’m the crappiest author to walk the earth.  I can’t construct a sentence, my editor has told me so many aspects of the story don’t work (okay – she doesn’t, but it seems like it), we argue over word usage and Australian-vs-American terms.  So I’m feeling like I need to take ten courses in creative writing before I attempt another story.  But it is also true, I need to work on my craft and improve.

There you have it.

Now, for my 2016 plans, you will have to wait another two days and read it on my Café Risque blog.
​
Happy New Year!  Thank you for all your support, and here’s to a great 2016!
1 Comment

    Renae Kaye

    Sometimes things just need to be said.

    Renae is an author of m/m romance novels as well as a mummy, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a pet owner and (only sometimes) someone who cleans the house.

    Archives

    October 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014

    Categories

    All
    A Taste Of Honey
    Australian
    Awards
    Beany Sparks
    Bear Chasing
    Cassie Sweet
    Charley Descoteaux
    Cherie Noel
    Cover Reveal
    Don't Twunk
    Gay Romance
    Glossary
    Guest Interview
    Joe Consentino
    Knowing Me
    Knowing You
    Loving Jay
    Loving You
    Meg Amor
    M/M Romance
    Nano
    New Release
    Nic Starr
    On A Night Like This
    Professor
    Renae Kaye
    Safe In His Arms
    Safe In His Heart
    Shawn's Law
    Sneak Preview
    The Blinding Light
    The Shearing Gun
    The Straight Boyfriend
    Writing
    Yes
    You Are The Reason

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.