Interview with:Janine Ashbless [janineashbless]
CREATIVITY
 | How and why did you begin to be creative? I've been "writing" stories in my head since I was a kid. I wrote a rubbish fantasy novel when I was 18. I started writing short stories the year after I left university, when I fell in with some fellow ghost-story fans. |
| Your mind is your work tool. How do you take care of it? Lots of time on my own. I recharge my batteries in solitude. And time out in natural surroundings - gardening, walking the dogs. Nap in the afternoon without feeling guilty: some of my most creative mental time comes with waking up and lying quietly. |
| How do you avoid repeating yourself, or falling into formula? How do you stay fresh? Good question, especially if you're writing erotic fiction and basically there is one goal you're aiming for every time. I'd say it's recognising that it's not the end that matters, it's the way you get there. |
| What cultural sources do you draw from the most? Movies. I love the movies.
Mythology.
Fairy tales. |
| "To give birth to ideas." Is this only an expression, or are there really parallels between giving birth and creativity? I've never given birth but my instinct is that there are similarities. The nurturing, the travail, the hope - and the giving up of your creation to a big cold dangerous world.
Plus if I'm really feeling on a creative roll I quite often feel nauseous. |
| Does spirituality contribute to your creativity? Okay, don't tell anyone but every morning when I light my candle I talk to (among others) the externalised spirit of my creativity and tell him (yes, it's a him. He's a crow.) what I intend to do today and I ask for his co-operation. And I thank him for what we produced yesterday.
As a self-professed atheist I'm not really up to scratch. Okay ... so I'm a *pagan* atheist.
Dawkins would not approve. Bad Janine. |
| You are as good as your last idea. Wouldn't you like to have a more secure type of work? No. I love being a writer. I just wish I got more recognition for doing it. |
WRITING
| What is your favorite genre? Can you provide a link to a site where we can read some of your work or learn something about it? Well, I started off writing supernatural horror stories. Then one day I took a sideways leap into supernatural erotic fiction and I haven't looked back. I've had 5 books published by Black Lace so far (2 collections of short stories, 3 novels) and short stories in in various anthologies, including "Best Women's Erotica 2009" (Cleis).
My style? Hardcore. Sorry, but people who come looking for genre romance usually end up passing out in shock and then coming round in a foul mood, so I'm warning you in advance. There's a ton of romance and drama and dark fantasy/horror to be found in my books, and a lot of very physical conflict, sexual and otherwise. But the sex is not bowdlerised.
Easiest way to find my books? Look up "Janine Ashbless" on Amazon.
I've got a website full of excerpts, explanation and deranged muttering at www.janineashbless.com
And I blog at www.janineashbless.blogspot.com
(Over-18s only please.) |
| What is your creative process like? What happens before sitting down to write? A lot of the nitty-gritty plot points and scenes come to me when I shower in the morning. Don't know what it is about water, but I sure waste a lot of it.
Then I procrastinate for hours surfing the web and playing Spider solitaire, in the grip of a dreadful fear that today is the day I'll find the ability to write has left me. On a good day I start writing at 2pm and keep going until bedtime. There aren't nearly enough good days though! |
| What type of reading inspires you to write? Non-fiction. I love history and anthropology books, and the tiniest detail can spark a story idea.
Reading fiction doesn't inspire me to write. Reading other people's fiction, if it's something I really enjoy, makes me go "Eeek! I'm never going to be this good!" Writers are paranoid, didn't you realise? |
| What do you think are the basic ingredients of a story? My stories? Conflict. (And you can't have conflict without character.)
Exotic settings. I don't do kitchen-sink realism. |
| What well known writers do you admire most? Angela Carter
Alan Moore
Thomas Ligotti
H P Lovecraft
M R James |
| Are you equally good at telling stories orally? No. Orally I'm very inarticulate: I get too self-conscious.
I have run some story-telling roleplay (Call of Cthulhu) over the years and I think I'm alright at that, but it's hard to tell. |
| Deep down inside, who do you write for? Me! Me! Me!
Writing erotic fiction is like undertaking a string of wild no-holds-barred affairs. Without any bad side-effects. |
| Is writing a form of personal therapy? Are internal conflicts a creative force? Not in the way I think you mean.
Writing is more a form of addiction that brings meaning, goals and validation to my life and stops me going bug-o crazy. (Or, to put it in a less frivolous way, before I wrote I suffered badly from depression. I don't now.) |
| What discipline do you impose on yourself regarding schedules, goals, etc.? 1000 words a day, minimum, if writing. Some days you have to do other stuff of course - proof-reading, website updates, tax form. Damn, got to do my income tax form...
I love deadlines. I'm good with deadlines. Give me a deadline sufficiently tight and I will move the world. |
| What do you surround yourself with in your work area in order to help your concentrate? Greyhounds.
(They snore.) |
| What has been your experience with publishers? My experience of erotica publishers has been that they are polite, helpful (sometimes astonishingly so), friendly and professional.
I wish I could say the same thing of other genres. *shudder* |
| What are you working on now? A contemporary erotic vampire novel which Black Lace is currently expressing an interest in. Because the world needs more vampire novels, doesn't it? Mine is in the form of a string of short stories, with a shared background, that link to make the overarching plot. It's challenging and lots of fun to write. I just have to keep reminding the vampires to play nice. |
BLOGGING
| What is your blog address? What subjects do you deal with? www.janineashbless.blogspot.com
Writing erotic fiction. Victorian art. Minotaurs. Attractive pictures of underdressed human beings. |
| What was it that made you create your blog? On what date did you start it? I signed onto Blogger when I was invited to contribute to the Lust Bites group blog (now defunct, alas) and goddamn Blogger made me set up my own blog. A complete newbe, I was utterly at Blogger's mercy and am frankly surprised I have achieved any measure of control whatsoever. It still eats my video html if I go into "preview" by mistake, mind. |
| How has 'having a blog' contributed to your life? I am no longer alone ...
Seriously, if you're a full-time writer working from home it can be very difficult to maintain contact with the outside world. Blogging is great for writers. You find out that everyone else is just as worried and neurotic as you are, and that rejections and bad reviews send even the most established authors into paroxysms of despair and self-loathing. Yet we support each other. I've made some really nice blogfriends for whom I'm genuinely grateful.
And blogging gives one the totally spurious impression (like this interview for example) that what you say and think is actually important/interesting/witty. As long as you don't take that too seriously you're probably okay. |
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