Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Author: James Buchanan

Day 4!
Desert Island Keeper
M/M Romance Author
Festivus Extravagandus!

*Pumps fist in air* WOOT!


Our guest today is the bold, clever, wonderfully perverted filthy sexualized intelligent James Buchanan. Phewie! Is it getting hot in here? Anyway, JB is a friend of the blog over in my neck of the woods, and I'm thrilled to titillate y'all with this moist and meaty Q&A. Bring it on, James!

Hola, okay, I'm James Buchanan and they've turned the insanity over to me today...bwhahahhahaha. I write homoerotic romances for MLR Press, Torquere Press and Phaze. I'll have a book coming out with Lethe Press as well. I’m deep in writing book 2 for The Good Thief and book 3 for Cheating Chance (Inland Empire- book 2 of the Taking the Odds books comes out summer 2009) and a bunch of other stuff.

Interesting stuff? I'm a sleezy bastard – lawyer by day. My life partner being my law partner as well…wanna talk 24/7 relationships. We have two spawn, two dogs, we're down to one cat and up to two fish. We both ride Harleys and try and keep our 100 year old Craftsman house from falling down around our ears. I'm one of those people that jumps around careers. I've been a detail sewer in a sweat shop, a factory worker, worked in County Mental Health, graduated law school when I was 29, did a stint in the City Prosecutor's Office, was a civil trial attorney for 8 years and now do administrative law.

I have a thing for Japanese Rope Bondage (luckily SG does as well) and there is a bolt in our bedroom ceiling. The leather chaps came long before the bike. Since High School, I've been a Goth. Although, back then, in Nowhere's-fucking-ville Texas, I was just the "freak" who listened to punk and wore lots of black. It's Halloween everyday at my house.

Mostly, I love to write books.

I've been bad and only answered the questions I wanted to...

Five favorite books?

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

The Man who Fell in Love With the Moon by Tom Spanbauer . And I wish I could write reviews worth shit, because I love this book.

Pretty much anything by the Kellermans or Tony Hillerman, in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee series…I’m a big mystery buff.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr but not so much the sequels

Beyond that I read books like some people eat chocolate. I can devour a novel in an afternoon.

Best love song

Oh, God…ask a Goth about music, we just need some Absinth and a discussion of Kafka and we could be here all night….Depending on my mood:

Sweet and sensual (yes I have a very strange definition of sweet):

You and Me by Lifehouse (okay…not Goth, but I have a thing for the song reminds me of Brokeback Mountain)
Teach Me How to Drown by Unto Ashes (It’s Brandon’s theme during Cheating Chance)
Beloved by VNV Nation
Further by VNV Nation

Obsessive:

#1 Crush by Garbage
or
Look Away My Love by Advent Sleep: BEST LINE EVER --- “Shall I kiss you or just fist you?”(LOL. sorry. LB continues to make links and hook up photos grinning cuz she likes that James Buchanan)

Dark and Angsty (yeah, I know, some of the others above come off dark and angsty…but, hey, my list):

Love You to Death by Type O Negative


Author everyone loves but you don’t

Nora Roberts/JD Robb. I so don’t get it. And I love mysteries/police procedurals. I read the Robb stuff (usually when I used to travel for business and I’d be looking for books in the airport giftshop) and it’s a total WTF?

If you could be in one book/series/world which would you pick

Probably the Tony Hillerman books. Of course that could just be because I have a thing for the guy who plays Jim Chee (Adam Beach) in the PBS series. He’s kinda my inspiration for True from the story My Brother, Coyote (it’ll be coming out in the Shadow Harvest single author anthology from MLR at the end of September 2008). The picture is of him from Windtalkers. Rowr. Either that or The Lair. ‘Cause then I’d get to see Colton Ford…a lot. (omg James...heh.)
Adam Beach Colton Ford


Favorite sex song

More music huh? You so don’t want to know those…just look above…

When I’m feeling in a DOM mode, Rammstein, Keine Lust:
or Ich Will

Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie
Maybe anything off the Fashionistas Soundtrack.

(Not WS --- actually none of the following links are)

Enigma works well too. Mea Culpa is good:

Course most of the time is what ever porn track happens to be running. Sex Among Friends with the double penetration scene, and Pool Boy Orgy when I’m in kinda a Twinky mood (it’s the gooy cream filling…bwahahhahah), sometimes more hard core leather vids, like Bad as We Ought to Be

If you could be a hero who would you be

Can I just be Harrison Ford? He makes any hero sexy. Come on Indian Jones, Han Solo…the freaking president…




Boxers, Briefs, boxer briefs, kilt (I say we add commando)

Commando…boxer briefs come in a close second.

What hero is most like your significant other

Well, I wrote Brandon (Cheating Chance & Inland Empire) based a lot on my Sexy Guy (for all those who wonder who SG is).

What hero would you like to be your significant other

I think someone will have probably said this…by my guy is my hero. He puts up with all my shit, including the fact that I wouldn’t know what a vacuum cleaner looked like if it bit me on the ass. Cleans the house, does the dishes, and cooks dinner most of the time. And still tells me he loves me.

If you were stuck on a desert island what 3 things would you bring

Credit card, sunscreen and swim trunks… you didn’t say it was a deserted desert island.

And as far as the five guys to have on there with me.

Well there's two up there.
Peter Steele from Type O Negative.
Edward from the Anita Blake books.
And Behind-the-Shed (yes that's the character's name) from The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon.

Favorite drink to bring to the DIK party

Whatever…just hook it up intravenously.



How 'bout an (unedited) excerpt from my upcoming novel Hard Fall, due out January from MLR Press.

Blurb: Deputy Joe Peterson is Mormon and in the closet. Then ex-con Kabe Varghese lands in town on parole. When a tourist falls off the mountain, Joe finds he needs the help of this cliff-climbing, adrenaline junky to solve the case. Will Kabe tear him apart or does Joe need to fall hard before he can start living?

Excerpt:

Why was I here, sweating through my shorts and staring down that wiry piece of muscle and lean rear end? I don't know, 'cause maybe he's more trouble than he's worth. Pretty boys, city boys, they don't do too well out here. The way he's tossing gear about, well that's long work on a short task. Got more stumble than sense. Sometimes I wonder if he thinks he’s fitting in. Expensive shades, cowboy hat and jeans that had to have cost least a hundred bucks riding low on a set a hips just a hair on the wrong side of thin. His skin holds a warm shade of brown down deep. It ain’t the kind you get from too much sun.

Everything I like all in one spit-start package. Not that I can afford to be all that picky…this is the high country after all.

My beat covers more territory than some states are wide. All we got up here is cowboys and Mormons. If your family ain't been around for at least three generations you're new to the area. Don't even get me started on the tourists.

My family, they walked outa Nauvoo, Illinois just ahead of the lynching parties and fled into Utah pushing handcarts. I'm born and bred local. And since I ain't a cowboy that would mean I'm one of the Latter Day Saints…at least in my heart I am. Some members of the Church, they might not see me so eye to eye on that if they knew.

While I don't drink, don't smoke, and don't cuss, the first guy to mistake me for a pacifist got himself into a world of hurt. My badge, this star…Garfield County Sheriff, one of the “Magnificent Seven;” there’s only seven deputies for this whole county. Been here since I left the corrections department where I worked the state pen in Cedar City. Got my first .22 when I was eight. Shot my first buck when I was twelve. I can handle myself along with the best.

Except, maybe, doing what I was doing here now. Just watching.

Heck, the first time I saw him. It's like right on the top of my mind. I'd stopped by Ruby's Inn to get a pop, standing along the porch, watching who’s coming in and who’s going out. Outa old man Harding’s truck swings this kid. Anybody who’s got to ask how I knew it was old man Harding’s truck…they ain’t never lived in a small town. Ruby’s is officially a township, population 182 or there abouts. Panguich, where the station is, hits around 1,600 with Tropic not quite a quarter of that. Both are on my beat. The biggest city round here, two hours and one county away, Cedar City, that’s big enough for two high schools, a college campus and the state prison. Not hardly big enough to get lost in even if, like me, you sometimes wanted to.

Why did he catch my eye? First off, he screamed city, but not in that overfed, treadmill kinda manner. Naw, punk, in a way that sent all my cop senses running for the shotgun. Then one of those weekend biker guys – all play bad ass, with a twenty thousand dollar custom rod, who would dirty his drawers if the wrong guy said boo – drifted by. The punk’s eyes focused in on that leather clad butt, he watched the guy walk by, and then he licked his lips in that slow I wanna be tasting a bit of that way.

Standing there swigging a root beer and I damn near spit it out. Man, oh man, I’ve got my sites on a prime slab of twenty-something pretty-boy in tight jeans. Since it’d been nearly six months since I’d even managed to score a hand job in Vegas, everything went south real fast. I could have passed out from rapid blood loss then and there.

I know. I know. Gay and Mormon don’t cohabit very well. The Church has been wrong on other stuff, seen the light and changed their ways…I’m hoping someday they’ll see the light on this issue. Can’t say I’m holding my breath though.

Let’s face it…God made me this way. The same way he made me a blue eyed blond with a receding hairline at twenty. Vanity…that convinced me to shave my head and beat my body into submission in the gym. I don’t have any choice in wanting another guy’s meat.

If I coulda chose different, dear God I would have. I don’t need the load of baggage trying to justify my faith with my body. A simple life with Molly-Mormon and a passel of kids would have been so much easier. At least I had the stones to suck it up and not take someone else down into miserable with me. I’ve kissed a few gals, never even got my pulse above a resting beat. The first guy who stuck his tongue down my throat, I blew in my shorts.

So I saw him and I wanted him. I don’t think anyone can imagine how bad. And I stuck it in my pocket. No sense messing with something like that, and likely he was just passing through anyhow. Then Jessie, she works Ruby’s year-round, walks by and sees him.

Jessie smiled at me…she always does, ‘cause she’s got a kid out of wedlock and I’m past thirty and ain’t never married so there’s potential there, she thinks. “Hey, Joe.” That big smile held a ton of hope that made me cringe inside. “So, you keeping an eye on him?”

“What,” I managed to choke out, sneezing the foam back outa my nose, “city boy?” Of course, we both knew we were talking about the new guy…what else is there to talk about in a small town.

Grabbing a spot of wall right next to me, she starts in with the gossip. “Yeah, I was talking to Page and her momma, she says, that Lena says, he’s done time.” Then Jessie leaned real close and whispered, “Federal time. You know, hard,” she winked, drawing out the word hard like she was anywhere near sophisticated, “time.” I didn’t rise to the bait, but then I ain’t known around here for my sense of humor. Apparently the story was too good to let it go. She kept yakking in that same somebody’s died tone, “He’s Sandy Harding’s family, from the Stewart part. You know her sister just went off loopy in the sixties, off in California. Shacked up with this Indian guy…like from India,” all three syllables got emphasis, guess so I’d know she didn’t mean one of the local tribes…all them are cowboys too. “Well, he’s the grandson of that part of Sandy’s tree. They say he don’t got much family now, so they’re doing God’s work and took him in when he got out. Goes down to Cedar City once a month to check in with the Parole Board.”

Okay, I’m looking at the hottest thing outside of a GQ model shoot. Everything I know says if he did hard time, it was on his back, as the girl for some dude with a nick-name like Killer and prison tats on every inch of skin. But honestly, I’m not getting that vibe. There is a coiled restlessness lurking in that body. He’s a rattlesnake. All so pretty and calm. But he won’t but give you two second’s warning before he buries his fangs in your thigh.

I did not need that level of problem. Kept telling myself that, hoping I’d believe it through sheer repetition.

12 comments:

Tracy said...

What a great post...thanks LB and James. I love hearing about what authors do in their "other" lives. I love your song picks - very cool.

Fab excerpt - can't wait to read the rest.

jessewave said...

Hi James
You sure managed with one swipe to rev things up. I laughed so hard at some of your answers. You are one hot shit (I mean author *g*)

Japanese rope bondage eh? And there is a bolt in your bedroom ceiling!!! I would just want to be a fly on that wall.
Looking forward to Hard Fall in January - can't wait.

Anonymous said...

Cool interview man..

Looking forward to the release of "Hard Fall" I think your readers will really enjoy that book.

Hmm?? And here I thought Brandon was a chip off of this old block.. *grin*

Ciara said...

Phew! That excerpt was amazing. I love your writing style. Looking forward to reading more!
VNV Nation - that brings me back. One of my favorite bands in college.
Thanks for joining us!

Carolyn Crane said...

JB, aren't you so fascinating with your answers. I love this interview. And I love your conversational style of writing. I had no idea.

I am going to so check out The Good Thief!

Sarah said...

Ahhhh, leave me hanging MUCH!!! It sounds cool and I look forward to reading more.

Enjoyed reading about your dinner date with E Rolle and the other writers. It must have been a blast. Did you enjoy the con?

Anonymous said...

Cool interview, James. Didn't know that Brandon was based (somewhat) on SG.

shari

James Buchanan said...

Tracy, jessewave, ciara hope you like Hard Fall. Joe's already bugging for another story.

Carolyn Jean, I don't always write in 1st pov, but I do try and keep it kinda informal. I figure there's no reason to be stuffy when I write.

Reb Dude...SG may have been Brandon's inspiration, but he sends you mother's day cards ~.O

I'm a tease Sarah. What can I say.

Ally Blue said...

EDWARD IS MINE!!!!!
**steals him from under James' chaps and runs away**

(pssst... y'all, James is made of awesome :D )

James Buchanan said...

Yeah... you give Edward back ST or we'll let it all out...bwhahahhahahahahahhahahah

Shannon said...

Aw! SG sounds wonderful. Where can we find one of our own?

Great answers. I now have new music to go and check out. Although I am guessing I can't play most of it for my students. "What did you listen to in music class today?"

Anonymous said...

oh yeah! happy happy to know that all my favorite stories of yours (okay. AAALLLL your stories are my favorites) have sequels coming. yipppeee! and congrats on the stellar review of cheating chance. the series cannot finish running at torquere soon enough!
best!

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