Labels

absolute awesomeness addiction Adversity An Uncommon Whore angels animal rescue animal welfare Anne Kane anxiety aquamarine author corner bad angels bad weather Barbara Elsborg BDSM bdsm romance belinda mcbride BelindaPalooza Belindapendence Belle Starr beverages bisexual bisexual romance Black Planet Blacque/Bleu blog hop Broken Cancer CAPA changeling press characters cherise sinclair China chronic pain Coming Out contests cooking courage craft creativity culinary competion custom art cyber punk Dark Haven deadlines Deeply blog demons depression dog shows dogs Doms of Dark Haven Dos Lunas Dragon's Blood drawings druids election embarrassment EPIC Winner erotic romance erotica expressive writing faith family fantasy fear femme domme fiction Film fire firefighters France free reads full moon futuristic genre hopping ghosts goldenwolfen grand prize greco-roman culture halloween happiness haunted mansions head/desk health heroines hide my head in shame Hong Kong human trafficking Iditarod Inspirational jessica freely Jessica Freely jianne carlo Kate Roman KC Burn Lance Mackey las vegas Last Call Europe lena austin lex valentine LGBT lifestyle linda suzane Lisabet Sarai little Dragon Little Dragon Little Foxes loose Id lost pets love scenes lucky in red lynn lorenz m/m m/m romance Madly martial arts martini mary winter meditation menage romance menege mental illness My Birthday mythology NaNoWriMo New Concepts Publishing new release New Year's Giveaway News nutrition overcoming pack politics paranormal paranormal romance Paris Passion in Print passionate plume pearls personal pet peeves PETA PL Nunn positivity procrastination Rainbow book awards real life release dates Review Risk romance save the quiet kitty science fiction Sele selena illyria shape shifters Sheri Lewis Wohl shunga siberian husky sidhe sierra cartwright slavery smoke snow snowfire: chrysalis space opera speculative fiction St John and St Thomas stupid mistakes succubus survival Suzanne Rock Tara Lain terrorism The Next Big Thing The Romance Reviews Tiger Eyes time off TMI Tony Leung travel Truckee Wolves Truly urban fantasy valentine's day vampires vampiropolis weight weight loss well being werewolves When I Fall wicca wildlife witches wolves World building world events writer's block writer's health writers block writing writing habits yacht

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Secrets in Normalville, USA

In Arcada, everyone has secrets. As a general rule, everyone knows their neighbor’s secrets. But nobody knows Luka’s Blacque’s deepest secret. The vampire Oliver Bleu suspects…

Years ago, I attended college at Humboldt State Universty, which was nestled in the coastal redwoods of Northern California. The towns that run up and down the coast are small, old fashioned and wonderfully quaint. They are also incredibly eccentric under the mom and pop facades. After all, this is the heart of the Green Triangle.

I’ve always loved the motif of the American small town, places you see in movies like Back to the Future. A couple years ago, I came up with Arcada, a classic small town with a deep vein of strangeness. I suppose this was probably influenced by my time in Eureka.

In the Arcada books, the town itself is nearly sentient…it picks and chooses its residents. All of the members of the community are something other than what they seem. The pastor of a church might be a religiously devout vampire, and the owner of a grocery store could be an elf. The local sheriff is a werewolf and the postmistress is a Christmas elf.

When Loose Id put out a call for stories about Coming Out, I hesitated. I write paranormal and sci fi and my characters generally don’t have issues with coming out sexually. They tend to live in cultures where sexuality is open and fluid. I thought about writing a contemporary piece, but that’s really not my comfort zone in fiction.

I came back to Arcada, which is a magical sanctuary for paranormal characters. Why would a gay character be reluctant to come out of the closet in a community like Arcada? If the community tolerates a succubus leading the church choir, why would they have issues with alternate sexuality? My hero Lukas Blacque has no shame over being gay. So there had to be a deeper reason for him staying in the closet. Once that was identified, there had to be an equally compelling reason for him to step out.

What greater reason is there than love?

Blacque/Bleu is available at Loose Id, LLC

www.belindamcbride.com

www.belindam.blogspot.com

No comments: