The Anchored Blog Tour, featuring Rachel Haimowitz

Rachel Haimowitz is featured today to promote the release of her new book Anchored: Belonging Book One. Today, Rachel is fielding questions about her book and her writing.

This is only one stop on her whirlwind blog tour that will continue every day until the 23rd. *Today's other stop: http://mariesexton.net/ (Reader Q&A Part II)
*Tomorrow's stops: http://bryltyne.com/blog (book review), and http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/ (classified ads--"slaves for sale!"--from the Anchored world) To view Rachel’s entire tour schedule and her list of exciting prizes to be given out during the tour, go to: http://rachel-haimowitz.blogspot.com/p/blog-tour.html?zx=db8b1b0779d17bb6

Below are questions and answers. Below that is a description of Anchored: Belonging Book One, and an author bio for Rachel. Be sure to leave a comment to enter a raffle. Two winners, randomly drawn from commenters, will win:
1 ebook copy of Counterpoint: Book I of Song of the Fallen OR of Sublime: Collected Shorts (winner's choice).
1 swag pack featuring cover art from Anchored and my other works.

Also, Rachel will be checking in during the day to answer questions and respond to comments. Enjoy.

From Barbara: What draws you to the BDSM genre?
I’m a real-life practitioner, so a lot of what I write in the BDSM genre is an exploration of things I’d like to try, or a sharing of things I have tried, or simply a love song to a practice that brings me so much pleasure.

Also, as a reader, I’ve not found too many BDSM writers who really delve into the psychology of BDSM, whose stories might help a non-practitioner understand why someone might do this, whose stories might help a Dom or sub self-reflect and understand exactly why they do this. Don’t get me wrong—there are some amazing writers out there who delve with talent into all these things, but by and large this is an underserved niche, especially in the M/M space (most BDSM is M/f). So if I want to read it, I often simply have to write it ☺


From Veronica: When you choose a character’s name does the actual meaning hold any weight for you, or is it just an aesthetic preference kind of thing?
Names are hard for me. Often it’s just an aesthetic preference, though names do have music, and certain kinds of music carry certain emotional connotations. For instance, I might give a hard, edgy character a name with a lot of hard consonants, something short and brusque that can be barked or growled out. A softer, more feminine character would probably get a prettier name, something you can savor, that unfolds gently off the tongue. In a few cases, names do have very specific meanings for me, either as an homage to someone for whatever reason, or as a literal translation. In Counterpoint, for instance, most of the character names are literal Norse translations of traits that embodied their owners—a kind of Easter egg for those dead-language-speakers among us ☺


From Barbara: Do you have any favorite authors that inspired your writing?
I used to want to be Kurt Vonnegut when I grew up. Whether or not he’s shaped my writing I’ll leave to others to decide, but I can say with certainty that he shaped my worldview, and certainly one’s worldview infects everything they write. Douglas Adams is another big inspiration for me. My love of snark and clever wordplay began with him and his writing, and I do think that carries over into several of my characters and occasionally into my narrative voice. I’ve also taken inspiration from Stephen King, who is a master character-builder, and in particular a master of exploring the potential darkness of the human soul. I love the way he takes perfectly ordinary people and puts them into these perfectly extraordinary situations, how he bends and sometimes breaks them, how he fixes them in the end.


From Nancy Carbajal: What is it about male relationships that draws you to writing about this subject most?
Many things, some considerably shallower than others ☺ From the psychological aspect, I’m fascinated by the power play between two men, the way a relationship forms when there are no clear roles, expectations, or societal baggage dictating interaction. With a man and a woman, there are thousands of years of (slowly evolving) history that shape everything they do. I mean, I’m as independent and strong as any man, but when I go out on a date, odds are still good the guy will pay (though I’ll probably only let him do that once) because that’s tradition, that’s gender expectation, and as much as we like to think we’ve moved away from that and grown beyond it, in a lot of ways we haven’t. But when you put two men (or two women) together, all those “rules” and expectations and traditions fly right out the window. And that’s a space that fascinates me.

I’m also, for some reason, more likely to sympathize with and connect to male characters than female characters. I have no idea why that is. Maybe I’m curious about the thing I’m not. Or maybe I relate better to males than females in general, as I’ve always been more interested in traditional “boy” activities than “girl” activities, even as a child.
On the shallower side, if one hot guy getting’ it on is sexy, then two hot guys getting’ it on is double sexy!

Book Blub:
Network news anchor Daniel Halstrom is at the top of his field, but being at the bottom of the social ladder—being a slave—makes that hard to enjoy. Especially when NewWorld Media, the company who's owned him since childhood, decides to lease him on evenings and weekends to boost their flagging profits.

Daniel's not stupid; he knows there's only one reason a man would pay so much for what little free time he has, and it's got nothing to do with his knowledge of current events. But he's never been made to serve like that before, and he fears he won't survive the experience with his sanity intact.
He finds himself in the home of Carl Whitman, a talk show host whose words fail him time and again when it comes to ordering Daniel to bed. Daniel knows what Carl wants, but it seems as if Carl isn't willing to take it, and Daniel's not willing to give it freely. His recalcitrance costs him dearly, but with patience and some hard-won understanding, love just might flourish where once there'd been only fear and pain. Can Carl become the anchor in Daniel's turbulent life, or will he end up the weight that sinks his slave for good?

Author Bio:
Rachel is an M/M erotic romance author and a freelance writer and editor. She originally dipped her toes into cable news and book publishing, decided the water was cold and smelled kinda funny, and moved on to help would-be authors polish and publish, write for websites and magazines, and ghostwrite nonfiction.

Her first novel, an M/M fantasy erotic romance titled Counterpoint: Book One of Song of the Fallen, released in August 2010 with Guiltless Pleasure Publishing. Her second novel, an M/M alternate-history erotic romance titled Anchored: Belonging Book One, released January 17 with Noble Romance Publishing. Her third, Crescendo: Book II of Song of the Fallen, will release in the fall of 2011. In between, Rachel is writing shorts and novellas, including the M/M BDSM collection Sublime: Collected Shorts, and a not-yet-released cyberpunk novella titled Break and Enter, co-written with Aleksandr Voinov.

You can find Rachel tweeting as RachelHaimowitz, chatting in the Goodreads forums, and blogging at Rachel-Haimowitz.blogspot.com. She loves to hear from folks, so feel free to drop her a line anytime at metarachel (at) gmail (dot) com.