Spencer Dryden - Fabulous interview with Spencer, who has great answers to my questions. :-)

Spencer busily collecting dialogue from his characters

Aloha everyone! Please welcome my friend and fellow ERWA erotica and other genre writer Spencer Dryden! He is my first blog guest, so thank you Spencer for being here. Gosh, people have some fun answers to things and do some amazing stuff in their life! I love reading about it and hope you will too. :-)
 

Tell our readers a wee bit about yourself. What are 5 things you wished you’d done, have done or are still to do, on the Bucket List? J

1. Ski at Vail (Colorado) again

2. Walk the beach at Summer Haven (Florida) again

3. Be interviewed by Charlie Rose

4. Fund a Chair at the B-School (I want to be there when the truck from Good Will arrives with the chair. I don't often address graduates of the B-school I attended, but when I do, I always order the large fries.)

5. Turn down playing bridge with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett-I'm too busy to play some stupid card game.



Another gorgeous sunset at Summer Haven in Florida

Tell us about the genre you write, why do you love it and how did you get into it?

I keep trying to write erotica but all kinds of other stuff keeps coming out of the pen. When I decided to try writing fiction, I thought I would be most successful at writing what was on my mind all the time. I'm a guy so that means sex. How can you not love erotic fiction? I can make love to any woman I want and my wife could care less.

I got into writing fiction by accident-the great career shaper. I was never a reader and not a writer either. My bio humorously says I was trained in fiction writing on the job with the many marketing reports I wrote for managers. That is very close to the truth. Writing fiction had been hovering around in my mind for a long time. I turned 62 and realized if I didn't start acting on some of my dreams I was going to take a dirt nap with nothing on the obituary.

I believe that an important element of success is luck and the kindness of strangers. I had a little of both. I made a friend through Facebook — a friend of one of my high school idols. This guy was/is a reasonably successful author and playwright. In a rare moment of courage I asked him to read some of the stuff I had been writing. He was kind enough to do it. He told me I was a natural storyteller and had a great ear for dialogue. Blew me away. He told me I was a writer and had to work at it. Ironically he doesn't like romance or erotica but could see something through the stories I sent him. I started writing. I'm 64 now.

What’s your most favorite restaurant in the world? Where, why and the best dish/es they make?

Sadly, my favorite restaurant is gone. It was a little coffee shop called Susan's that had the best coffee and cookies in the world— essential fuel for writers. Most of all they served hope, hope that if I held on to my dreams, one day they might come true.

Remember those ads for Expedia that asked, ‘If you could go anywhere in the world, but have to go right now?’ Where would you have gone and would you have said to YES to right now? What pulls and entices you to that country?

I want to go to England to the finals of Wimbledon and sit in the royal box on Championship Sunday  and have people say 'who is that guy sitting next to Bjorn Borg?' I was an avid tennis player as a younger man. The pomp, ceremony and tradition of Wimbledon is unmatched in sports. Poo poo kaff kaff.



Failing a court side seat at Wimbledon, Spencer loves to come back to this gorgeous locale in Florida at any time. Doesn't it look like the perfect chill out and do nothing place.

 
What parts of you, are incorporated into your characters?

My self effacing humor and my cluelessness when women are sending me signals.

Favorite male hero/public figure you admire in the world, dead or alive, and why?

Steven Spielberg. He knows so much about the human heart and visual storytelling.

Favorite female heroine/public figure you admire in the world, dead or alive, and why?

Sigourney Weaver. She's so hot and she killed the mother alien.

Have you ever had a character just “do their own thing?” Have you ever had an argument with one of your characters? Or anything else odd happen?

All the time. Breathless Press asked me to do a character interview with Christina McArdle the MC of "Bliss". She wouldn't do it.

(LOL. Aren't they laws unto themselves, some of our characters. Love it!)

People have said nice things about my dialogue and ask how I write dialogue. I tell them sheepishly that I don't write dialogue. I put two characters together and let them go and try to write it down as fast as I can.



What’s your passion in life?

Now it's creating the next story.

What’s your writer’s routine? Do you write whenever or at certain times? Are you a panster or plotter? Where do you like to write?

I'm trying to develop the discipline of writing every day. Not there yet. I am a panster. I also have the attention span of a fly—which might explain why I have concentrated on short works. I am amazed what happens when I sit down and start writing. I write best in the morning. I like to write at the local coffee shop but I'm doing more at home these days.

 


This lovely wee spot is the setting for Spencer's upcoming short story, 'Love Above See Level.' 

 

If you could pick a past life, what time period would appeal to you and why? Would you be male or female? Rich or poor?

I want to go back to the 80's and be very rich, single and good looking. Okay I settle for rich. If you're rich you're good looking. God did not make any ugly rich men. I give you The Donald (Trump) as proof.

You can find Spencer at:

 

Visit Spencer's Fantasy Island
Quick Trips to Adult Fantasy: Leave Your Baggage Behind

http://www.fictionbyspencer.com/

tweet: @SpencerDryden

google + Spencer Dryden

UPCOMING - RELEASING APRIL 18TH 2014 - Spencer's new book is hot off the presses in April! Congratulations Spencer! 

 

 

BLISS

by Spencer Dryden

Christina McArdle must cast out the demons of her past and present or lose the love of her life.

###

Behind her career success in Bliss, New Hampshire, Christina McArdle struggles with demons of past and present that threaten the loss of all she loves.


Christina McArdle is on the fast track of career success. In rapid succession she has been named the first woman partner of the prestigious CPA firm, Driscol, Ryan, Jensen and Palmer and selected as the first female member of the exclusive Maplewood Country Club. But she fears that her success is beginning to take its toll. Her husband, Ben, has lost sexual interest in her. Still traumatized by the aftermath of a sexual assault and shame bound by a misogynistic pastor, she must cast out the demons of her past and present or lose the love of her life.

######

In the prosperous community of Bliss, New Hampshire, in 1995, Christina  McArdle is living a feminist dream. In short order she has become the first female partner of the venerable, male dominated CPA firm of Driscol, Ryan, Jensen and Palmer. The honor followed by her selection as the first female member of the prestigious Maplewood Country Club.

But Christina fears that her career success has come at a terrible price. Her husband, Ben, has lost sexual interest in her. Unable to ignite his passion for her and desperate for understanding of her own inhibitions, Christina turns  to Dr. Rachel Morrisey, a sex therapist, who helps Christina uncover dark secrets from her past.

Christina's path to recovery is blocked by a misogynistic pastor who traps her and many other women of her church in a shame bind that serves his purulent interests.

Her path to freedom requires Christina to break bonds from past and present or lose the thing she loves most in life, the love of husband and family.

 

Spencer Dryden’s Bio

Some men are born great, others strive for greatness; still others have greatness thrust upon them. Spencer Dryden is none of these men. In fact, he is so unimpressive, he leaves no footprints on newly fallen snow.

He was trained in fiction writing on the job with the many sales reports he produced for his managers, winning the coveted “keep your job contest” three years running. His expense reports are still considered masterpieces of forgery by the bankruptcy trustee of his former employer.

He lives an unremarkable life in a suburb of a northern city. His friends and family would drop dead in horror if they knew of his secret life as a writer of erotica. He hates the family cat but still loves to pet his wife.