Phoenix Johnson
Erotic Paranormal Author
Join us as we picnic near the cool blue waters of the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia. With a blanket in tow, a basket of fruit, chocolate and pre-mixed mimosas, we'll meet Phoenix on the strip of sand above.The weather is awesome for a bit of tanning and we are delighted to be wearing flip flops; seeing how in the states it's still chilly.
Phoenix is giving away an eBook copy of her new release. Details below!
Naughty Reader’s: There's Phoenix! Hello there! While we spread out the blanket tell us a bit about yourself that our readers might not know.
Phoenix: With a previous interview, I discussed goals. This time, for something people don’t know, I make mention of my music tastes. Eclectic to say the least. The playlist on my phone includes LMFAO, P!nk, No Doubt, Sugar Ray, Green Day, The Dresden Dolls, Dashboard Confessional, Steam Powered Giraffe (awesome band who dress like robots, check them out on Youtube!), plus throw in some Metallica, Beatles, Meatloaf, Marilyn Manson, Korn, Linkin Park, Michael Buble, Bryan Adams… Ok I think you get the point. Many a different artist in there. I have odd tastes.
Naughty Reader’s: What made you want to become a writer?
Phoenix: Well I was always an avid reader. I seriously could read 5 books at once and not confuse them! So when I was about 13 I gave writing a go, and with the help of the English teacher I had at the time, I was going pretty well. Unfortunately he moved to a different school (funny thing is he ended up teaching my now fiancé!) and I eventually lost the will. I did get told a few years later that I should take it back up and this time, I’m not giving up!
Naughty Reader’s: Please share a bit about your new release The Wolf in the Neighborhood without giving away any spoilers.
Phoenix: It’s a paranormal erotic romance about an author, Krissy, and her hunky new neighbor-with-a-secret, Derek. The pair have chemistry from the start, when she is first caught sun-bathing nude on the roof-top of the apartment building. Unfortunately, her ex-boyfriend doesn’t want to let go easily. Throw in a former military, now door-attendant, Mike, who has a crush on Krissy, and things get interesting!
Naughty Reader’s: What made you want to become a writer?
Phoenix: Well I was always an avid reader. I seriously could read 5 books at once and not confuse them! So when I was about 13 I gave writing a go, and with the help of the English teacher I had at the time, I was going pretty well. Unfortunately he moved to a different school (funny thing is he ended up teaching my now fiancé!) and I eventually lost the will. I did get told a few years later that I should take it back up and this time, I’m not giving up!
Naughty Reader’s: Please share a bit about your new release The Wolf in the Neighborhood without giving away any spoilers.
Phoenix: It’s a paranormal erotic romance about an author, Krissy, and her hunky new neighbor-with-a-secret, Derek. The pair have chemistry from the start, when she is first caught sun-bathing nude on the roof-top of the apartment building. Unfortunately, her ex-boyfriend doesn’t want to let go easily. Throw in a former military, now door-attendant, Mike, who has a crush on Krissy, and things get interesting!
What do you do when your past comes back to haunt you?
Could a dark secret revealed by a new lover be something you could overlook just to have him?
What kind of secrets could you learn to live with for true love?
Krissy has a hunky new neighbor with a dark secret; Derek is a vet with an interesting past. They hit it off quickly but when Krissy’s abusive ex, James comes to town, Derek shows a side Krissy never could have guessed, but James refuses to give up.
Can Derek’s secret save them, or will James have his revenge?
Could a dark secret revealed by a new lover be something you could overlook just to have him?
What kind of secrets could you learn to live with for true love?
Krissy has a hunky new neighbor with a dark secret; Derek is a vet with an interesting past. They hit it off quickly but when Krissy’s abusive ex, James comes to town, Derek shows a side Krissy never could have guessed, but James refuses to give up.
Can Derek’s secret save them, or will James have his revenge?
Naughty Reader’s: Do you write under a pen name?
Phoenix: Indeed I do, because I view my arrival back to writing as the beginning of something new, rising from the ashes of my former attempts at writing to become an even better writer. Thus I am Phoenix.
Naughty Reader’s: What types of hero or heroine do you like best?
Naughty Reader’s: What types of hero or heroine do you like best?
Phoenix: Both the hero and the heroine have to have spunk and spine, lots of sass but not afraid to share emotions, as long as they aren’t overly sappy. Something paranormal, like being a witch or a were doesn’t hurt, either!
Naughty Reader’s: Tell us about a typical day in your life as a writer.
Phoenix: Typical day usually starts with me dragging my butt out of bed when the 4 year old wakes up, fixing her and myself some breakfast then catching up on anything online while she watches cartoons (and the cat runs around like a madman after being shut in the bathroom because he is still a teenaged cat). After a while, depending on what needs to be done online (from blog post to uni study), I’ll then go over to the lounge chair and pull out the laptop, which isn’t connected to the horribly distracting inter-webs and try to whip the muse in to gear. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. All of this in between making lunch and then eventually dinner, and trying to keep cat and kid from fighting too much makes for interesting days sometimes.
Naughty Reader’s: Do your books have a common theme or are they all different?
Phoenix: They are all different for the most part, though most of them are of the paranormal genre/subgenre. Only two so far aren’t. But all of the leading ladies have had a mind of their own; Krissy wasn’t afraid to be herself from the start in Wolf Smitten, however Bailey from Acapello’s Lady (contemporary western styled romance) is more reserved to begin with. And of course all the leading men are hunky; there needs to be some sort of spice in there, whether it’s erotica, erotic romance or romance.
Naughty Reader’s: How long does it take you to write and then edit a story?
Phoenix: It depends entirely on 3 things: the story, the muse and my mind. I’m having a bad case of baby brain right now, so the writing thing is going a lot slower than usual, and my muse has disappeared because of it. However, I did manage to get The Wolf in the Neighborhood written and ready in about two weeks, as an example. Once Bitten Twice Shy and Leader of The Pack, books two and three, however took longer. Once Bitten took about 4 months, I believe, and Leader of The Pack took a painful 8 months. Yet Persephone, which was my story for NaNo in 2012, took only a month to get 5/6’s of the way through, at 48k words. I’m yet to finish it thanks to this baby brain, but I am very close, and time-word count ratio, it’s been my quickest yet.
Naughty Reader’s: Do you have to be alone to write?
Naughty Reader’s: Do you have to be alone to write?
Phoenix: No, not usually. I tend to find I can’t concentrate if it’s too quiet. I can’t write if someone is talking to me, but if there is another person in the room, either on the internet or watching tv or something, then I write best. I need some form of background noise to be able to concentrate, and the presence of another person.
Naughty Reader’s: How do you go about naming characters?
Naughty Reader’s: How do you go about naming characters?
Phoenix: This differs between characters. Sometimes I’ll get stuck so I’ll ask a friend for some ideas, based on a rough description of the character. Other times the name will jump at me. Take Persephone for example (Paranormal novel of the same name). Her name jumped at me. With other characters in the story, I asked for a few opinions, and for the names of the horses, I did research. It all depends on whether the character is speaking strongly to me or not.
Naughty Reader’s: Is it easier to write about the characters if you find pictures of them before you write or do you write then find character pictures?
Phoenix: For Derek from Wolf Smitten, I was struggling with him until I started searching for sexy werewolves. Too many pictures of Jacob from Twilight came up, but I eventually came across Alcide from "True Blood", played by Joe Manganiello. Of course, being that I don’t watch True Blood, I didn’t realize he was in the show, I just knew him from "How I Met Your Mother". Anyway, once I found that picture, his character just came to me a lot easier. Persephone was similar; her story flowed once I saw a picture of a red winged angel sitting on rocks near crashing waves. Some characters I need to actually see, otherwise are so chatty that I don’t need the picture, or have time to find one because they just won’t pipe down!
Naughty Reader’s: How do you pick locations for your stories?
Phoenix: The characters tend to pick them for me, actually. Krissy seemed to be a New Yorker with her sass and independence. Bailey I knew would be in a more rural, country type state of the US since she was a horse breeder, so that was a matter of researching smaller towns until I found the right one. And then there’s Persephone. There was no way she belonged anywhere in the real world, no matter how much I tweaked it. So she’s from a world much like our medieval times, but one where women were able to be free. In most towns, anyway. If the characters don’t tell me straight away where they are, however, the location is eventually revealed. I tend to leave it up to them to tell me. It is their story after all, I’m just the one channeling it.
Naughty Reader’s: What are you working on now and what should readers be looking forward to from you in the future?
Phoenix: I have a number of works in progress at the moment, some of which I have mentioned. Persephone is a paranormal novel, full of magic and heartbreak, very much like the books I used to read when I had more time. Acapello’s Lady is a western styled contemporary romance about a shy young horse-breeder who is drawn out of her shell by hunky escaped convict, Joe. Jeannie’s Cowboys is a short story, and my first attempt at m/f/m. This one just needs to be fleshed out a bit, plot-wise, and it should be good to go. And then of course there are books two and three of Wolf Smitten waiting for editing, plus a short story about vampires and four sisters who are trying to make their life away from the insanity of their Master. Not to mention a few other stories I’m working on!
Naughty Reader’s: Where can readers find out more about you and your books?
Phoenix: I can be found at numerous spots online, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, my Blog, my site and even Goodreads. The Wolf in the Neighborhood can be bought direct from Naughty Nights Press (it’s #5 best seller!), Amazon and Amazon UK, All Romance eBooks, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords and Kobo. Of course, I do also love to know what readers think of The Wolf, so don’t be afraid to leave a review!
Buy links:
***Contest***
Enter through the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win an eBook copy of The Wolf In The Neighborhood. Good Luck!
About the Author:
Phoenix Johnson is an Australian author who has always had the passion for the written word. She had her nose in at least one book ever since she could read and would even scrutinize the back of the cereal box every morning at breakfast. It was only natural she take up writing.
Phoenix has multiple works in progress, and her favourite writing genres are the same as her reading genres; erotica, romance, paranormal, thriller and a combination of these.
Having started out reviewing, Phoenix was nominated for the 2011 Xcite Best Reviewer Award. She has also participated in her first NaNoWriMo in 2012 and successfully completed the challenge with a day to spare, despite also juggling a home life and full time study.
She currently lives on the sunny Gold Coast, Queensland, with her partner, their daughter and cat Flash.
Thank you so much for having me, it was a lovely time! And good luck to all who enter.
ReplyDeletePhoenix, it's great to have you hang out with us all week and what a gorgeous place to do that!
ReplyDeleteReaders, leave a comment or question for Phoenix. She'll be here all week! Thank you all for stopping by to learn more about her!