The Purple Fantasy Den is very proud to have author Jaime Samms in the Hot Seat today. Sit back and listen to her interview as she talks about everything from ballet to why she writes what she writes to which author(s) she'd take with her on a deserted island.


Also, leave a comment, for one person who leaves a comment will win a free ebook copy of any book from Jaime's backlist.




1. Jamie, you're known for your skills as a writer, but what else do you feel you're skilled at? Do you ice skate? Ballroom dance? Are you a gymnastic who goes through moments of flip flop turn over moments when you get stuck in a story? A gymnast? Really? Ah…no. lol! But I can draw a bit. See? 

2. how do you write convincingly about things you haven't experienced yourself? Ballet dancing, shin splints, skate boarding, obsession? Is it research, imagination--or what? Yes. As in, all of the above. I do research. I took a ballet class, actually, for three years, so I sort of know the very rudimentary basics, and I have an in-house reference, since my daughter has been dancing since she was three. She’s going to be my biggest help on the YA I’m working on, I hope! Otherwise, I rely a lot on my imagination, and search everywhere for someone who knows or has experienced what I’m writing about to give me some ideas as to how to get it right.
3. Do you have favourite book that you wrote and why? Oooh. That’s like asking if I have a favourite kid. DO you know how much trouble a question like that can get me into?
4. Who would be your favourite character you have written about and why? Yeah. Like I’m going to answer that one, either. They’d all stop talking to me and then where would we be?
5. Have you always wanted to write M/M romance? Always wanted to? I don’t know that I ever put that much thought into it, actually. The very first story I ever wrote was high fantasy, because that was what I was reading at the time, and the main characters were a young, rebellious prince and his best friend, a young man who had almost flunked out of the guard academy. They went on adventures together. I was a kid, and so their adventures were kid adventures. If I were to catch up with them now, twenty years later? I’m sure they’re old lovers still going on adventures, albeit ones closer to home and they’re probably be spending a lot more time in various compromising positions, if you see what I mean. It was bromance back then, I guess. I just didn’t know quite what I was getting into.
6. What would you say to someone that wanted to start writing? Write. What else is there to say? If it’s meant to be, they’ll still be doing it twenty years from now 
7. Have you ever written about F/M romance and if not would you? Once. I wrote a very short tryste between the mother of one of my fantasy characters and his mysterious father. Every other m/f pairing I come up with turn out to be best friends, but no sparks. And actually, I think I want to share that m/f story, because it’s just on my hard drive, and why not? Here it is:
Place of Dreams

Miranda stood on the very edge of the meadow. It looked exactly as she remembered, only lonelier. Once, it had been her favourite place, her sanctuary. She hadn’t come here since the last time she’d come with Vinden, and he’d been dead since winter. She ran a hand over her abdomen, and tears came. She couldn’t stop them. She couldn’t fight them. She’d held them back too long, and now, the one thing she’d had to look forward to in a long life of widowhood, Vinden’s child, would be stillborn and there was nothing she could do but wait for it to come or to kill her. She hoped it would be the latter. She didn’t have the heart to go on.
Sinking to her knees in the soft earth, she could smell the new green growth. Around here, even here on the edge, the beauty of the spring flowers surrounded her. She had thought it would ease her pain coming here, but it only made things worse. This place would never be what it once was. It hadn’t lost any of its mercurial beauty. It just couldn’t touch her any more. Maybe nothing could or would ever again. Maybe, she thought, that was best.
For a long time, she lay stretched on her side, her head on her arm, and watched the grasses waving in front of her. White and purple flowers dipped gently in a breeze she didn’t really feel.
“Why did you leave me?” she whispered, not really sure if she meant Vinden or the unborn child. She closed her eyes, tried to imagine what the baby might have looked like, tried to recall Vinden’s face, his touch, the way his lips felt against hers. “I want you back.”
It was an impossible plea, she knew. It didn’t stop her wishing.
“Some things you can never have again.” The voice was soft, not unkind, and it sounded like an extension of the soft meadow music of wind in the grass, insects and birds. She didn’t remember closing her eyes, but she opened them and looked up. A young… well, she couldn’t really tell if it was a man or a woman, stood before her. The being reinforced the beauty around them.
“What?” She sat up, and the creature settled cross-legged in the grass beside her.
“But that’s the nature of life, isn’t?” Her question went ignored. “That it inevitably leads to death.”
“How did you know?” She watched the silvery-grey eyes drift closed, and studied the creature’s face. It was beautiful, pale, not quite the right colour to be human, and framed with a fall of silky, straight silver hair. It reminded her of this place; fresh, always changing, but somehow old beyond comprehension, waiting for something that never came. “But not death for you.” She wondered how she knew that. It got her a smile.
“If I wanted it.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Why do you?” Its eyes opened, pierced her soul and saw too much.
“I-” She wanted to look away and couldn’t. “There is nothing left for me.” She touched her stomach, and suddenly, more than anything, wanted it out. This child that was no longer a child, that wasn’t anything, she wanted gone. A hand covered hers, cool, gentle, and she realized she was digging her fingers painfully into her own flesh. She loosened her grip.
“Nothing is absolute. That is the trouble. You want black and white. Love and hate. Man and woman. Life and death. In the world, there are so many areas of grey.” The fingers rose from her hand to her cheek, and she found herself turning her head into that touch. It occurred to her, no one had touched her since Vinden. Not like that.
“What do you want?” She murmured, her own eyes drifting closed. But she knew what he wanted, so she wasn’t surprised to feel him kiss her.
“If you could have anything, anything at all,” he said as he tipped her back into the grass, “What would it be?”
That was easy. “My family back.”
The kisses and caresses stopped, though she still felt the weight of the slight body on top of her. “That would be two things.” A tear trickled from her eye and he kissed it away.
“You are cruel,” she whimpered, even as she let his hands strip her clothing away and did the same for him.
“I am limited. If I could, I would give you the world. I have only myself. One gift to bestow.” His hand pressed against her abdomen. “This child still has your life in him.  I could give him mine, could give him back to you.”  As he spoke, his hand moved down over her skin, touching her, and she shivered and parted for him.
It was exquisite, the steady pulsing of his need, as though he existed for this moment, and this moment alone. It wasn’t like anything she’d ever known before. She hit that sweet, shuddering moment of release only moments before he did, and all she could think to say was thank you.
He smiled and kissed her neck, her shoulder, and collapsed on her. He wasn’t heavy. In fact, he weighed almost nothing. There were so many things she wanted to ask him. Who was he, where did he come from, but it sounded like he had drifted into sleep, so she closed her eyes and let herself follow.
Later, she might not have believed it to be anything more than a dream, except that she knew she woke, lying on her back in that field, naked and warm and satisfied, and no longer on the brink of despair. And she felt life moving in her. He had given her so much more than just a child. He gave her hope, and strength and new determination. She lay very still, listening, knowing he would never come back, but hearing his voice just the same, in the singing crickets, seeing his eyes in the drifting clouds overhead, and feeling the feather-light brush of fingertips and silver hair in the wings of the butterflies that danced over her still form.  This place would never be the same.
When her baby was born in the autumn, she was not surprised that he had silver hair and eyes the colour of spring clouds. But he had his father Vinden’s face, his kind heart, his protective nature. The first place she took him, just as the first snows began to fall, was to her meadow. “This is where love happens,” she whispered to him. She kissed his rosy little cheek and listened to him gurgle and added the sound to her memories of this place.

8. How long does it take you to write a book? Um…depends? Stained Glass just flew out of me in a little less than two months. Better began as a short story over three years ago, so you never know. Hell, *I* never know.
9. How much can you write in a day? If I’m focused and clear? Five to seven thousand words isn’t unheard of. On a steady, ongoing basis, day after day, reliably? Two thousand is reasonable, one thousand is what I try to make my minimum.
10. When did you start writing? I….that information seems to be lost to the mists of time and my bad memory. Before high school, for sure.

11. How do you come up with your stories? This is not a one size fits all answer, even remotely. The stories are all there, in the world around me. Sometimes, I’m lucky to catch the end of a fleeting thought from the universe and reel it in to write it down in its entirety.  Like with Stained Glass, for instance, I saw the image that became the cover art, and the story was pretty much there, fully fleshed out in my mind. It was a matter of typing fast enough to keep up with Laurie as he told it. Off Stage Right came from Adam Lambert, My next Dreamspinner release this fall came from A song called On the Combine by High Valley, and the Free read on my website, The Long Road Home came from the long, winding road through Northern Ontario bush that you can take to get from the city where I live to the smaller town where I grew up.

12. Do you prefer to write in silence or have music on? Depends, but almost always in quiet.

13. What is your favourite genre to write about? I seem to be drawn to contemporary lately, but I have a lot of urban fantasy on my hard drive that deserves a home, some day.

14. What book would you suggest someone who has never ready one of your books? Um, Better, if D/s isn’t really their thing, Off Stage: Right or Stained Glass if they like Angst, and the Rainbow Alley books, if they want to immerse themselves in the world and see the characters again, and if a little D’s action doesn’t phase them.

15. Do you prefer to write about regular romance or do you prefer BDSM? I guess I prefer to pepper my romance with a bit of D/s and light BDSM, since it usually sneaks its way in there.

16. Do you ever include real people in your stories (with names changed to protect the innocent or not so innocent)? I can’t think of a single time when I have done this. The stories come to me as they are, really. I guess they’re coloured by my experiences and my prejudices, but I have never deliberately inserted anyone I know into a book.

17. On a rainy day what is your favorite thing to do? Really? Write. It’s pretty much always my favorite thing to do, unless hubs is…nevermind.

18. If you were stranded in any of your worlds (books) which one would it be?  And who would it be with? Rainbow Alley, because it’s such a close-knit community, and I would either live with Gina, the nurse/barmaid, or right in Rolly’s huge home with the rest of his strays.

19. If you were stranded on a island and could only take 3 people, 3 types of food and 3 things what would they be? Three people, my husband, and my kids. Assuming nutrition isn’t an issue, since we’re making shit up anyway, coffee, peanutbutter toast and potatoe chips., and I would demand internet, have my (endlessly powered) computer, and yarn. I can make anything with yarn.

20. Is there a genre or subject matter that you want to write about but are hesitant to do so (ex. Interracial, Disabled, Transgender, Mpreg, etc.)? I’m struggling with the YA, but I really want to write in that genre.

21. What is your ideal vacation spot? Downtown Toronto with a really nice, quiet hotel room when I want it, and endless things to do when I want to go out.

22. Is it harder to write about menage+ couples than two men? I haven’t found it so yet, though I haven’t gone beyond three, and can’t see myself going beyond that.

23. If you could meet your favorite author of all time, who would it be and what would you say to them? I have two answers. Since I’ve already met Clare London, and I pretty much turned out to be tongue-tied and kind of silly and didn’t end up saying much at all, my next favorite would be Tanya Huff. I imagine the scenario being much the same, sadly.

24. You have a BDSM series (or more, I can’t remember). Did you enjoy writing about that sort of lifestyle or was it difficult? I really enjoy it. The most difficult aspect is getting into the heads of the Doms, since that’s a mindset I only see and understand from the outside.

25. What is your favorite genre to read for fun? Same one as I write. Gay romance. Next would be fantasy, but throw in some gay romance, and I’m all over it.

26. Do you have a favourite book that you have ever read or wrote? The Hobbit has been a huge influence in my writing and my inspiration.

27. If you had to choose who would be your favourite author? I really do have a lot of favorites, but Clare London, Amy Lane, Ariel Tachna  and Mary Calmes all make the list because a) they write like I want to, and b) they are some of the absolute best people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting in my life. As far as writers I’ve never met, Tanya Huff, Lynn Flewleing, Steven Brust and the list could go on endlessly…

28. What is the best thing about being a writer? Hands down, making shit up. I love watching the story unfold as I go, and it’s much the same thrill I get from reading a really good book, because I never know what’s going to happen until I’m writing it down. It’s frickin’ awesome!

29. If you weren’t a writer what would you be? Sad. Or an artist, but that would take a lot more work and practice. I think I’m a better writer than I am artist.

30. If you had to pick only three of your characters to take on vacation who would it be and why? 1) Rory Sanders, from Finders Keepers because I think he’s a better artist than I am, and I’d want to talk to him about it. 2) David from My Rugby Playing Twink (formerly of Irish Lover’s fame, but those short stories have been re-written and expanded to a novella that comes out in the new year) because he’s just bucket loads of fun, and Stan from Off Stage: Right, because he’s filthy rich and he’ll keep everyone out of trouble. Probably.


31. Who would be your ideal? I assume you mean my ideal guy? My husband. 

32. What would this “ideal” have that you would consider as the “best characteristic?” He loves me. How does it get better than that?

33. What do you think about the New Adult genre for MM? I like it. I think it’s an excellent idea, and there should be more of it.

34. Some actors cannot watch themselves onscreen – as an author, What goes through your mind’s eye when you read your own work? Maybe this is vain, but I’ve always liked re-reading my own stuff. I wrote stories I love and I’m not ashamed of my work. I like it. I read it and I enjoy it. I see what I did back then that I do better now, of course, but that’s true of anything in life you do over an extended period of time. I’m also a better parent and a better wife than I was when I started out, but I’m not ashamed of where I started there, either. 

35. What do you do when you get a writers block to unblock? I rarely get any serious writer block, and when I do, I find sleep is almost invariably the cure.

36. If you were stranded on a island with 3 authors, 3 items, what would they be? 1) Amy Lane and her knitting essentials, because she’s awesome and fun, and I would never want to separate her from her wool, 2) Mary Calmes, with a nice quiet room for her, because she’s like me and likes quiet sometimes, and also because Mary is equally as awesome and Amy, and I I would never want to separate Mary and Amy, and they would get to pick the rest.

37. What is your favorite thing to do to decompress from life(stress) Is it weird to say write? Or listen to an audio book,. That’s my next best thing.

38. Have you ever written about feline shifters or any other types of shifter? I have two paranormal stories on my hard drive, one with mer-shifters, and one with dragon-shifters. I hope I’ll get them published one day.

39. Which if any of your characters is more like you? No one character specifically, because I think they all have a little bit of me in them. How could they not? But I am definitely more like the submissive characters than I am like the dominant ones.

40. Do you plan on writing for a while to come? Like, forever!

41. Would you ever write about Ninja's? Depends. Are they gay? Because they would probably have to be gay….

42. What would you recommend to other people who would like to start writing for the first time? Wrote more and think less. Just write. Write what comes into your head, write what’s in your heart, and as Neil Gaiman says, when you first start out, you’re lucky. “People who know what they’re doing know the rules and they know what is possible and what is impossible. You do not…If you don’t know it’s impossible, it’s easier to do and because no one has done it before, they haven’t made up rules to stop anyone from doing that particular thing again.”  Also, listen to the rest of his speech, because it’s pretty great. http://vimeo.com/42372767

43. Where do you write?  An office, a room, a cubbyhole... I have an office of sorts in the basement of the house. I really do my best work there, because my mind settles an dfocuses when I’m in that space.

44. What are some of your favorite books?  Not just recently but what books did you enjoy as a kid?  teenager?
When I was a kid, I love this small book called “Tigers in the Cellar” by Carol Fenner. Awesome! I still have my copy and the kids loved it, too. I also loved “What was I Scared of?” by Dr. Seuss. Also a favourite of my kids, along with the Hobbit, of course, and The Shanara series by Terry Brooks.