Pissing Into the (Crazy) Wind

By now you've probably heard Crazy Wind by Xara X. Xanakas. It's her debut work from Dreamspinner Press, and it has sold like...crazy. I enjoyed the book particularly for all the things that don't go right for the leading man, Sheriff Zephyr Kokinos, and I asked Xara to stop by to talk about him and what it was like to write him. Here's what she had to say:

When I first had the idea for Crazy Wind, it was much different than where it ended up. I had originally envisioned a murder-mystery, with Bobby Joe as a suspect. There was still the meeting online aspect, and Zef was still the love interest, but there was more external danger for my boys. More reasons to keep them apart. All in the context of a short story for an anthology submission.

But it just didn't work. It never felt right, and the story reflected that.

And don't get me started on the sex scene. That was a bugger to write. Nothing seemed to work. Well, it all worked, but it didn't 'work' work, you know? Anatomically and physically it was there, but something was missing. It felt more like a clinical dissertation on the mechanics of two men engaging in sexual activity. See how exciting that is?

So Zef did the only thing he could. He cock-blocked me. Every time I tried to fix it, he just didn't play along. He kept fighting me. It's like he didn't realize he was going to get off too. He demanded more of me. And he just wouldn't settle for less. So I worked him and the story over. We went the full twelve rounds, and he nearly knocked me out by the end of it. You've seen him. You know how he can be. Well, he dug in his heels, and made me take another look at it. I killed the murders and changed some of the events.

It still wasn't quite there. Something was off. Then one of my critique group partners nailed it for me. What was missing? Emotion. Somehow, I managed to write a serviceable story that got them from point a to point bed, but didn't give an indication of how they felt about it.

FilthyMacGyvering - getting the mechanics and physics of sex right - is important, but emotion is that secret sauce. Without it, the story is as dry as most of the creeks around Texas right now. I wasn't letting their personalities shine. I may as well have just sent in photographs of them. Their emotions - good, bad, and silly - took them from instructional manual versions to living, breathing characters.

It started life as a short story anthology submission, but it ended up standing up on its own. Seeing all the reaction from readers has frankly shocked me. I've been calling this one the little novella that could. When I saw the cover, I was sure the reviews would say "The story sucks, but the cover! Wow!" (And it is a hot cover, with Zef in all his Sex!Panther glory.) It's humbling to open its Goodreads page and see the positive comments from all the people taking the time to read it and leave remarks. I learn something from each and every one of them. It seems those changes worked.

I guess sometimes you just need to be cock-blocked.

~xxx~