habu

BarbarianSpy for literary heat

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JUST OUT

habu, a bisexual former supersonic spy jet pilot, male model, movie actor, intelligence agent, news agency executive, and diplomat, is a professional book editor, published mainstream novelist, and short story writer under another name and in another dimension of his life. He lives in a historical university town in the American South and publishes erotica through eXcessica under the habu name and with his coauthor, Sabb, under the Shabbu name.

Rainbow Reviews Interview with habu

How does writing with your co-author work? Can you give readers a brief overview of what this means with regards to your work with Sabb? How is your writing together different from the writing you do alone?

Sabb and I both live on the East Coast—but his East Coast is in Australia and mine is in the United States. So, we meet in cyberspace. I actually was within three miles of his home earlier this year, but I did not take the step of meeting him in the flesh. Our collaboration started when he contacted me and discussed the stories I had written in terms that revealed that he understood and appreciated what I was striving for in my writing—which, in most cases (although I do try to write with variety and across the spectrum of reader interest) is writing something that would be literary in the mainstream and just pushing it across the erotic threshold. I have a whole separate writing career in the mainstream.

Our shared writing originated from roleplaying in e-mail exchanges to polishing these up into stories. Our technique is mostly that of each taking one or more separate character roles and tossing the story back and forth—with me usually doing some recasting to create a coherent story out of it with dilemma, resolution, hook, and theme.

We are so in synch with each other that I can’t really separate working together from working apart in terms of any technique or approach.

Do you feel that most of your writing comes out of your personal experiences?

I’ve written more than 300 published erotica stories now and some two-dozen e-books. Initially much of what I was writing had at least a nub of personal experience in it. My Flying High, for instance, is basically autobiographical—especially in expressing the emotional level of what I was experiencing at that time of each story included.

As I wrote more, however, my erotica came to me the same way as my mainstream storylines do—out of the blue, my mind having developed them to a great extent—but not totally—and informing me that I had a story to sit down and write. Even at this point, however, I don’t usually know all of the nuances that will be in the story. Those unfold as I write, and they usually are there in my mind. They often have an element of personal experience in them. I don’t have to think much about where to go from one point to another or how to resolve or bolster this or that.

One of the interesting things that comes out of my cyber relationship with Sabb is that, even now, occasionally some topic we bring up in our chats will trigger a personal experience I had subliminated that becomes the foundation for a new story.

Raven Possession is different in feel ~ more traditionally epic ~ than your other books. Do you plan to write more in that style?

Raven Possession is closer to what I write in the mainstream. And it was originally planned as a mainstream novel, based on a real person on my family tree—and cutting close to real events. But the more I researched her life, the more I uncovered the sensual elements of that life. Rather than water those down for mainstream treatment, I decided to let the sensual elements shine through. I think she would have approved.

It’s questionable that I will write more like this for erotica e-booking, though, as essentially I can write close to this pattern in the mainstream for national distribution in print.

Also, my erotica market readership niche seems to have settled on Gay Male. I’d write more F/M works if the ones I’d written sold better. I personally think Raven Posession is much better than it’s sales share—and it received very nice reviews. I have a bisexual anthology, Menagé, launching next (25 May). We’ll see whether genre that finds an audience.

Vortex is a personal favorite. How did this story come about?

This one just popped into my head when I was thinking devilish thoughts and wanted to do something with a simple, time-worn theme. I had no idea it was going to go beyond a short story until it just kept going and going.

Beyond the nagging thought of wanting to do something with the “curiosity killed the cat” theme, there was no deep literary thought going into this one. It was actually one of my “high heat” drawer works to keep some variety and widen my reader base. I’m surprised it’s done as well as it has as an e-book. It’s one of those that reviewers say “this is OK if you like all that over-the-top sex,” meaning to pan the book, with the ironic result that it sells particularly well. My Hard Knocks U and Deal Closer, two more from the “over-the-top high heat” drawer, have benefited even more from such “faint praise” reviews.

There is a lot of talk about erotica being porn without plot versus erotic romance focusing more on character development and emotional connection of the men. Do you feel your books fall into both categories, either, or neither?

I don’t put a whole lot of intellectual energy toward figuring out where porn, erotica, and romance overlap and/or differ. I do, however, in my “literary drawer” works very purposely attempt to write something that stands alone as a literary work but has no inhibition of including the full sexual aspect of the story as well. I worked in movies in my earlier life (and was a male model)—and was propositioned to do porn movies. But my reaction was that what I’d like to do were top-drawer movie dramas that swept away the sexual barriers and went for the whole, raw story rather than cutting away as scenes were heating up and filming the naturally evolved sexual couplings in dim light through cheesecloth.

My stories are pretty heavily plotted, and I strive for the surprise/twisted endings outcomes. On character development, I bring in my training as a Chinese brush painting artist—going for the minimum number of strokes that will get the concept across clearly. I more often than not write in the first person, which I find ideal for erotica—it’s the most intimate voice—and to the extent I can, I do not close down on the physical descriptions of characters, so that the reader can see them as they want to see them in their own minds. I don’t do character charts and I don’t give physical description until and unless it’s needed in the unfolding of the story.

I purposely try to write for as many categories as I can. At the extreme, I read on a Web site that no one had the guts to write about the fetish of sounding—so I went out and researched and wrote Dark Angel Sounding, which has become one of my best-selling books. I approached that one from two angles—the sexual and the emotional, so I hope I grabbed readers latching into one of those levels with it. As far as emotional development goes, I suspect most of my stories put more emphasis on the emotional aspects than on any other element.

I hope I’ve responded to some aspects of that question, but suspect I haven’t. Sorry.

You have written both novels and short stories. Is one story length easier than the other for you? Do you prefer one or the other?

I find the short story much easier to write, if only because the stories tend to drop into my mind as a treatment of a specific “hook” or limited theme. I came to writing short stories after having published more than a half dozen novels in the mainstream. I was surprised how much more compact and focused they were than what I normally wrote. I have no preference, but I have more time to fit the short stories into what is a busy book editing schedule on top of contracted mainstream writing demands. I’ve even turned to writing short stories in the mainstream—and am having some success with them in writing contests.

Several of your stories contain an element of nonconsensual sex. What do you say to readers who might be offended by such an approach? What appeals to you as a writer incorporating this into your stories?

This is a bit of a bugaboo with me. I dearly love women readers, because they usually are the most communicative (and demonstrably appreciative) readers. But women readers (and writers, for that matter) of gay male material often just don’t get that there is a great divide between male and female response to the mating dance. Much of what woman readers seem to take as nonconsensual is a standard part of the gay male mating dance. Males are expected to be dominant, but in most male-male coupling, there is a dominant and a submissive. Part of the turn-on to most submissives is the overpowering and being “forced” into a position they basically want to be in but historical custom doesn’t permit them to be in willingly. “No” just doesn’t mean “no” in the gay male mating dance in anything like the intenisity/purpose it means “no” in a male-female coupling. The real “no” from one male to another is a black eye and a stomping off. There’s a whole history of different collective gender experience on this; many women readers of gay male material just don’t get that. So, I say, if it doesn’t speak to you and you can’t transcend into the roles being portrayed, just don’t read it.

The element of it that appeals to me is that I am a submissive who likes to be taken in a nonconsensual role-playing scenario myself—so I obviously like writing that sort of story. (Bald enough of an answer? *smile*)

What is your favorite Sabb book?

His whole Konan series. They are written specifically for me, coming out of exchanges we had on what we like best. So they are special to me.

What is your favorite published story? What is your most popular published story?

I’ll pass on the favorite published story question. The last time I was asked, I couldn’t narrow a favorite down to less than twenty-five. It gives me a headache to try. And even the most popular story category is a neck and neck race, because I have separate audiences for different kinds of stories. The Dance of the Ravishers series of stories that were expanded and published recently as an eXcessica novella have consistently done extremely very well. “La Lectura” gets universal comments as poetic perfection (to quote one reader). I have literary and historical stories that have consistently done almost as well, though. My most popular anthology has been my first one published, Across the Threshold, a GM collection of “first times” stories.

What is your least popular published story? Why do you think readers don’t like or “get” the story?

My current least popular published story is a F/M one titled “The Quality of Love,” which I wrote to try to crack a category at a major erotica story site that attracts the most negative comment for that site. The probable reason the story is so unpopular, though, is because the site owners awarded the story for excellence when they posted it—that always attracts the naysayers and negative voters.

Which of your stories would make a great movie? Who’d play the lead roles?

Raven Possession would make a great epic movie, I think. I’d want Susan Hayward for the lead, if she weren’t long dead. (The allusion to real-life counterparts in that novel, aren’t all that much of an allusion. *smile*)

When you start writing, do you already have the story plotted out or do you let the characters dictate what will happen?

The hook for the story and the twist/surprise ending usually pop into my mind before I write. After that I just sit down and let the characters who are going to serve those two elements do whatever they have to do to get there. This “letting the characters do their thing” is the most rewarding aspect of my writing experience, and it works out on a much grander scale in novel-length works for me than in short stories—I guess because the characters have more space to develop and demonstrate themselves.

Do you draw inspiration for your characters from real life?

Most of my characters are formed from what is needed to serve the story and thus have some stereotypical connections to people in real life—but not in any pronounced way.

What story haven’t you written yet but would like to? Is there anything holding you back from writing it?

I have one that popped into my head this morning I’ll title “The Exchange Student.” It popped into my head because I need some more stories for the next anthology I’m putting together (for November release—I have seven in front of it written/edited/submitted and waiting for their scheduled release dates).

That’s sort of the way it goes for me. When they drop into my consciousness I sit down and write them—usually at a rate of a couple a week. If it’s a novel I’m working on, it’s just chapter hooks that jump into my mind, not separate stories—I only see about two chapters ahead of my writing when writing a novel. The only thing that ever holds me back is other events/activities scheduled in my life. I’m pretty pampered by those around me, though, so I usually can get to my own writing fairly quickly in the case of short stories. The novels take more planning. And, think goodness, I have yet to suffer a minute of writers block in several decades of a writing career. The only thing a stick on is the occasional inability to surface the specific word I want—but that’s what the thesaris is for.

Do you have a system for writing? Do you track work count or write a certain number of hours per day? Do you use music and playlists for inspiration?

My system is to sit down at my desk and let it rip. I don’t write to TV. I can write to music, but often the music stopped some hours ago while I’m writing and I never notice. When I write, I am completely absorbed; you could set off a bomb outside (and in my early writing career that happened regularly—I was living in the Middle East), and I wouldn’t notice.

Happily, I can write 3,000 words within a couple of hours—the result, I guess, of a career of writing reports and news articles on tight deadlines. And I don’t agonize over reviewing. Usually I write and then immediate review, send it off to the editor, review it once more when it comes back and that’s it. I find with my writing that the more I rework it, the more gutted of flow and freshness it becomes. So, I mess with it as little as possible after the drafting.

When did you start writing? Did you always know you wanted to be “a writer”?

I started weaving long, convoluted epics in my mind in my early teens. I was a professional writer (an international journalist), though, for twenty years before I started writing novels. And, yes, I’ve always thought of myself as a writer.

What is your favorite gay book that you didn’t write?

Unfortunately, I don’t remember the title—I read it as a teenager, a good ten years before I had any inkling I was gay (bi, actually). I had no idea it was a gay novel when I picked it up, but scenarios and images keep jumping back at me from that book nearly a half century later. It was a cross-country journey book by a young man who had to sell himself and put himself in compromising positions to make it to where he was going—and he stopped and turned around and went back to New York just short of his goal, having decided that his journey had made him a different person than what he was trying to get to the West Coast to become.

Name one thing that your readers would be surprised to know about you.

Probably that I had a full career in U.S. intelligence that was ended with a threat letter from Osama bin Laden and a fast trip home to the States (yes, really).

Do you have a guilty pleasure?

Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and my Mercedes that I feel guilty pleasure driving out of the garage considering today’s economy and oil situation.

What is your favorite word/phrase for the male or female genitalia? What is your least favorite word/phrase?

“Love box” or “honey pot” turn me off real fast for female genitala; a like the sound and feel of “cock” for the male member. I’m not very fond of “Like, ya know,” as a phrase (or a life style).

What is your favorite curse word?

I don’t curse all that often—even in erotica writing. It has to be something the character naturally would say. So I have no favorite. I learned to use “fuck” quickly when writing erotica. I don’t use it in any other context in my life, though.

What are you currently working on?

I just (today) finished and submitted Death in Key West, the third of the GM Clint Folsom murder mysteries for September eXcessica release. I have one more chapter to come back tomorrow from the editor on a GM supernatural/horror novella, Bite of the Schlange (for the Halloween season) and twenty more pages to proof on an F/M supernatural/horror three-story anthology (also for the Halloween season) titled Triple Scream—probably to get off to the publisher tomorrow. Then I turn to my November anthology, which is a GM anthology entitled Doubled (all about one of those fetishes you don’t see much in published stories). I alsohave all of the stories done for a nonerotic, women’s inspirational Christmas anthology that will be titled Christmas Gifts.

Where can readers find you?

Sabb, my coauthor maintains a Web site for the two of us at www.barbarianspy.com, and I happily take e-mails at sr71plt@lycos.com. I hang around Literotica.com a lot under the name of sr71plt.

Any other tidbits you would like to share?

I don’t think so, thanks. Probably have overloaded you as it is.

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