Tour Stop, Guest Post & Giveaway: Roped In by Marie Sexton & L.A. Witt

Hi there! Lori and Marie here today, talking about our first co-written book, Roped In. Whenever co-writing comes up, two questions get asked: 1) Why? 2) How?

The ‘why?’ part is easy. While this is the first book Lori and I have written together, we both have several previous titles written with other authors, and we’ve both learned that co-writing can really be a fun kick in the pants. Writing a book with a friend means half the work and double the enthusiasm. In many ways, it’s a win-win proposition, assuming you work well together.

But that, of course, is the real crux of the issue, and leads right into the second question. How exactly did this work?

This story was originally written for Amber Allure back in 2013 (and released in 2014). Lori and I had been saying for two years that we should write together someday, but she’s always busy, and I’m frequently distracted, and it didn’t happen for a long time. But then one day… I don’t know. I think I asked Lori what she had coming up (because she’s always tackling ten projects at once), and when I heard one of them was an “opposites attract” story, I raised my hand and said, “I’ll help!”

Is that how you remember it?

Lori: Yep, that’s pretty much what happened. I’d been wanting to write something with Marie for a long time, and when she offered to help me lighten my workload by co-writing something, I was all for it. Marie came up with the idea of an animal rights activist protesting a rodeo, and from there, we got the idea of hooking him up with a cowboy. Then the bondage angle came into play, and, well, the story pretty much fell together.

It was remarkably easy, too. We opened a live Google doc and just went for it, which Lori has done before, but it was a new method for me. We’d stop occasionally to chat about exactly how we wanted a scene to play out, or what we wanted the conflict to look like, but mostly we just wrote. I don’t think we ran into trouble or disagreed even once.

Lori: Nope, everything went smoothly. We both had different ideas at times, but that’s just part of brainstorming. There was never any head-butting or arguing at all.

And, as Lori said, the story just came together. It practically wrote itself. On our own, neither of us writes in order, but when co-writing, we thought it made more sense to write start to finish. It mostly worked, although occasionally I’d get antsy and say, “I have to skip to the rimming!” and Lori would patiently fill stuff in behind me until she caught up with me.

Lori: We did skip around a bit, but it *mostly* happened in sequence. There’s one scene I wrote on my own because it deals with horsey things that I’m more familiar with, and I’m pretty sure there was a scene Marie did on her own, but my memory is really foggy about anything that happened prior to lunchtime today, so I could be wrong.

That sounds right. I think there was a bit with Jackson that I was dying to write. I developed a real soft spot for him. I think I got up early one morning and cranked it out, because I couldn’t wait to get the words on the page.

I also remember that with one of the sex scenes, I wanted to write one part and Marie was chomping at the bit to write the other (as she mentioned above), so we basically said, “I’ll write the blowjob, you write the rimming. Go!”

And we’d have chat going at the same time, so we could say things like, “I need him to have his pants off by the time he gets into the bedroom,” or, “You want his hands tied in front of him, or behind him?”

The awesome thing about co-writing, especially in real-time, is that it tends to go very quickly. Normally, when I write alone, I’ll write a few paragraphs, then hit kind of a lull. Or I’ll get stuck and have to stop and think. With co-writing, as soon as I hit that lull, I can hand the reins over to my co-writer, who then writes until s/he hits a lull. Do that back and forth for a few hours, you end up with loads more words than you would have on your own. Plus it’s great fun. Even if you and your co-writer know where the story is going, you’ll surprise each other constantly, which keeps things very interesting.

And by the time we finished, we were already planning another book, because poor Jackson deserves a HEA.

Thanks for hanging out with us today, and check out Roped In. 🙂

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Title: Roped In by Marie Sexton & L.A. Witt
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, M/M, BDSM, Romance
Length: 155 pages/Word Count: 41,100

Summary:

Graham and his roping partner, Jackson, have been friends since they were boys. They’ve ruled the rodeo scene for ten years running, but lately, Graham’s heart isn’t in the game. He’s tired of the bruises, the cowboy mentality, and the animal rights activists who picket every event. He’s also tired of being in love with Jackson, and nothing’s been the same between them since their disastrous drunken encounter the year before.

Then Graham has a run-in with one of the rodeo protesters, and everything changes. Kaz is young, idealistic, and sexy as hell. But he’s also a know-it-all, animal-loving vegan, bent on saving the world one cow at a time. They have next to nothing in common, but Graham can’t stop thinking about what might happen if they can stop butting heads long enough to give it a try. Unfortunately, no matter how attracted Graham is to other men, he always panics and runs when the clothes start to come off. But Kaz has an idea for getting Graham past his nerves and into bed.

All they need is a bit of rope.

(Note: This is a re-edited second edition of a previously published title.)

Add to Goodreads.

Purchase Link: Riptide Publishing

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Author Bios

Marie Sexton lives in Colorado. She’s a fan of just about anything that involves muscular young men piling on top of each other. In particular, she loves the Denver Broncos and enjoys going to the games with her husband. Her imaginary friends often tag along.

Marie has one daughter, two cats, and one dog, all of whom seem bent on destroying what remains of her sanity. She loves them anyway.

Author Links: Website * Facebook * Twitter * Goodreads

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L.A. Witt is an abnormal M/M romance writer who has finally been released from the purgatorial corn maze of Omaha, Nebraska, and now spends her time on the southwestern coast of Spain. In between wondering how she didn’t lose her mind in Omaha, she explores the country with her husband, several clairvoyant hamsters, and an ever-growing herd of rabid plot bunnies. She also has substantially more time on her hands these days, as she has recruited a small army of mercenaries to search South America for her nemesis, romance author Lauren Gallagher, but don’t tell Lauren. And definitely don’t tell Lori A. Witt or Ann Gallagher. Neither of those twits can keep their mouths shut . . .

Author Links: Website * Blog * Personal Blog * Twitter * Facebook

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Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Roped In, Marie and L.A. are giving away $20 in Riptide Publishing credit plus one ebook from each of their backlists. Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on June 25, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!