Leigh Wood and On the Way to New Isosceles Giveaway

I can't help myself! I need to indulge readers and interviewers with all my quirks-from what my housewife-self baked today to the joke that I vacuum with my pearls on and nothing else!

I also collect weird pens and adore animal prints-especially cat motifs. What does that have to do with writing a book? Absolutely nothing, but I suppose goofy things like this assure readers that I’m a real human being-an author at the other end of the virtual spectrum delighting in the readership! ‘If you prick us…’

I'm pretty proud of my November 2009 Eternal Press release On the Way to New Isosceles. Although I’ve had other articles and reviews out and about online and in print over the years, this is my first big release. Sure, it’s small to some of the big NY publishing house bigwigs, but ecstatic to me nonetheless! I'm pleased with the near perfect blend of science fiction and sex. I started out thinking I would have a small novella of one sex scene after another on a long space flight.

My previous works are not entirely erotic, and fragments of sex scenes had been waiting in my idea notebook for some time. Halfway through writing Isosceles, I had twice as many pages than I expected, serious character conflicts, space battle action, and even some death and angst. After all that, I finally got to the sweet sex scenes! I wasn't sure if there was an audience for material that would please the hard sf fan but also the erotica lover. Such audiences of mind versus body seem at polar odds. Sometimes you find some science fiction that's really lofty and full of space and technology over people and just a little too high brow.

On the Way to New Isosceles has a tongue in cheek look about it. Be honest, what else must they do on long space journeys but get hot and bothered?

I’m a stickler for self-editing, perhaps over editing! Between compositing, editing, submitting, and publication, On the Way to New Isosceles took about three years total I think. I handwrite still, and in one moment of writerly self-doubt; I wasn’t going to finish Isosceles. My husband took my notebook and was quickly pleased with the story-until the first sex scene shocked him. Though he’s not totally of a literary mind, his encouragement to finish gave me the push I needed. I kept writing-in bigger notebooks, smaller sketchpads, and even the back of receipt rolls-during my lunch breaks while I was working at a video store. I remember sitting in one of those vignettes in the mall at Christmas time crying because I just killed a character off. Carols were playing, décor all a glow, ruddy shoppers bagged to the brim! And here I was, crying at what was supposed to be a sex story! Should anyone have asked me what was wrong, I doubt I could have explained!

It's a long, tough journey on the way to New Isosceles, and the animosity between Rub and JJ gets hotter by the day…

JJ was as hard nosed as they come-and then some. But, hey, the destruction of earth did that to everyone. Humanity fractioned into three groups. Affectionately known as 'the Shitters', the Shipper Brigade manufactures the best space faring vehicles for themselves. Skilled fighters and martial artists Combatants like JJ fight the Shippers for what they can-even though Combatant numbers were severely depleted by the third faction. The Nukes rescued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons from earth's doom and aren't afraid to use them.

You can imagine JJ's surprise when she meets the Nuke Lieutenant Rub. Their initial meeting didn't rub either the right way. Despite her Nuke anxiety-JJ has to put it all aside. Her Captain and the Nuke Colonel have struck a deal to defeat the Shippers once and for all. The Nukes leave their tiny outpost on a far flung, degrading planet and join the Combatants in taking the lush planet protected by the Shippers.

You can visit Leigh at:

http://leighwood.blogspot.com/

http://www.eternalpress.ca/onthewaytonewisosceles.html

http://www.facebook.com/people/Leigh-Wood/100000432241842

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