The spectacular view of glaciers, the peace, pure air, and an occasional visiting moose or bear is what surrounds our featured author today at her home. Well known for her fantastic erotic writing, Juniper Bell resides eight miles from the nearest town in Alaska. Leaving a high-stressed life as a TV writer in warm sunny Los Angeles, Juniper flipped her world in a new direction and transformed her writing into focusing on finding bliss by transcending the limits people place on themselves. Juniper believes everyone has a journey, and writing about freeing the wilder, braver, more joyful self, allows magic to happen when you open the soul and let sensuality transform you. Thanks for coming by Juniper, we’re so glad to have you!

1. Let’s start off with you telling our followers about yourself and how you started writing Juniper.

Firstly, thanks so much for having me! I’m thrilled to be here. I started writing ages ago – but you probably don’t have encyclopedia entries in mind. That was the first of my many writing jobs. I’ve also translated menus and written news promos in the course of my strange and quirky career path. A psychic once told me that I ought to write dirty stories. I didn’t follow his advice until about four years ago, but I’ve never looked back.

2. You enter a very intimate depth when writing about your characters. Before the words take shape in the story, do you need to take time to develop your characters in your mind or have conversations with them about their individually tuned feelings or marked traits?

Thanks for the observation! My characters develop to some extent in my mind before I start writing, but I find the process of writing brings them to life for me. I usually use the first draft to discover the characters, then go back and rewrite with all my newfound knowledge of who they are. I don’t have conversations with them – it’s more that they inhabit a little corner of my mind that I tune into and deepen as I tell the story.

3. Living in Alaska, away from town gives the impression of a lot of solitude. Do you feel this helps or hinders with allowing you to find inspiration for writing? Where else do you find inspiration for your work?

It’s definitely a double-edged sword. The solitude is great for minimizing distractions, but your world becomes rather small when all you see is snowy hills and storm clouds. We try to get out of dodge as much as we can; when we travel I try to soak up as much adventure and new experiences as I can.

4. A change in life that shifts the road your characters are on in your books, create and reveal secret erotic directions that help their wants and desires come to life. Do you think that understanding and becoming true to yourself is a jump that perhaps people can find through reading your work?

Wow, that would be cool!  I think that if a person is ready for a certain message, they’ll hear it, whether it’s in a book or a song or a serendipitous sign from the universe. Being true to yourself isn’t easy if it means going outside the boundaries of the normal, or what you’ve been told is normal. I’m not so sure “normal” truly exists. It changes all the time, after all! What’s normal today was shocking a hundred years ago.

5. When writing do you just go with the flow, or when it comes to a steamy sexual scene do you find that you sometimes have to skip it and return to it later when the mood is right?

Good question! Sometimes I sketch out a sex scene, knowing I’ll go back later and steam things up a bit more. But I have to get the whole story out, I’m not one of those people who can hop around and write a scene here and a scene there. So if I’m not feeling it, I’ll write a skeleton version. But – sometimes the fact that I’m “not in the mood” means there’s something off in the story. Maybe they’re not quite ready for that ménage scene yet. Maybe I’m forcing it. I have to do a gut check as to what might be wrong. Then it will flow better. 

6. Do you have plans to change directions with some of your future work or do you think erotic sexual intimacy is what you want to stick with for the most part?

I’m sure I’ll stick with sexual intimacy, but I have a project in mind that has a three-book overarching plot. My stories tend to have a lot of inner struggle, so I figured it’s time to put some external problems into the mix. The eroticism will still be there, of course, because that’s what I love to write about.

7.  What is your favorite type of sexual scene to write about?

I like scenes in which the characters discover something about themselves that changes everything. Like – learning that being tied up turns them on, or being with two men is twice as hot as just one. I like writing bondage scenes (though I’m not a hard-core BDSM writer) and I love writing ménage scenes except for all the darn pronouns. Keeping track of who’s doing what to whom can become complicated.

8. Is there a line that is drawn for you that makes a certain type of fantasy something that you wouldn’t want to write about?

Oh yes, many. I look at certain bestseller lists and I’m shocked by some of the titles. Anything about “Daddy”  -- no.  No no no. Pseudo incest, or whatever it is, does not appeal to me. Anything involving extreme pain or bloodshed is a turn-off for me. That’s just me – I’m not judging anyone else’s preference. It’s just not what I myself want to write about.

9. Can you tell us about BEAUTIFUL OBSESSION or another project you are working on? 

I’d love to talk about BEAUTIFUL OBSESSION! With this novella, I wanted to try a different way of telling a story to increase the intensity. It doesn’t have chapters or a traditional plot. Instead, it has moments – flashes of interaction between the characters. I love how it turned out, very intense, very focused on each character’s growing fascination with the others. It’s about a graduate student who becomes obsessed with three mysterious students in his building.

10. Free to say what you will, what would you like to express to everyone about yourself or your books that has never been brought out before?

Since your site is for lovers of vampires, werewolves and fairies, I’d like your readers to know that I intend to write a shifter story very soon! It’s going to be a bear shifter story. I figure, since I live in Alaska, in bear country, why put my intimate knowledge of their quirks and habits to use? We’ve had bears wander across our property, and they are truly magnificent creatures. I can’t wait to get started on that project!

Wow that's awesome! Please come back and let us know more about this project when you can. We LOVE shifters and I know our followers will want to know all about it.

Until then if you would like to know more about Juniper’s work you can find her at

http://www.juniperbell.com/index.html

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000086901136&ref=profile

http://twitter.com/AuthorJuniper

http://authorjuniperbell.blogspot.com/

or email her at juniper@juniperbell.com

Juniper is also sponsoring a great giveaway to one of our followers today. Leave a comment or question along with your email address and be entered to win any two ebooks from Juniper’s backlist. YUMMY!!!