Before you start reading our guest blog today, be sure you have a nice cold drink handy. Without a doubt before you finish reading about the world that Lynn Lorenz has created you will be fanning yourself from the heat. Oh my,.... crank the AC and read on.

When Worlds Collide

By Lynn Lorenz

            Every time an author writes a story, she/he creates a world, even if it’s the world just down the block, familiar and well-worn. There’s an art to re-creating the everyday, to painting a picture so everyone who reads it says, “oh, yeah, it’s just like that!”

            But when an author takes reality and twists it, shoots it into space, or the future or the past, there’s art in that also. Most people have no reference for life on a distant planet, or deep inside the Earth, so it’s up to the writer to conjure up just enough of the “everyday” to plant the reader’s feet firmly on this world while taking them safely into worlds not yet discovered or experienced.

            I love world building. Just love it. Writing is creating, but creating a new world can be truly an act of creativity. Some people just have it in them. They can write of that different place and readers can see it plain as day, no matter how bizarre or weird or horrific it might be.

            My ideas start with a tickle, a little “what if” that nags at me until enough of it forms for me to write it down. It was that way with Tor, the first book in my new series WereWolf Fight League, from Loose Id.

            I love UFC fighting and wanted to do a series set around it. But I also love writing werewolves, so naturally my mind when to fighting werewolves. However, I’m always looking for a twist, something different that sets my stories apart from others. After all, no story is new, it’s just how it’s told that makes it different.

            So I played a little game of “mash-up” and came up with some of my favorite settings in time and blended them together to create the world Tor and his fellow werewolves live in.

            It’s a harsh world. Werewolves, among others, are slaves, bought and sold, owned by men who belong to the Fight League. The League televises the fights, controls all the money that flows around the fights, including gambling, television rights, and a take of the entrance fees, and all that money is split between them.

            Owners are rich, or at least, they’re supposed to be, but in my world, people are people, and that means they’re flawed. They fail. They scheme. They lie and cheat.

            So this is not modern day Earth, but some form of it. Perhaps a parallel dimension? Alternate universe? Dystopia? Whatever floats your boat, but it’s not this world by a long shot.

            Tor is a slave, has been all his life. He was bred for fighting, grew up in a litter of other werewolves, stripped of his parents. His world is one of pain, training, and controlled anger but he’s learned to grab what happiness he can find where he can find it. And he’s found it with his mate of three years, Jin. But Tor’s world in and out of the cage is cruel and Jin is killed. I had to kill Jin off, you know. Tor had to suffer, had to be reminded that he’s a slave, subject to the whims of his master and the hard reality of the cage fights.

            Now, I love the idea of slaves – it’s such a taboo, but so sexy. Of course, the werewolves are slaves, but I wanted other slaves also. In this sort of society, there would be many types of slaves.

            And where better to train a slave than a harem? So I threw in my love and interest in Persian harems and created a bratty little slave boy named Sky. Sky grew up a slave, and was chosen to be a sex slave because of his beauty. And he was also chosen to be a virgin, so he’s very valuable. Sky is also sheltered, pampered and very innocent. Not in the art of making love, but in emotions and relationships. He’s wrapped in a burka from head to toe, only his eyes are visible, to protect him as much as to keep him separated from the world he lives in.

            What’s a slave boy to do when he finds himself bought and given to a werewolf?

            Dog fights. Thoroughbred racing. Roman gladiators.

            I wanted to add those elements into my world. Everyone gets the dog fights – werewolves, right? But I wanted it to be more than just throwing two wolves in a cage and letting them maul each other. I wanted the men in there also, for the UFC factor, sweaty, straining, muscular men grappling with each other. Yeah. Whew! Get me a towel!

            So in my world, the men fight and shift only when it’s to an advantage, and they are guided by their mates or their trainers. Because in my world, the mates are in the cage with the werewolves – being defended from a challenger, who has the chance to beat the defending wolf and take and claim his mate. We all know “claim” means “fuck”, right?

            Right there, in the cage, in front of the crowd and the televised audience. And did I mention everyone is naked. Yep! Naked.           

            Stakes are high. Pride and titles are on the line, and even more, mates are forfeit.

            But all isn’t horrible for these fighters. They’re trained athletes, and treated almost like thoroughbred horses – bought, sold, studded out – they’re valuable to their owners and treated better than most slaves.

            Now take all that and wrap it up in a complex modeled on the Roman Coliseum, a multi-level building housing living quarters, training facilities and the arena. Guards roam the halls, with “shoot to stun” orders for any slave traveling alone. Lights, heat, air, are all controlled.

            That’s the world of the WereWolf Fight League.

            I hope readers will enjoy stepping into this world to see my men fight. It might not be to the death, but something will always be at risk – and it’s usually someone’s heart.

Lynn is hosting a giveaway to one of our lucky followers. A random drawing for a copy of TOR on a wristband flash drive is up for grabs. Just leave a question or comment along with your email address to be entered (US residents only)

WereWolf Fight League: Tor  by Lynn Lorenz

From Loose Id    http://www.loose-id.com/WereWolf-Fight-League-1-Tor.aspx

About Lynn

My husband of 20+ years says this is where I should make up a lot of interesting stuff about my life, which isn’t very interesting. Which is probably why I write.
I’m from New Orleans, that’s N’awlins for those of you who speak the language. I grew up in the Riverbend, or Carrollton, for the old timers, but was a Quarter rat from the age of 11, taking 3 buses to go to art class on Burgundy Street at the Cabrini Doll Museum and NORD center. I attended University of New Orleans and have a BA in Fine Art. My mother worked at Tulane University, six blocks from our house and when we were kids my brother and I parked cars in our driveway for the Saints games at Tulane Stadium. We could get six cars down the drive, two on the front lawn, and two on the street and we only charged $2 a car. We made enough to buy a coupla roast beef po’boys at Comeaux’s on Hickory St. and a snowball over at Williams Snow Ball Stand. We lived 1/2 a block from a cemetery, but doesn’t everyone in N’awlins? We used to watch jazz funerals from our front porch.
Now, my family lives in Katy, Texas. I have a “real” job, a truly supportive and understanding husband, two incredible kids, and a slightly neurotic dog. We used to have a guinea pig, but the dog killed it. Did I say slightly?
My son is 15 and has Asperger’s Syndrome (high functioning Autism) and Crohn’s Disease, and is a constant lesson in patience, acceptance and managing expectations. He’s super smart, loves video games, fencing, movies, building with legos, and hanging around the house. Like me, he believes that it’s all about him. Sometimes, I wonder if I don’t have Asperger’s, too. Oh, and he’s very handsome.
My daughter, 13, is so creative it’s scary- she loves to paint, draw manga and anima, build dioramas with any box she can get her hands on, create worlds with legos and then make movies with them, sculpt people, animals and objects with those little twist ties from the grocery store, does pottery, and wants to be a lifeguard. And she’s smart, too. And
beautiful, inside and out.

I write for a few hours in the evenings and on weekends as much as I can, without neglecting my family. (That laughter you hear is my husband) I attend a critique group, and do whatever the kids are into at the time.

Contact me at LynnLorenz@live.com

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