William Hawke

Male 

44

Aries

Married

03 Aug 2020 13:01

Hmmm, life – my family, writing, travel, getting out in the sunshine. And five hours of television each day, six if there’s something good on.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured."

So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, soldiers and holy men, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.

As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals.

Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujahidin guerrillas---this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature.

I don’t know that I actually have a favourite author. If a story can keep me engaged with good writing, an interesting plot and sympathetic characters, I’m in. I find myself being more attracted to who the author is and the life they’ve led, more so than what they’ve written. It’s when their stories are drawn from their real lives that I become truly hooked. Gregory David Roberts and Andy McNab are two that immediately come to mind, and I find myself wanting to consume everything they’ve written.

I loved the Roald Dahl books that were read to me as a kid, capturing my imagination and taking me on fantastic journeys. Jack London was an easy-to-read storyteller who was among the first I read on my own. Tom Clancy was a predictable transition into my teens and indulged my adolescent interest in big boys’ toys. And Matthew Reilly and Suzanne Collins are an almost embarrassing escape into airport fiction. But for the most part, I’ll read just about anyone.

I’m going to admit to Bring It On. That’s right, I’m not ashamed. I stumbled across it one night, while flicking through a dismal selection on television. I’d seen the shorts for it on a video a few years earlier – remember those? Video cassettes? – and I wasn’t particularly interested. But it was the lesser of all the free-to-air evils at the time. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. It was light, it was fun, and Eliza Dushku’s character, Missy Pantone, has to be the coolest chick ever. It had attitude, but without being bitchy. I love it.

These days I find myself drawn mostly to fairly contemporary American sit-coms, like The Big Bang Theory, Friends (including the Joey spin-off), Frasier, Seinfeld, and Everybody Loves Raymond. There’s something comforting and non-threatening about them that really helps me relax and forget about the world. I’ll often go to sleep with them on in the background.

Of course, I love a good story-driven drama too, such as The West Wing, Criminal Minds, Justified, The Gilmore Girls (they speak fast, but they speak true), Supernatural, The Newsroom, and The Walking Dead. I’m a great binger, and I’m really enjoying the evolution towards the Netflix format of watching TV, with Better Call Saul our most recent foray.

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About You

Bio
My most recent publication is...

A contribution to the Lush Summer anthology now available on Amazon. It's about a pair of Australian marine park divers who work out a mutual adrenalin rush after a close encounter with a great white shark. It's a slow burn, with plenty of tension and heat, just perfect for a summer read. And of course, it's amongst sizzling company from some of the hottest authors on Lush, such as Buz, Poppet, MadameMolly, Liz and Sitting, just to name a few.

I'm inspired by...

Everything. Seriously, there’s a story in absolutely everything. Whether it’s an erotic spin-off of The Walking Dead, an experience I had at an airport lounge, a line from a song, or a fleeting vision of a woman in orange pants who was walking with her young son in a car park… I daydream a lot, maybe too much, definitely. I can spiral nearly anything into a story worth ruminating on. One that sticks hard for me is a young woman playing speed chess with a homeless man on a busy street corner in Sydney, while a moving Johnny Cash song blared from a nearby stereo. I’d just love to turn that into a story, but I’m just not sure where to go with it.

I started writing because...

I love it. I’ve always loved it. I’ve always had a wild imagination, and the ability to create my own universe and escape into it is just so appealing. As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer, even before the cliché boyhood dreams of becoming a policeman or a fighter pilot.

How did you get in to writing erotica?

Penthouse Forums were my first exposure to the art, which after many years of appreciation, eventually had me wondering if I could write some myself, and maybe even make a few dollars on the side. I thought it might be what I needed to break my procrastination for my own writing aspirations. In looking into it with a friend, he turned me onto internet erotica. Another year or two of…appreciation, and I finally had a crack at it myself.

I started with something simple, more as an exercise than anything else. I hadn’t set out to develop a plot or the characters, or anything. It was just to see what people thought of my writing. It was a version of Sleeping Over, which even now, remains my most read story. Beginner’s luck, I suppose.

What's your favourite writing genre, and why?

I don’t know that I particularly have a favourite erotic genre in terms of writing. All my stories so far are in different categories. I prefer to write something with a bit more story to it, rather than just boy meets girl, boy fucks girl, the end. I think the common thread in my writing is the focus on the female characters, even though I mainly write from the male perspective.

As a reader, I mostly enjoy the stories where women are sexually confident, and either embrace their sexuality, or surrender to it. So in that regard, I suppose I’m drawn to the group and cheating categories as an extension of that. I hope that my own writing captures that theme of female sexual empowerment to some extent. I just find it so fascinating, not to mention arousing.

Where do you get your creative juice / story ideas from?

Like I imagine most writers would answer, a mixture of fantasy and real life experience. The Houseguest and the first part of Overflow are almost entirely dreamt up, whereas Warning Order and Special Assistance are drawn heavily from my own life. Either way, I usually map out the story in my mind first, “road-testing” the good bits during periods of more solitary…reflection, you know, to make sure they’re up to it, and then I type it out.

What are your turn-ons?

I like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain. Fuck, I don’t know. I’m up for just about anything. I love female first person stories where the writer takes me on a journey, bringing me in on the secret, the sluttier the better. You know, the kind where you can almost imagine her lips unapologetically curled in a mischievous smirk as she tells the story? The fantasy that it could actually be true heightens the experience for me. But ultimately, I think it comes down to the quality of the storytelling. If you ask me nicely, and all that.
Tell the readers a little bit about yourself and the stories you like to write.

Interests
Hmmm, life – my family, writing, travel, getting out in the sunshine. And five hours of television each day, six if there’s something good on.

Favorite Books
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured."

So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.

As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals.

Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujahidin guerrillas---this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature.

Favorite Authors
I don’t know that I actually have a favourite author. If a story can keep me engaged with good writing, an interesting plot and sympathetic characters, I’m in. I find myself being more attracted to who the author is and the life they’ve led, more so than what they’ve written. It’s when their stories are drawn from their real lives that I become truly hooked. Gregory David Roberts and Andy McNab are two that immediately come to mind, and I find myself wanting to consume everything they’ve written.

I loved the Roald Dahl books that were read to me as a kid, capturing my imagination and taking me on fantastic journeys. Jack London was an easy-to-read storyteller who was among the first I read on my own. Tom Clancy was a predictable transition into my teens and indulged my adolescent interest in big boys’ toys. And Matthew Reilly and Suzanne Collins are an almost embarrassing escape into airport fiction. But for the most part, I’ll read just about anyone.

Favorite Movies
I’m going to admit to Bring It On. That’s right, I’m not ashamed. I stumbled across it one night, while flicking through a dismal selection on television. I’d seen the shorts for it on a video a few years earlier – remember those? Video cassettes? – and I wasn’t particularly interested. But it was the lesser of all the free-to-air evils at the time. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. It was light, it was fun, it was chock-full of attractive high school girls in limited clothing. And Eliza Dushku’s character, Missy Pantone, has to be the coolest chick ever. It had attitude, but without being bitchy. I love it.

Favourite TV Shows
These days I find myself drawn mostly to fairly contemporary American sit-coms, like The Big Bang Theory, Friends (including the Joey spin-off), Frasier, Seinfeld, and Everybody Loves Raymond. There’s something comforting and non-threatening about them that really helps me relax and forget about the world. I’ll often go to sleep with them on in the background.

Of course, I love a good story-driven drama too, such as The West Wing, Criminal Minds, Justified, The Gilmore Girls (they speak fast, but they speak true), Supernatural, The Newsroom, and The Walking Dead. I’m a great binger, and I’m really enjoying the evolution towards the Netflix format of watching TV, with Better Call Saul our most recent foray.


Favorite Music
Mainly top 40s radio in the car. Pretty boring and mainstream, I know. I like the more conventional melodic sound. But my wife is dragging me kicking and screaming into the present day, with her frequent downloads and constant retuning the radio to Triple J. I’m quite partial to some more alternative music, some Aussie hip hop, the occasional dance or dubstep number, and a little country too. A bit of everything really. The music that stands out though is the stuff with a political message.

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