Today I am so pleased to welcome Jay Hogan to Joyfully Jay. Jay has come to talk to us about her latest release, Crossing The Touchline (An Auckland Med Story). She has also brought along a great tour wide giveaway. Please join me in giving her a big welcome!

It’s a funny thing being in a small country on the other side of the world and writing mm romance. I’m sure lots of other authors in similar positions, such as Australia (though they are much bigger), experience this too. You are at once cut off from the day to day life of the larger US and UK readership, and yet in other ways, through your genre Facebook friends and author groups, there is this odd immediacy as well. And then there is the differing world views and life experiences that making writing mm romance from a distinctly kiwi point of view, an individual process.

Making sure that that story can still be readily understood and digested by the larger readership unfamiliar with your country, can be amusing and challenging. Because let’s face it, a population of 4 million in NZ, isn’t going to sustain me, and although I want to keep the NZ flavour, I need to equally make sure it isn’t a turn-off for a reader.

Editing also highlights interesting failures of communication. Dreamspinner’s ‘Perchance to Dream’ imprint looks at representing mm romance stories set in Commonwealth countries, and for that reason it keeps the idioms and language eccentricities, slang and spelling, peculiar to that country. US ‘harbor’ becomes NZ ‘harbour’, ass becomes arse, and so on. It has made for interesting editor feedback when a regional slang or comment completely goes past the editor. NZ slang and Aussie slang are NOT interchangeable. I have had numerous comments from editors along the line of, ‘I have absolutely NO idea what that means’.

Kiwi’s typically shorten things, a laziness of speech. A good example is our habit of using the word ‘as’ but not adding what the comparison is.

• ‘He was hard as.’
• ‘I was angry as.’
• ‘He was cool as.’

We often don’t as the bit after the as, and editors are always asking me, ‘cool as’ …what? ‘angry as’…what? This is one particular phrase I am trying to not write now, as it clearly is a stumbling block for readers, even though in NZ it is really is an everyday form of speech.

And it’s always funny when readers pick you up for something they don’t’ think is typically kiwi and yet I use it all the time.

Other common slang:

• chur – thanks
• jandal – thongs or flip flops
• he’s a dag or he’s a hard case – he’s funny
• sweet as – cool, awesome, no problem
• ta – thanks
• stoked – happy
• munted – broken or drunk
• chocka – full
• a bit sus – a bit suspect, dodgy
• a piece of piss – easy
• he’s down in Dunners living the scarfie life – He’s down in Dunedin at university.

You get the point lol.

In ‘Crossing the Touchline’ this whole regional question was even more obvious because of the sport of rugby. Most US readers would have little idea about the sport, whereas most UK and Australian and South African would have much more familiarity. So in writing this book, I walked a fine line between giving enough information to make the story credible and real, and yet not too much to lose the attention of those unfamiliar with it. A little like a kiwi reading an mm romance about ice-hockey. You have to get the balance right. I hope I have but only you will be able to tell me.

Blurb

An Auckland Med. Story

What if you’ve worked your whole life for a dream, to play rugby for the most successful sports team on the planet, the New Zealand All Blacks?

What if that dream is so close you can smell it?

What if you meet someone?

What if you fall in love?

What if your dream will cost the man who’s stolen your heart?

And what if the dream changes?

Reuben Taylor has a choice to make.

Cameron Wano is that choice.

Bio

Jay Hogan is a New Zealand author writing in m/m romance, romantic suspense and fantasy. She has travelled extensively and has lived in quite a few countries. She has a BA degree in Nursing and in Theology, and in another life, she was an Intensive Care Nurse, Counselor, and a Lecturer.

She is a cat aficionado especially of Maine Coons, and an avid dog lover (but don’t tell the cat). She loves to cook- pretty damn good, loves to sing – pretty damn average, and as for loving full-time writing -absolutely… depending of course on the day, the word count, the deadline, how obliging her characters are, the ambient temperature in the Western Sahara, whether Jupiter is rising, the size of the ozone hole over New Zealand and how much coffee she’s had.

She has complex boys telling stories in her head that demand attention and a considerable number of words to go with them. Their journeys are never straightforward and even surprise Jay. She does her best to plot things out ahead of time but those pesky characters seem to have a mind of their own. Go figure.

You can find Jay at:

• https://www.facebook.com/JayHoganAuthor
• https://twitter.com/jayhoganauthor
• jayhoganauthor@gmail.com

Giveaway

Jay has brought a $20 Amazon gift card to give away to one lucky reader on her tour. Just follow the Rafflecopter below to enter. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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