For many, writing is a solitary activity, and I’ve always had a tendency to be a bit of a loner. I’d rather be reading a book than out partying into the small hours. In fact, right up until my mid-twenties I led a quiet life, and although I’d lived in various parts of the UK I’d only rarely ventured into foreign territories. I was a real home girl.
Then, realisation struck: life was passing me by. If I didn’t go out and seize every experience I could, then no one was going to do it for me. Since then, I’ve travelled a lot, and lived in some fabulous places around the world - my first overseas home was a beach cabin in Kerala. Making my living from various forms of writing means I’m not tied to any one place and that has been a truly liberating thing.
But there are dangers in this kind of life, too: the loneliness of the long-distance traveler, if you like. I have lots of friends, but they’re widely scattered around the world. And given that I do have that tendency to be a loner, when I’m somewhere new and have no ties or network, it’s easy for me to retreat into the pages of a book, whether it’s one I’m reading or one I’m writing.
For these reasons, one decision I made early on about my writing routine is something I’ve never regretted and it has become my guilty indulgence. I try not to write in my trailer or hotel room, or in the lovely little forest cabin where I’m currently living. I get out there, into the thick of things. I relish the buzz of everyday life around me, and so wherever I happen to be living you're likely to find me at the nearest wifi hot spot with my laptop and a large mug of coffee. Starbucks, Costa, or a quirky little coffee and cake shop run by throwbacks to the 60s - I love them all.
I write in intense bursts and then I indulge myself by sitting back and doing a bit of people-watching: those half-heard conversations, the little interactions, the tics and body language. I find myself filling in these strangers’ stories and so it is that I spend my days sitting among dreamers and spies, playing a vicarious part in secret rendezvous, in lovers’ brief encounters and bittersweet farewells. I find other people endlessly fascinating, and as I constantly remind myself, it’s only stalking if you follow them home.
Ruby Fielding’s new shifter novella, Hunted, was recently published by James Grieve Press:
Should she struggle to survive alone or give in to desire and risk the - perhaps deadly - company of others?
In a world where plague has swept civilization away like leaves in a storm, where viruses that cause people to shift and change have altered what it is, for most, to be human, a few survivors hold out in a desperate attempt to save the human race. Selene lives alone in the forest, protecting herself from human and shifter alike until one day a stranger turns up: a young man called Skinner, out on a quest to hunt down and destroy any shifter he can find. Torn between desire and fear, Selene must confront her true nature and make some impossible choices if she is to survive this harsh, post-apocalyptic future.
Hunted: a Shifters' World novella - a shapeshifter erotic romance of survival and desire in a deadly future from the co-author of Seduced by Moonlight and The Touch.
Extract
He had been lying back in the water, arms spread, eyes shut, drifting slowly until now he straightened, found his footing on the rocky bottom of the pool – she knew the slimy hardness of those rocks so well! – and stood.
Swaying for balance, the water came up to his ribs now.
His arms were long and lean, his frame wiry and muscular. He had the look of a fighter, a scrapper. A survivor.
That smudge of dark hair thickened across his chest, down over his ribs and over his belly, she saw, as he started to emerge from the water, treading carefully as he headed towards dry land... towards her.
His belly rippled with muscles and looked hard, dark with that hair as it thickened towards...
She swallowed as he paused, the water around his thighs and the long shaft of his manhood hanging down, fat and heavy. Its head just touched the water’s surface, sending its own ripples spreading outwards.
She reached down, fingers trailing across her ribs, her belly, to the waistband of her jeans, that belt of cord and the hardness she had tucked there before venturing out.
Easing it free, she raised the handgun, suddenly very aware of its weight. She didn’t aim it yet, just stood there with it poised. A solid lump of reassurance in her hands.
The man stretched, yawning, and she watched his manhood twitch, and then flop to one side as he took another step out of the water. Its length swung easily as he moved.
“You got a silver bullet in that thing?”
He was staring right at the screen of vegetation, as if he could see through it!
She didn’t move. She wasn’t the only one whose senses were attuned to the environment, it seemed.
“If so, you don’t want to be wasting that silver bullet on me,” the man went on.
How long since she’d heard another voice? She didn’t know. Another memory lost, or buried deep.
“It’s an old wives’ tale anyhow.” The man’s tone was easy, conversational; no indication from his voice that she had a handgun that was now trained on him and he was standing there butt-naked in front of her. “Silver bullet or any old bullet – you hit one of the beasts right in the head or in the heart and it’ll drop just like a man. Useful piece of information that, and I’m giving it you as a gift, you hear me?”
One more step, another, and he was clear of the water.
She studied him, unable to deny the base feelings the sight stirred in her. How long had it been? Since the touch of another human, of bare skin against her own. The intimacy, and the trust.
And damn, but he was growing hard as he stood there! As he’d been talking, that shaft had thickened even more as it filled out, hung longer, then started to push away from his body. Then, like an animal emerging from its lair, the swollen purple head started to break free, the skin rolling back to reveal that most intimate of places.
Now, the man shrugged, and a shy smile broke across his face. “I think I need to apologize, ma’am. It’s been a time and I guess my body’s got a few less manners than the rest of me. If you’d just allow me to...?” He nodded towards a pile of clothes nearby.
She caught herself. She had to pull herself together, stop reacting like this. She was a woman. She was a human. She was in control of herself and her responses. She wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted by...
“No,” she snapped.
How long since she’d spoken aloud? Her voice was dry, little more than a croak. “You wait there where I can see you,” she went on. “Ain’t no reason why I should trust you with your things.” Who knew what he might have concealed there with his clothes?
He shrugged, and spread his hands briefly, as if to acknowledge the sense in her caution, and damn, but that thing of his just cranked itself up a notch or two higher as, finally, she broke free of her hiding place and came to stand before him.
Hunted: a Shifters' World novella is available from:
Amazon.com |
Amazon.co.uk |
Barnes and Noble |
Kobo |
Google Play
Ruby Fielding is a British author, currently living in the heart of a New England forest. She travels widely, and has lived in England, Scotland, the US, France, India and Australia. Wherever she happens to be living, you're likely to find her at the nearest wifi hot spot with her laptop and a large mug of coffee.
She writes mainly paranormal erotica and romance, sometimes in collaboration with her old friend
Polly J Adams; their joint stories are published separately and collected together into the single volume, Seduced by Moonlight.
All the latest news on Ruby's writing and publishing can be found on her
website and on her
Amazon author page; also, why not join her
mailing list, or hook up with her on
Facebook?
This book was given to us by the author. Many thanks.
