There are many elements needed to produce a good story, erotic or otherwise. For me, the first and foremost element to start a story is location. If I can’t picture clearly in my head where the action takes place- be it an intensely hot screw in a store cupboard (Tied to the Kitchen Sink),  or a stomach churning encounter involving garden twine in a shed (The Voyeur)- then the words simply do not flow.

It is for this reason that every single story I’ve ever written, from the shortest piece of flash fiction, to my longest novel, have all been set in genuine locations. What happens in those chosen places may be entirely fictional (with the occasional exception!), but every background setting within a Kay Jaybee tale is 100% real.

On occasion, I have tried to invent places in which to gather people, and then take their clothes off (or not), but none of these stories have worked. I need to be able to feel the vibe of a location. To know how the air conditioning hums, or how the damp aroma of rain soaked wood would affect the characters in a certain environment. I want to be able to accurately assess these environmental conditions, so each location has to be real.

An excellent example of this can be found in my recently re-released #eroticromance, Digging Deep .

Blurb

Dr Beth Andrews’ first foreign excavation, which she co-runs with the American archaeologist Dr Harrison Harris, gets off to a shaky start.

Thanks to the jealous interference of Harrison’s ex, an overzealous student, and a broken mosaic, Anglo-American relations are pushed to the limit, while Beth’s erotic and romantic expectations are similarly tested.

Love and lust really can cloud even the cleverest person’s judgement!

***

I had long wanted to use some of my experiences as an archaeologist in my work. In this case it wasn’t so much the amazing excavation I was part of that attracted me to write Digging Deep, but the difficulties of doing such work under the trying circumstances the location had to offer. Difficulties I faced myself, as an archaeologist, in the early 1990’s.

Tunisian Olive Groves

Tunisian Olive Groves

Tunisia might well be the perfect place to soak up the sun as a tourist in a nice luxury hotel, but outside of tourist world, it is a very different story. I wanted to capture how challenging, both physically and mentally, it is to sleep in a freezing cold half built house, on bare concrete floors, and then bake by day beneath a 120+ degree sun. Add to this the frustration of digging in sand, with its oh so annoying habit of backfilling in on itself every few minutes, and you have the perfect location and situation for even the most intelligent people to lose their sense of perspective- something which happened in real life as well as in the pages of Digging Deep– although in a completely different way!!

You can buy Digging Deep from Amazon-

Digging Deep eBook : Jaybee, Kay: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

It is my practise of using real locations in my manuscripts, which has led me to develop the habit of greeting every new place I visit with a silent surveillance of erotic suitability. There can’t be a café, library, museum, shop, store cupboard, or indeed anywhere, that hasn’t been corrupted Kay-style in my mind, as my ever active imagination seeks out new stories in every place possible!

So be warned- don’t invite be to your place – unless you want your living room to turn up in a future Kay Jaybee number!

Happy reading,

Kay xx