Jax's Artistic Journey...

When I started out writing romance I had big dreams of being a paranormal romance author. I didn't think I would be writing anything else. Hence, the birth of GHOSTHUNTER. I've had this particular story spinning in my head since I was a kid and it slowly morphed into something so enormous and often overwhelming. As I grew older, so did my characters develop and become more grounded in my head. In the recesses of my mind, I know every detail of the Universe, the characters, the storyline. Often it was so draining I had to step away from the story. When I finally started penning the story, I had no idea how to write a proper manuscript. I was more interested in getting the story on paper and my first draft was terrible! But I was so proud I had completed the project, I didn't look beyond the mechanics and campy tone. Coming from a screenwriting background, it was a difficult transition to go from a dialogue driven piece to a detailed story with plot, dialogue, descriptives, etc...Thankfully, I've learned a lot since my first draft. If I could turn back time, I wouldn't have sent out that manuscript to any agents and editors, but you learn from your mistakes.

That part of my life was three years ago. A lot has happened since then.

I've since moved onto a new genre that I truly enjoy but it's just one of many genres I plan on writing. Today, I am most known for my contemporary erotic romances. I never thought I'd be doing it and writing erotic truthfully 'just happened'. I am a romantic at heart. I grew up being in love with love. I love the idea of love and like most girls, I want to find Prince Charming. I spent years writing screenplays, 98% of my stories were romantic comedies. Naturally, I was happy to write stories of love and romance. It took a little nudging from my girlfriends who wrote erotic to get me to write it. Love and romance came naturally for me and I couldn't pass up on writing about the process of falling in love, the beauty of lovemaking, the act of spiritual growth in a union. Growing up in a traditional ethnic household, there were lots of pressures to be discreet and respectable. Sex was never discussed and so it was easy for a teenager to become curious and want to learn about the unspoken act. Of course, often what was available online was unhelpful, but these days the internet is a wonderful resource for information and much more accurate. Well, it finally occurred to me that the mystery of sex was what led me to explore sexuality in my writing. I needed to dissect and understand what was perceived as right and what was wrong. I was on a personal quest and the discovery was very eye-opening. In understanding my own sensuality and sexuality, I embraced the power of women empowerment. I was finally in a different place in my life and in learning that liking sex wasn't wrong and didn't make you a bad, dirty person...my confidence soared. My openness to learning and exploring shaped the way I had viewed sex. It was liberating. It made me realize it is okay to explore your sexuality because it's truly a personal growth and life altering to hold that kind of knowledge about yourself. In respecting and understanding your own internal strengths and beauty, it could only make you stronger and more confident. I guess because of my own personal influences, I thought it would be a great platform to write multi-ethnic characters that were complex--characters who were fighting internal demons. Writing is a form of therapy because you get to explore the psychological aspect of a character and you hope your story resonates with someone. I'm not saying that what I write is based on my own life, I'm saying that as a writer you can sprinkle some aspects of your personal observations or experiences and incorporate it into the fictitious world of your characters.

With that said, I try to write stories that I would read. I may write multi-ethnic characters but the intention is not to highlight the ethnicity of my characters. My intentions are to write a love story that will transcend race and color. I grew up in an age where I didn't see race. My friends were kids I knew from pre-school and the issue of race never came up until I reached high school. It was a big adjustment to see the world in another light but I never tried to be anything other than an Asian-American who was more American than Asian. It was not about being embarrassed of my heritage but more of my environment and the type of people who influenced me. People who never made it a point to tell me I was different and because of these wonderful people, I continued life just being me. So perhaps I write with the desire that I hope to draw in readers who understand me, where I am coming from and that in some way my books will feel comfortable to them...that my readers will also see past ethnicity and would want to embrace the diversity of a new voice. A voice I hope that I am helping shape.