[Madhu, After Dark] I have had the pleasure of reading your book "Noah" which is featured on one of our lists and I absolutely loved the plot. The thing that stuck out, in particular, was the obvious age difference between the protagonists. Along with our readers, I'd love to know how that idea came into shape.

[Elizabeth Reyes, Featured Author] It's been YEARS since I wrote it and to be honest can't remember EXACTLY what brought the idea. My ideas come to from from everywhere and anything. Live, songs, other books, movies. Ironically usually movies or television shows that are not romantic. Sometimes I'll be watching a Dateline Mystery show and I'll get an idea and know exactly how I can spin it into a romance. What I remember most about Noah was that I'd just wrapped up my first series "Moreno Brothers" and it'd been quite a success. I'd had the idea of a series about young boxers out of East LA and all I knew is I wanted the introduction to them to be COMPLETELY different from MB. Not because I didn't like the idea of another MB series but because I didn't want it to seem like I was doing the same series all over. MB started with a very young innocent and sweet story of teen love. Then bam! It hit me.What if this young guy who's been through a lot more than your average teen, therefor far more mature, falls for an older woman. =D

[M] Well, it sure was quite a huge hit and the 5th street series is published, along with most of your other books.
When you started writing at first, did you expect that you would have achieved such heights?

[Eli] Never! I never even intended to write more than one book. The idea was simple enough. With self publishing I could finally finish a book I started WAY back in high school and get it published just so I could say I'd REALLY written a book. Then it hit and people started asking for Alex's story. It came to me, I wrote and published and the rest is history. =D

[M] Well, looks like luck was on your side! Or maybe it was just the sublime way you write. It sure did attract me.
So, Lizzie.. can I call you that? What was the first thing that drew you to write?

[Eli] I prefer Eli as in El-eee. I've been writing ALL my life. For as long as I can remember I've been making up stories in my head and as soon as I was able to write I started writing them down. I'd draw pictures too. And an artist in that was I was NOT. So you can imagine the stick figures that went with the stories. lol

[M] Sure thing Eli! That's pretty amazing that you started out writing as a kid. but, what inspired you to write material that is rated 'After Dark'?

[Eli, as in El-eee] In a word. Alex. LOL Like I said when I first wrote Forever Mine I had no intentions of writing another. It was a YA with a fade to black love scene. But I introduced Alex in FM as the older far more experienced womanizing brother. When readers started asking for his story I KNEW it was going to have to be steamier. So after his there was no turning back.

[M] Well, I'm the first person to be glad about that! :P
So, this is all about you as an author, but who are you out of Wattpad?

[Eli] As most authors I'm a hermit introvert for the most part. I have my immediate family (hubs and kids) who I spend most my time with. My kids are grown so they don't "need" me like they did when they were littles. I like cooking and gardening but mostly I spend about 75% of my time in my cave creating/writing and keeping up with my social media. Right now for example aside from answering your questions I'm putting together the LAST teaser for Girl In The Mirror my next release in my brand new series Looking Glass. It releases tomorrow. So I'll be posting that in a few minutes.

[M] That is awesome and I suppose a congratulation is in order, so congrats! And well, with you being a mom, my respect for you shot out of the roof! And I'm sure your new series would do equally well, if not better, as the last ones.
Well, your mentioning of the "cave" has got me super curious to know if you have any weird writing habits? Or you just sit down and pen everything together?

[Eli] I NEVER to outlines. They're just not for me. Even though I don't HAVE to it always makes me feel like I have to stick to a script and I like writing stuff as it comes to me. Sometimes my muse surprises even me. I'll be sitting there typing away and be like "Whoa! Where did that come from?" lol Nothing really weird happens other than when some story comes to me out of the blue and I have to set aside and I suddenly write like 10k words of the new story. Doesn't happen often that I write THAT much in one day but it has happened and I'm always exhausted but excited when I'm done. =)

never "do" that is.

[M] Ohh! That's awesome cuz you're literally cutting down all the double work you gotta do. All the talk about word limits, well did you ever get a writer's block? How'd you deal with it?

[Eli] I don't get writers block in the sense that NOTHING is coming to me because something is ALWAYS coming to me. What happens is I'll write myself into a corner in a particular story or come to a fork in the story if you will and can't make up my mind which way to go. So since I usually have two or even three other side projects I'll put my main WIP aside and work on one of the others until something comes to me or decide which road I'll be taking in my WIP. =)

[M] That's a really good way to go about it! But, among all these ideas, what is probably the one thing you've never written about? And was that on purpose?

[Eli] Dark romance is very popular and while I have written a few you might consider a little darker compared to my others I've never and probably will never go as dark as some of the stuff out there. It just doesn't do it for me. Torture and rape scenes just are not entertainment for me no matter how much you try to romanticize it. I'll likely have a scene or two in my upcoming stories where someone starts to get abused/tortured/raped but I'll cut to the next scene because for me the stories are about the romance. Maybe that stuff comes in to play but I'll never be graphic about it like I few I've STARTED to read and had to put down. Just not for me but I'm not putting it down. To each his own.

[M] True! Most people aren't comfortable with graphic scenes. But, then, there are a fair share who do like them, so like you said to each his own.
So, now, hypothetically if you're not a writer, what profession would you choose?

[Eli] For years I worked for the utilities in the customer service area. Specifically the bilingual area. I'm fluent in both Spanish and English. So fluent I'd begun studying to pass the court interpreter test and was REALLY looking forward to being a Spanish interpreter in the courts. It seemed so interesting and rewarding. But that was right around the time I'd finished writing FM and then just "for fun" started looking into the whole self publishing thing. Again, just so I can have one book on my shelf that I could proudly say I'd written and published. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would become my career.

[M] Well, I guess that I could say that, that's amazing and we, readers congratulate you and hope that you'd achieve all your dreams in the future!
So, I would like to wrap this interview up hoping that you'd keep writing and hopefully inspire others to write too!