What was YOUR favorite part of ‘The Taste of Honey’?
What was YOUR favorite part of the book?
There are many favorite parts. They include among many, Mona’s dungeon play with Master Charles, the execution scene of Honey’s perpetrator, Mona’s investigation into Honey’s disappearance, Mona’s budding relationship with Renée and Honey’s final scene as she is preparing for her live roasting.
As I look back at each scene and how I felt when I wrote them, I realized that it was Honey’s roasting scene that was my favorite part. While the sex and her spitting is graphic, it was the love story that developed out of it that really captured my interest.
I wrote it from the first person perspective so that the reader would connect with Honey and accept her decision for a live roasting.
What I really liked about the scene is that you’re inside her head, experiencing what she experiences. You feel her final hours as she has her final sex with her Master, loving him as he discovers that he, in fact, loves her also. You, as the reader, experience the spit pushing into her sex, traveling through her body and exiting out her mouth. Ewe! You are right there with Honey as they gut her insides. You see what she sees as she is carried over to the fire pit and begins to roast. Through her eyes, you see her family and friends looking on, before she succumbs to the heat of the fire.
What I really liked about this scene is how I felt as I wrote it. When I started the writing the scene, my mind seemed to divorce itself from my body. My fingers flew over the keyboard. As the scene developed, I got wrapped up in her character. I felt for her. For awhile, I became her.
Ultimately, the scene defines the love relationship between Honey, her Master, her family and her closest friends, including Mona. Her spirituality is so strong that no one can divert her from this course. Even her own Master has told her over and over again that she did not need to do this. In this moment, he realizes that he loves and needs her. He needs her in his life and doesn’t want her to roast.
Honey, however, believes that she has a higher calling. Honey believes that her actions will help save them. She believes that her decision will allow her to live forever in him and her loved ones. As a result, they will live healthier and happier lives.
So, for those and for many other reasons, that is my favorite part of the book. What’s yours?
How did you come up with the title? Did the title come first or did the story?
Now, at that time, I wasn’t even thinking about publishing the story. I just wanted to write it. Now that I had a title, the rest of the story came together in a flash. Within minutes, I was furiously writing notes, capturing thoughts and ideas before they flashed out of existence. For me, it was a race to document the ideas, never mind whether I would use them all.
‘Methuselah’s Children’ was Heinlein’s early stories into what became his ‘Future Histories’ books. Over the decades, this author managed to weave many of his other books into the ‘Future Histories’ line.
