Most of the time I am in a position to write, I head out of the house a little after 6am, drive to either Costa or Starbucks and work on a story for two to three hours fueled by skinny lattes. I'll return home, recharge my laptop and do 'normal life' things, then if the opportunity permits, I head out again in the afternoon to park somewhere quiet and sitting in the back seat of my car, I'll work for another two hours.
I know... I'm odd like that.

I grew up on a rural private estate surrounded by hundreds of acres of trees, fields and lakes. My brothers were all older than myself and I was often left to my own devices, my imagination grew. As I discovered books, I began to people the land around me with fictitious people and fairly soon, they dragged me into their struggles.
It wasn't long before other worlds began to creep into my imagination and I felt the need to put these new stories down.

For the most part, I read traditional fantasy such as Terry Brooks, David Gemmell and the like. I like stories that draw the reader in and the more imaginative the premise, the more I tend to enjoy myself. I'll strecth into other writing styles periodically, Simon Scarrow's Macro and Cato series captured me as have many Richard Laymon, Dean Koontz and Stephen King books.
If a story has engaging characters and a well thought out plot, I'm usually content.

When I write of a characters sadness, I want to hear them cry, when I write of a characters joy, I want to hear the reader celebrate with them. When a fan tells me they cried when I'd intended they should, everything seems right with the world.
What do my fans mean to me? They are why I write. I never expected it to be like this, my aspiration was to write because I wanted to write, now I write because I want my fans to enjoy my words. I take genuine pleasure in hearing a reader enjoyed my words. This is the reason I've chosen not to shelter behind an Author page on Facebook; my Facebook page is my personal page, accessible to all in the hope people will interact with me.

There have been three stages of my writing being birthed. In my early teens, I played with ideas for stories spending longer researching than actually writing. A decade later, I started to extend my writing but I failed to acquire the discipline to finish my stories. It wasn't until 2014 that I actively began to pursue my writing and a compulsion struck me that has enabled me to focus on my stories from inception to completion and now, I can consider myself a writer at last.

It is the desire to craft a world peopled by characters that are neither too perfect, nor too flawed. The desire, the urge to get a reader to identify with a character, to weep with them, rejoice with them... I have a need to drag an emotional response from the reader. Above that though, the true joy is to hear a reader enjoyed something I imagined and brought into the world. I love to write but more than that, I love to know my writing is enjoyed.

Aside from Lucifer, the third book in my Dark Angel trilogy, I am also writing an emotional tale of a gypsy in 1953 who, despite being engaged, falls in love with a young man in the village his group have camped by. It's a hard tale because aside from homosexuality being illegal, the gypsy culture doesn't permit him to be who he truly is; hence the title of The Gypsy's Lie.
I'm also exploring a few unrelated tales, I have a steampunk story being birthed, a post apocalyptic, dystopian story nagging at me to be written, a historical romance that is mired in truth of highwayman activity. I've many stories all fighting each other to be told!

My latest book is the second of a trilogy. The set are titled Dark Angel trilogy after the first book in the series but the latest book is Hell on Earth.
The guts of the story are that good souls get to go to Heaven and bad souls go to Hell but what began as an exploration into what happened to the grey souls has grown. What started as a story of a dark angel, one who was neither good nor bad has become a fight by the angels of the Host against against the demons of the Spawn.
With demons seeking to create a Hell on Earth focused around present day London, the angels are trying to fight them. The angels are heavily outnumbered and they attempt to co-opt the dark angels into saving mankind.

Cover design is a complex process. I am usually a few thousand words into a story when I gain a slight inkling of what I want the cover to suggest. The idea may grow over the next chapters or be turned completely on its head but by the time I near completion, I know how the cover should look.
The Gypsy's Lie has a planned cover design that was nothing like the original intent. I thought I would want a close up of a bloodied bare knuckle boxer but I worried it suggested a violent storyline. I gave it thought and some strange inspiration came to me to use tarot cards scattered to show 'the lovers', 'the charriot' and 'the fool'; they seemed to more express the story.

I most often use a kindle for my reading, it's convenient, the light source doesn't matter, the position I'm sitting or lying in has no relevance but... I adore holding a physical book. Paper back or hardback, there is something about the tangible presence of paper, the ability to flick back a few pages to check something.
I've not tried other reading devices though even using the kindle app on my pc or phone just doesn't do it for me. I think the option I'd most like to try is the ipad; maybe in due course.

I'm a fan of Terry Pratchett, Terry Brookes, Simon Scarrow and many other writers but my favourite author is David Gemmell. His stories have characters that you truly feel for. The hero is always flawed, often unsuited to the role they are pushed into and described with so much feeling that you can sense the presence of them. The same can be said for his villians, the bad guys are not painted dark, they have noble intent and moments of generous spirit. I have learned more of character creation from David Gemmell's work than from any other source.

My desk is either a table in Starbucks or a slab of wood across my knees in the back seat of the car.

In truth, I'd have preferred to run with traditional publishing but the process takes so long I lost heart. I submitted Her Name is James to two a publishing house and after hearing back, I tried an agent but both parties told me the book didn't fit comfortably in genres they published. On the positive side, nobody spoke against my writing or story but as it took such a long time, I decided to try indie publishing and continued with the next three books.