The greatest joy for me is to create something out of nothing. The characters in my Jade Harrington series have lives of their own; I could not now "uncreate" them. When a reader comes up to me and says, "I'm wondering what Jade's doing now?" or "What is Whitney doing now?" or "I hate Cole so much, I want to punch him in the face!" it infuses me with satisfaction. And makes me happy.

My fans mean everything. I write because I must--like breathing or eating--but I love receiving feedback from my readers. To entertain them or move them or compel someone to learn more about an issue that s/he read about in one of my books, makes all the ups and downs about the writing process worthwhile.

Writing.

Wow. There are so many. Some of them, not in any particular order, are: F. Scott Fitzgerald, E.M. Forster, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Leo Tolstoy, Ken Follett, Harlan Coben, Pat Conroy, Herman Wouk, Ann Patchett, and Patricia Cornwell.

I'm an Army brat, so I grew up everywhere and nowhere. I spent most of my childhood in Fairfax, Virginia. This location influenced my writing in many ways. Jade Harrington lives in Northern Virginia. If you grew up there or are from the area, parts of my books should be familiar to you. When you grow up near the most powerful city in the world, geopolitics are local politics. So, it's no surprise that I've always loved political thrillers and spy novels, and why I enjoy writing about the government and politics.

I was in high school, and I wrote a story about a boy who played basketball. If I recall, it didn't have much of a plot. I thought I came to writing late in life, but that story proves I had it in me all along.

As an accountant by trade, I'm a natural outliner. I start with one sentence of what the book is about, and then turn that sentence into a paragraph. The paragraph becomes four pages. From there, I create 100 short scenes in an Excel spreadsheet. I also draft pretty detailed character sketches for my main characters. Once my destination and guardrails are in place, I'm ready to write.

Reading. I almost always have a book in my hand.

I read different genres: thrillers, mystery / suspense, literature, current events, politics, biographies, historical fiction, and science fiction. I love to try new authors.

Ouch. I write at a cherry executive desk. I like my desk to be organized--everything in its place--but the longer I'm in the writing process (working on a draft), the more it looks like a paper-folder bomb went off on its surface. During breaks between drafts, I organize my desk again. And the cycle continues.

I am working on the second book in the Jade Harrington series. Jade, Whitney, and Cole are back from Don't Speak for more thrills. And a few surprises.