Why not? I’m retired, I’m creative, I have voices in my head—short of taking pills, what should I do? My muses (plural) are those voices in my writer’s brain. They pester my dreams, they invade my quiet and seriously distract me when driving. Ugh! I have sworn never to talk back to them—someone might think I was nuts. Anyway,my muses are way too busy talking to each other.

Just before I retired in 2008, I began doing some research into my orphaned mother’s background. She’d always made me promise not to delve into her childhood, but she’d been gone for ten years and I knew that, if I didn’t do it, it might never be done and questions—made of greater import by her own attitude—might never be answered.

There was one mystery that popped up in my research and it set my imagination flowing. When I relayed my imagined story to a friend, she encouraged me to write a book about it.

What can I say? I fell for the oldest line in the world after, “Hey, mister, wanna friend for the night?” By the time I retired three months later, the story was written and it was the first of what is currently 22 books.

I have spent many happy hours in Virginia Beach during off-season, when the winds blow cold and hard and the salty air whips at the weather-protected palms. This is the locale chosen for my Preston Andrews series. Locals and visitors alike find many familiar frames of reference in this series. #13 in the series is "Killing Without A Trace".

A serial killer hits Virginia Beach on day #1 of spring break. Press's first thought is that an old nemesis (dead) from many years ago has come back to haunt him. The victims are, as before, the daughters of well-known families--except one. Press is thrown by the anomaly. Why the daughter of an unemployed man of modest means?

His only goal is to stop the killing before break ends and he loses more girls and perhaps the killer. He calls in the Virginia team and together they try to put the puzzle together.

What other writer inspires you? Your work?

Nora Roberts is the queen of my little world. Others to whom I pay court are Patricia Cornwell, Janet Evanovich (I love putting humor into my stories), Sandra Brown is a princess, as is Lisa Jackson. You get the idea.

Everywhere I go these days I see a conglomeration of descriptions for those of us who are independent authors--to those not in the "writing" biz, that means we do not darken the doors of Random House or other traditional publishers. We do the job(s) normally done by those hallowed halls of tradition all by ourselves.

That in itself tells you we are another breed altogether. We're not afraid to tackle our own responsibility for the work we put out there to the reading public.

We meet marketing our work head-on--ummmm--maybe not so head-on. Sometimes it's after a period of procrastination as fear of rejection is a terrible thing.

We cheerfully arrange our own book signing--well, okay, maybe not so very cheerfully, but we do it despite the odds!

We hawk our wares night and day--even our relatives walk the other way when they see us coming. So sad!

We creatively produce our own video trailers. By the way, have you seen my lat...oh, I digress.

We tweet, twitter, twerp--whatever you call it--until our poor fingers can no longer type "http" and our Hoot owl starts smoking.

We make hundreds of new friends via FaceBook, Linkedin, Google+, yada yada yada. And still we feel somewhat empty--writing is a very solitary vocation.

Then, what do we get? (Only if we're lucky, mind you.) Reviews of the rating variety where we have no idea what that person gave us a 1 when 20 gave us 5s, 4s and 3s. We cry over harsh reviews of the work we were so very proud of when we put it out there. (Here's where those hundreds of new friends come in handy. They keep us out of the ER and back into our writing!)

We go through alllllll of this just to be called an indie writer? I say NO! I am an Indie Writer. (Note to reader, see those caps?) I'm proud of what I do. I may not always do it right, but I try--and MY mom said that was a good thing! I earned that capital "I" and "W". I've sweated bullets over a story, edited until I nearly went blind, hawked my work to others for honest reviews and editing ideas. Some of us even design our own covers (I am one of those). I do all those things listed above.

I am an Indie Writer and I'm proud of it and me!

Excuse me. Did you hear that faint sound of cheering? I'd swear I heard...

Everything! Imagine getting nominated for something red carpetlike--well, it is just that great to hear from a fan. I graciously accept this award...

Well, drat. I can’t talk about my 17 pound cat, Potter As In H-A-I-R-Y (Pottie for short), or my 14 pound chihuahua, Lanc-a-lot, of my grandkids or great grandkids—what the heck else is there? Hummmmm I adore gardening, but I can’t do it anymore. I used to paint (acrylics on canvas) but haven’t since I began writing. I love mysteries, read Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown, Janet Evanovich, Lisa Jackson and Patricia Cornwell until my eyes turn red. Other than that, I’m just a normal old lady writing about murder!

Well, let’s see—I’ve written romance with mystery, mystery with romance, mystery without romance, five historical romance/mysteries, one mystery/romance series—everything from a single volume to a 13-book series, novellas and three sagas. So, I guess it’s Historic/Romantic/Mystery Fiction. How’s that for a genre?

Oh, there is absolutely nothing outlined about my stories. Sometimes I just start with a title and let loose the hounds…ah, characters (my Preston Andrews mysteries). I let the voices in my head...ah...my muses do hard stuff. Strictly seat of pants!