When I get an idea that I think might make a good story, I sit down and try to write the first couple of pages of what might be the story based on that idea. If those first couple of pages become a chore, if I just can't seem to get the story started, or if what I wrote was just lousy, I abandon it. After all these years I have a huge folder full of false starts that I hope someday to revisit. If the story seems to flow well right from the start, I'll keep going and see how it turns out.

I don't remember the first story I ever read, but I clearly remember the first story I ever read that made me want to be a writer: "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin. Baldwin described music in such a way that changed my appreciation of it forever. With just a few words he broadened my vision. That's really something.

For pleasure I like to read hard-boiled detective stories, science fiction, and even some fantasy from time to time.

Some of my favorite authors are Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway, and Terry Brooks.

The possibility that something great might happen today.

The first story I ever wrote was a post-apocalypse story involving a band of survivors at an American university. It was fun, but probably not very good.

In no particular order:
Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, because it's beautiful.
Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, because I've never read anyone who enjoyed life so fully.
Piers Anthony's On a Pale Horse, because the idea was fantastic (man about to commit suicide becomes the Incarnation of Death).
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, for obvious reasons.
Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, because Scout had the greatest father in the world.

My desk is cluttered with computers, monitors, keyboards, printers, switches, flash drives, hard drives, and wires.

I started writing in high school, but I didn't really start to enjoy writing until I was in college.

When I started writing, the idea of independent publishing was considered almost shameful. If a big publisher didn't want your stuff, you weren't good enough. Now the landscape has changed and indie authors can compete with the big boys. I wanted to see what I could do with the vast resources that are now available courtesy of the Internet.