I've been writing in some way from a very early age. Most of my earliest writing were poems, but the very first prose I wrote was a mystery/thriller novella about a man who got brutally murdered and became a vengeful ghost set on avenging his own death and protecting his beloved wife. Now that I think about it, that probably should have been my first clue that I would become a published author one day. The story was pretty dark and gruesome and very detailed in its plot and mythology. Most eleven-year-olds don't write that way, I don't think. LOL

I grew up in a small country in Europe. It's not very know for its industries, but more for its natural beauty. While they've adopted Christianity as the main religion, many of the old pagan customs and beliefs are still prominent, though now they tend to be labeled as superstitions. I've grown up believing in elves, fairies, demons and vampires as part of life. It's been a tremendous influence on me personally and on my writing. I write what I would want to read, describe worlds I'd want to live in and creatures I would want to meet, and in that sense, there is a little (or a lot) of the supernatural and magical in all of my books and stories.

I will get random ideas and inspiration throughout the day or week, and try to write them down whenever I can. Inevitably, all of them end up in one story or another, even when they are completely unrelated to whatever I happen to be working on at the time. At least a day or two a week I try to sit down and just write. I need to immerse myself in the plot completely and when that happens, the words flow. Once I'm in that place, I don't think about anything else, including food. I lose track of time and only come up for air when I start getting hunger headaches. It's probably not a very healthy process, but it works for me. =)

With great drive and relentless nit picking. I am a perfectionist, in that I will never say "Good enough" when I know I can do better. If I know a book will be part of a series, I try to create all the covers at the same time. That way I can be sure they will match. Usually I already know my characters and worlds so well if I had any intrinsic artistic talent I could draw them in my sleep. Alas, I do not, so I use stock images and GIMP. I look for faces first, and try to match them to my characters as best I can. From there, it's only a matter of putting elements together and making sure they blend well. I put as much dedication into the covers as I do the books themselves, because they deserve nothing less.

The Kindle Keyboard, which has sadly been discontinued, so I am taking very good care of mine so that it can last a good long while. Of all the models, it's the most convenient and comfortable to read on. The screen stays nice and clean because I don't have to touch it, it has lots of memory and if I want to listen to an audio book, or music while I read, I can do that, too.

My first indie book was The Beast, which I had posted on my blog by chapters as it was being written. Once it was finished, I made a PDF version of it available on my website, but I thought, "I can do better than this!" A friend of mine directed me to Smashwords as a way to give the novella structure and make it widely available. I didn't really expect it to do much other than sit there, to be honest, so imagine my surprise that a year and a half later, it's found its way to over 20,000 readers! It is exciting and humbling at the same time, to know that my words are reaching so many people. I wanted to do more, to share more of my stories without the filter and crucible of publishing houses. It's been an amazing experience and I will forever be indebted to my friend for showing me how easily possible it all was.

My latest is Sweetest Kiss (The Rebel Court, book 3). The premise of this series is to see what happened to Snow White's band of seven Rebels (or dwarves, in the Disney version) after she finally defeated the evil queen and took the throne. I started this series to test myself--although I write romance with steamy content all the time, making sex such a prominent part of the story is definitely a challenge. In Sweetest Kiss, the hero would be the adult equivalent of Sneezy. He's constantly in pain from an evil curse and, while there are things he can do to reduce the pain, the curse is difficult to remove. As the series grows and the heroes remember the time before Snow took the throne, they drop hints and brief episodes of what Snow and her Rebels went through. It's almost like telling Snow White's story in little bites through the eyes of her allies. I'm very much enjoying that aspect of this series.

At the moment, I have several balls in the air, so to speak. One of them is book 3 of the Dawn of Ragnarok series ( of which The Royal Wizard is book 1, and Dragonblood is book 2). Prince Fal, the hero of Prince of Deceit, is faced with having to see his kingdom and his people through a perilous time of great change, all on his own. It's no easy task, considering his own, personal difficulties alone are immense. This book is the conclusion of the Dawn of Ragnarok trilogy and, in many ways, it'll mark an end of an era.