I don't remember ever not writing. My earliest memory of writing stories or poems goes back to Kindergarten and First Grade, when I wrote and illustrated a book about my dog as part of a class project, and my teacher and the school librarian bound it into a book. I remember walking into the librarian's office and selecting my own fabric for the cover, and how proud I was when the book was delivered to me a few days later, bound in cardboard and fabric. It had a stick-on label on the cover printed with the book's title and my name. It was a simple handmade binding job, but to me it was beautiful. I still have that book today.

The freedom and the sheer possibility. I love that I keep control of my books. I do a lot of free promos, and I want the ability to give my writing away when I choose to. This is very important to me. Also, e-books in particular offer such ease in formatting and getting a book out there, and almost endless opportunities for connecting with readers and sharing my work to a worldwide audience. To be honest, I'm super excited about the future of the publishing industry for indie authors, and I love to explore new platforms and new opportunities. I teach writing as well, so I spend a lot of time researching the industry, testing things out, and then sharing my discoveries with my students.

Watching a whole world emerge from nothing. Really, it's amazing if you think about it, that every story starts as a blank page, and from that -- just a page and a writer's imagination -- people, societies, places, and worlds just appear. It's an amazing process, and one that I love being a part of. It can be a little scary at times! It's a lot of pressure, in a way, to make all the choices upon which characters and whole societies will function... but there's also nothing like it. I love doing it, and I love watching my students do it! I teach a Collaborative Novel Writing class , and some of my most exciting moments have been in the classroom, when my students are brainstorming and I'm not even the one creating, I'm just taking notes as fast as I can on the board as they build on each other's ideas, and it's like a whole universe just comes into being before my eyes. It's magical.

They are my reason for writing. I know some writers say they would write even if no one read it, and... I don't know; maybe I would. When I was little, I wrote some stories that I never planned on showing to people. But those were few and far between. Writing, for me, is a form of communication. It's like I have this message, this feeling or idea, that is bursting to be shared. And so I put it on the page, and I craft it so that it communicates what I felt, what I saw, when it was in my head. It's not always easy to do. But without the readers -- the fans -- are the ones who receive the message, and then they take it and make it their own. They see things in it that I may not have even seen when I wrote it, and that connects us in a way, even if I've never met them, even if we live on opposite sides of the world. That's pretty incredible.

I love fantasy authors who create beautiful relationships and captivating worlds. I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. I also love Patrick Rothfuss's writing style. There's something poetic and musical in how he crafts his sentences. I also love the depth of the characters and the complex relationships between characters in some of the classics. I think my favorite writers in this respect would have to be Dickens (David Copperfield!), Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind), and Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird).

I also have a huge respect for Douglas Adams. The whole Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of books is just mind-bendingly brilliant.

My faith and my family. I have 3 young children (at the time of answering this they are 5, 3, and 18 months), a husband, and a house full of probably-too-many pets. I wake up each morning to my kids crawling in bed with me, hugging me, climbing on me... and inevitably saying, "Can we have breakfast now?" I have never been a morning person, but my husband and my kids are my motivation for waking up and getting going. They give meaning to my daily life. I also believe deeply in God, and I strive to use each day to the fullest, to use whatever talents and resources He has given me in the best way I can, both in serving my family and in my work and my writing.

Keeping three little humans alive! My kids are all so young that they still need a lot of help and attention, and my days are mostly spent cooking, feeding them, and running after them, making sure they don't eat markers or fall down the stairs or put plastic beads in their noses. The usual. I also clean a lot of messes. Really. A LOT of messes. When we've achieved basic survival, one of my favorite things to do is to take the kids on a walk through the neighborhood. They love to run ahead and make up games to play or sing songs while we're walking, and I love to take pictures and videos of them while we walk. Years from now, I'll be able to watch them and hear their laughter and the little patter of my 18-month-old's feet slapping the sidewalk. That, for me, is a beautiful use of time. Occasionally I read and exercise and watch Netlfix, too.

I read a lot of books recommended by friends, and I'm also a member of a book club, so I get some great suggestions from them as well. I'm also signed up with some e-mail lists that notify me of free or discount e-books, which I love to try, and if I really like the author I'll buy a copy or purchase one of their other books.

My process has changed a lot over the years. I used to just start writing from a feeling and generic idea, and see where things led, but usually that resulted in me getting stuck at some point. Now, I've realized that I really enjoy plotting out the whole story ahead of time, using that planning phase as my fun discovery phase. Then I always know what I'm writing next, and I can see my story all at one glance and make sure everything works together, before I dive in and get lost in the enormity of actually writing it. But the actual words I use, the phrasing and the small choices of tone and mood and details, those I let flow out as I write.

My earliest memories of reading are all of Dr. Seuss books, and even though the stories are simple and pretty goofy, I was captivated by the music of the language. I would sit with my mom or dad and we would take turns reading them out loud again and again. Later, I graduated to Berenstain Bears, lots of short adventure stories (I loved stories about animals, like Julie of the Wolves), Shel Silverstein poems (I read Where the Sidewalk Ends over and over!) and then -- eventually -- to the Chronicles of Narnia. The Narnia books were my first foray into a full fantasy series, and they blew my imagination wide open. I was probably changed forever by those books.