Thought I should say a little something now in 2022, 5 years after when the original 2017 interview below appeared. My desk? Well, computers need a firm surface to sit upon, so there are various officially designated "desks" along with ritualized tabletops set up for the purpose of crafting each next book. But really, most first flush creativity still happens for me utilizing plain old notebook and pen. Usually while seated somewhere outdoors protected from the elements, with a view of flitting birds, puffy clouds shapeshifting, and tree branches that are waving hello.

Creating worlds! :)
And figuring out what I believe in from subject matter which intrigues me long enough to complete a project, whether that's short-term completing a potency-in-a-precise package 'Slim,' 'Story Poem,' or 'Erotic Short' that features one defining moment in time...or whether it's over a significant number of years, completing a novel or film.

I love to swim with sea turtles, dolphins, and even sharks when I am being one with the sea. And on land, I enjoy four-legged and two-legged friends. We often sit outside ruminating on Life together.

I always have a good number of projects percolating at any given time, including movie scripts & productions, short story collections, novels, and essays that explore my views on the state of the world...! ;) One beautiful thing about how the media industry has been changing to incorporate e-offering platforms like Smashwords in recent years is how heartfelt projects can now reach the hands of readers without a gap of many years stuck in a slow-moving publishing pipeline. This can feel especially important if what you're writing about pertains to things that are going on in the world right now.

I write about the things, concepts, people, and realities that interest me. Even before I spent time working in a San Francisco homeless shelter, for example, I knew something would be written for & about that very under-served, special population...and many years later, the novel 'THE SKIN OF WATER: Defending The Dreamcatchers' was born.

Knowing that I, and the things I care about, and the things I do have made (are making!) a positive difference in someone's life. Equally important: being True to myself.

I used to know a book was done because either it was due on the desk of the publisher that had hired me to write it, or another professional like my agent or the editor I was submitting the project to felt it was ready to go out into the world. Over the years however, I've gotten more & more in tune with the Spirit of each Book...and so these days a project just tells me when it's ready to be born.

I will never forget the day a young girl appeared at a music festival table I was seated at with her mother and a handful of photos showing a quilt she had made for a class project featuring characters from one of my children's novels, LIVING IN SECRET, which was considered controversial in its time. Just hearing about how she'd been brave in her classroom made me extra glad that I'd been brave too...because it's never easy being one of the first to speak about things that haven't yet become popular.
Fans to me = new long distance friends. I love meeting them when out in the world doing book-work, and I love hearing from them when I'm more in private mode at home. In fact, one email from a recent archivist reader of this same long-ago book helped me decide to eventually begin its sequel: ESOTERICA, and it turned out to be awesome finding out what happened to those characters myself!

I thoroughly enjoy having created a life where I have not only plenty of interesting things to care about & do, but also a life where I allow myself plenty of time to just BE. Sometimes a day might still look like me working many hours in a row because inspiration on fire has struck. (Or because I'm under a deadline.) But mostly I like my days to be filled with a bit of this and a bit of that, interspersed in a well-balanced way throughout the hours. A healthy life to me includes time indoors & out...time thinking, time researching from a lounge chair under palm trees or ferns, and time finding out what I next need to know by connecting with other people. It also includes making sure I can get or grow and fix & eat good, nurturing food to keep my human self energized, time doing necessary errands + paperwork, some amount of time out & about locally or traveling for work or play. And, equally importantly, some time, if not every day, at least every week, just being quiet, doing absolutely nothing at all. (After years of crazy hustle & bustle, sometimes doing absolutely nothing is absolutely wonderful!) Anyone who might like to hear more about how I got here should check out the recently completed memoir 'CREATIVE LIVING: From Starving Artist to Self-Employed Bliss.'