The Hobbit; The Player of Games; Dune; The Mote in Gods Eye; Morningstar
All five are character driven stories with strong plots. Great writing is great writing no matter the genre. These are a few of the books that I'll come back to and read again at least every other year.

JRR Tolkien, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle (in partnership), Iain M Banks, David Brin, David Gemmell, George MacDonald Fraser.
These authors all give deep plots and good stories, but more than that there are characters that you can see grow and develop - characters that you will want to come and spend time with again and again.

I read a mix of things. Science Fiction and Fantasy probably top the list, but history, biographies and thrillers all make me happy.

My desk has a space in the middle for the laptop. To the left are letters and invoices - things needing dealing with. To the right things to be filed and space for pens and my mug of tea. I usually have a few post-it notes scattered around as reminders of things to do - the visual reminders I find useful.

I'm working on about three novels, two or three short stories, and a blog piece or two at any one time! When I get stuck on a longer story I switch to something else and let the difficulty sort itself out in my head until it is ready to be written! There are also a number of other books that are crowding my head and demanding to be let out - time and energy permitting! If only I didn't have a 'real' job taking up my energy!

I sit and write. Pretty simple really, but in reality it is a bit like a swan on water. On the surface all is serene, but underneath everything is in motion. When I'm not writing the back of my mind is constantly working on plot and chapters for all the stories I have on the go. This means when I actually sit down to type it just flows out.

Obviously I then need to go back over things and polish, correct and make sure everything sits right, but the bulk of my writing just happens.

Smashwords has been brilliant for me. A very simple process to get the books uploaded in the first place (and quick and helpful replies when I did wonder if I was doing it right!), which allowed me to not only publish on this site, but gives the option to automatically add you to others - such as Apple, Barnes & Noble etc. if you wish. Getting all of this done would have been much trickier without Smashwords.

I grew up in England and also spent periods of time in Wales and then Scotland as well. I'm not sure how this influences me, apart from providing a certain amount of background. My stories will almost certainly all be set in places I've lived and so are real to me.

I've tried writing for many years. Quickly though I would run out of steam or ideas. Multiple genres and multiple failures. It is only recently that I forced myself to sit down and write X words a day for a period of time. That seems to have broken open the floodgates and, at least in the "erotic" genre I have a few things on the go.

In truth - nothing much. I'm at a time in my life when I've achieved what might be the standard objectives I feel like I'm just marking time until death. There are some things that I have to do each day, but once they are done then ...

Between work, commuting, and dealing with family I don't have a massive amount of free time. Watching a bit of TV, listening to the radio, reading and a small amount writing fill my day to overflowing.

For someone publishing for e-readers I shouldn't confess that it is not really my style. I mainly use a laptop - but still feel that a book should be held in the hands and pages turned manually. My bookshelves are something I can take a long time to look through and savour, something not so easily done on an electronic device.

As someone doing this themselves this is tricky for me. I want it to look good, but lack skills. Finding a decent image (and I recommend Pixabay for good, free, photo's) is the start.

I wrote a story, and then realised that virtually no-one publishes erotica these days. That left very little option but to do it myself!