Honestly, it's a fucking mess, but a mess I enjoy and can usually navigate my way around. Think about Les Nessman's workspace, with his invisible walls; mine's like that too, but I have these shitzy rolling bulletin boards for two walls.

I used to write poems about girls in math class. I wrote in my room during grades 11 and 12, when I wasn't out hooliganing about. I used to listen to the radio (CBC) a lot (still do, much more than watch the festering television). You can listen and write, but you can't watch and write. I wrote some really bad poems that I thought were amazing.

I grew up in a Canadian Eden: Shuswap Lake, British Columbia: clean water, clean air, an outdoor paradise. I was a bush brat and I suppose that fed into my romantic adoration of nature. My town, Salmon Arm, works its way into a lot of my fiction. It too is a postcard, but I never realised that until I left and later came back. Then it was: shit, I grew up here? How could I ever have left?

There was no other option. I sent more pieces to more sites and publishers and whatnot until I finally realised that I wasn't in great demand (shocking to me, believe me). Ok, then, either self-publish or don't publish. (indie author is kind of a shitzy euphemism, isn't it, it connotes choice, lifestyle bla, bla, bla.)

I have sold a total of 40 books. I'd say my "fans" are pretty well non-existent. (wish my parents were still alive, that would have meant a few more books sold). Really, this is not about "fans" as there are none. It's about trying to get the words out there and have them read; that's the deal, that's the show.

What a shitzy question. I work! I have kids to feed. I have a wife. I have students. Life gets me out of bed. The shite gets me out of bed. The meat grinder gets me out of bed.

I love spending time with my family. My two youngest lads (My Bulls) take up all of my extra energy. They demand my time and I oblige. I remember my dad typing away at the kitchen table day-after-day. He didn't stop for me. I do stop for my kids. They want to ride, we get on our bikes and ride. I won't have them remembering me as one who didn't give them the time they deserve.

I need to feel and smell ink on paper. I can't draft on a computer. Computers are cold technology, paper and pens are warm. I edit a lot. I must have given the meaning (title of a recently e published novel) 25 complete edits (maybe more). I like to edit. I'm no natural; I have to craft, have to feel words out and work with them.

There were a couple. Tim Winton's Cloudstreet was simply amazing. Where the Red Fern Grows made me cry (I remember having one of my grade 9 classes read the last chapters in silence and then watching the small quivers of tears erupt). Conrad's Heart of Darkness still amazes me every time I read it (usually two times a year).