I'm currently working on a new story, "The Loves of Lauren" which is set in France, Germany, and Switzerland. This one melds erotica with romance with a political thriller thrown in to sweeten the pot a bit.

I'm actually a fairly active individual and when I'm not writing I do spend time doing a lot of other things. I absolutely love scuba as well as flying, as I'm a licensed private pilot, and sometimes just enjoy taking a spin on the motorcycle. I'm also an amateur radio operator and do a lot of experimenting with electronics. In winter, I take time to do a little cross-country skiing. Trying to maintain a balance is key.

Indeed I do! The first story I ever wrote was called "Tommy and Mitch" and was a short story about two boys who are best friends and get themselves into trouble doing things that youngsters do best: Getting into things they aren't supposed to. I was about nine or ten years old when I wrote that and it became a series of other "Tommy and Mitch" short stories that I filled up notebooks with. We lived on a 44 acre farm at the time and I often went up the hill for a little solitude and to write without the distractions of my siblings.

When I have a story in mind, I typically already have an idea of its flow and need to fill in a few "blanks" as far as my characters. In a way, I already have a good visual of what the world in the story will look like and need to develop the people who will live and exist there. At that point, I break out a notebook or a word processor and sketch out the people I envision based on the situations I'm visualizing. What happens a lot is this exercise brings to mind other points of conflict and exciting story items that I had not yet visualized. That's enough to get me started and then as I'm moving along creating the story, I begin to synthesize more dimensions of the story. You could say that from that point, onward, the process becomes dynamic in that the story "helps" me continue to create it.

I was an absolutely voracious reader when I was very young and read every stitch of everything I could get my hands on. Once I had my first library card, in fact, I was in complete Heaven because I suddenly had a seemingly endless supply to draw from! One of the first stories I read was one called "The Forgotten Door" by Alexander Key. As a youngster, I was fascinated by that story and the ideas of its storyline. It made me realize, even at a very young age, that you could envision worlds you would like to explore even if they are very different from the world we live in. The idea of being able to transit the door in that story into a hidden and yet parallel world really fired up my imagination and it's a story I've never forgotten over the years.

Cover design is actually a little tough for me because I'm not really a graphic artist. What I look for are images that convey at least part of the overall message of the story. The first book in the "Lady Light" series, as an example, has two versions. The version that you'll find on Amazon has two lovers standing on a beach with the sun shining in the background. On other sites that cover is that of a beach with the sun shining. This is because the story is about light triumphing over "dark" or evil, even though the title of the book, "Lady Light" is actually the name of a sailing vessel. The Lady Light is certainly a central piece of the entire series because of all it represents but the theme throughout the series is about the light of the love between Wylie and Elise conquering the "dark" arrayed against them every step of the way.

I hate to tip my hat toward Amazon too much but I do tend to use the Kindle app on my iPad more often than using any other e-Reader. I think a person's choice in e-Reader device really depends on their personal preference and whatever works best for them. For me, this just happens to be the Kindle app because I can use it on both my iPad and my iPhone.

The most effective techniques for me have been different means of leveraging social media. Say what you want about Mr. Zuckerberg and Facebook but that platform is fantastic as a means of reaching people you would otherwise never reach. I have an author page on Facebook I use for announcing releases or promotions and I use my personal Facebook page for the same purposes, to potentially reach people who are my "friends" on Facebook who just don't happen to subscribe to my author page.

My desk is full of post-it notes, legal-size notepads, and my laptop along with two wide screen monitors so that I can work on several items at once, pieces of each bit of work on each of the big screens. When you have a good thought-stream going, the last thing you want to do is stop the creative juices that are flowing. My desk appears messy to some but to me is arranged with precisely the tools I need to rapidly capture thoughts or concerns during the creative process.

I grew up in the midwestern United States and have traveled quite extensively over my lifetime. That has afforded me the opportunity to meet a lot of people, see a lot of new places, and experience a lot of things I never would have otherwise, had I never left my own backyard, if you will. Having had all of these experiences has given me a lot of material to either write about or at least incorporate in the things I write about.