I started writing very young, at about eleven or twelve years old.

As with all my books, the characters show up when they want to be heard and don't leave until the last stroke on the keyboard.

I started out writing fan fiction which was constantly being banned because of my rather explicit attention to detail. Then one of the word police who were constantly getting me banned told me I couldn't write or publish and I had to prove her wrong.

Smashwords was one of the first places I published, in fact I used their guide to format all my ebooks and still follow their blueprint today.

Writing, seeing characters come alive and losing myself in a whole new world

Everything. When I focus on making them happy and not on finances, I get a lift. I like hearing from people whose lives I've impacted in some positive way, no matter how small.

The Escort

Nora Roberts, Jude Devereaux, Johanna Lindsey, Linda Howard, Julie Garwood, Helen Mittermeyer, Brenda Jackson and some of the old Mills and Boons authors

The sun, and the beautiful rose garden my husband planted right across from our bedroom window.

I write about sixteen hours a day, other than that I'm asleep

I haven't read anything in the time I've been publishing. I'm afraid of being influenced by someone else's words and crossing the line into plagiarism

Yes I do. I wrote it while in class taking exams. I was done way too early and while the others were plugging away I got bored and started writing since I couldn't pull out my LoveSwept and get to reading.

I'm not sure I have one. I wake up, brush my teeth, have coffee on the front porch with my husband then sit on my bed for the next however long plugging away. I take a swim at some point during the day, shower and go back to writing. While I'm swimming the characters are yammering so I have to get back to work or they'd run me ragged.

I'm not sure about the first one I read, but I know the first one to have an impact. It was Helen Mittermeyer's Surrender. A friend lent it to me when I was twelve and I hated giving it back. Seven years later I found my own copy at a flea market and has had it ever since. It's the only book that has traveled with me throughout my life.

That's a tough one. I try to find something that tells a part of the story but that doesn't always happen. In the beginning I did my own (it shows) but now I buy them from professionals

Surrender, by Helen Mittermeyer because it was the catalyst for my own writing. The first twenty two books of the JD Robb series (I only stopped reading because I started writing) because that lady writes like she came out the womb with a pen in her hand. The Bible, because it's the best love story ever told. The Black Lyon by Jude Devereaux because it had a lot of passion and my own Lyon's Crew, because it was the first thing I ever published and the character is still with me to this day.

Proverbs and the Book of Jeremiah

iPad

I hate marketing, I'm no good at it. I publish the book then post the link on instagram and my website, that's it

I wouldn't know I haven't seen it since I bought it