So many different things! There's so much stuff I want to do, whether it's writing, reading, watching movies, going for a walk in the forest, making home-made pizza, playing RPGs, working on my PhD research, messing about in Inkscape, editing my latest short film, making digital music...

Basically, I want to create things, share things, learn new stuff, constantly. Carpe diem.

Yes, I do! It was a completely demented Donald Duck/Star Wars crossover, where Donald Duck got bitten by a pterodactyl and turned into a Jedi. I was very young: I had to enlist my parents' help to write it down.

I guess that would qualify as fan-fiction nowadays.

I start imagine a scene that I think would be really cool in a movie, and then I ask myself 'what's this movie about?'. That gives me a starting point and sometimes even a title. Then I flesh out the characters, making little sheets (kind of like when you create your character in a tabletop RPG). Then I figure out what are the important trigger events in the story, what's the big picture, the threat that these characters are going to face. What are the stakes? And so forth.

That said, I don't outline everything. I try to let the details come from the way the characters react to the crazy stuff that happens to them. It's more natural that way.

I use my computer for the actual writing process. I like typing. I like being able to reshuffle material and delete mistakes as I go along. Usually I reread everything I've written up to the point where I stopped last time, and then if I find any continuity errors or silly stuff, I can change it right away and then continue writing. Sometimes I can't be bothered to write dialogue, so I put placeholders that I'll come back to later. It's infinitely flexible.

For 'Outfox', I wrote a first version that was vastly differen from the final draft. It was called 'The Vixen' and it was originally a plain spy thriller with terrorists and no aliens whatsoever. It was okay, but something was missing. I wanted the characters to have more room to breathe. So I decided to rewrite it from scratch and focus more on the parent/child relationships. I wanted it to have a genuine emotional core, instead of being just another generic action thriller. I also wanted more freedom in my world-building, so I decided it would all take place in The Future™ . The aliens somehow found their way into this, don't ask me how, they just did.

Coming up with something witty. Any good (or even mediocre) writer can scare you. A truly great writer can make you laugh with just a few simple words.

But an even greater joy is the joy of finishing a story, the thrill of finally gathering everything together and then gently guiding the tale to its end.

My tastes are wildly eclectic. I'm a big fan of Terry Pratchett, Wilkie Collins, Lee Child, and of course P.G. Wodehouse. I find Harlan Coben is a reliably fun read.

Stephen King has influenced me a lot but I don't like every single thing he's ever written -- possibly my favorite book of his that I've read is 'Misery'.

That's a tough question, but I'll do my best. Off the top of my head, my top five are:

'Misery' by Stephen King
'Station Eleven' by Emily St-John Mandel
'The Girl On The Boat' by P.G. Wodehouse
'Stageland' by Jerome K. Jerome
'Thief of Time' by Terry Pratchett

Well, I'm seriously thinking of doing a sequel to 'Outfox'. Otherwise, I have plenty of ideas waiting to be converted into story outlines. Maybe some of those ideas will work better as short stories, in which case I might do a short story collection. Who knows?

My desk is basically wherever I put down my computer. I'm not fussy. (Albeit a tad disorganized.)

I have fans? Where? *glances around, terrified*