I started writing when I was about fourteen. Up till then I just made up stories in my head. Then one day I got the idea to tell my mother one of my tales as a "bedtime story". It took several nights, and I was sort of making it up as I went along, but by the end she was quite impressed, and encouraged me to write it down. Well, it took a lot of convincing, but I finally agreed and that was how I got started.

For me, the heart of writing fiction is telling a great story, and I have always loved telling stories. Writing allows me to take all the stories bouncing around in my head and give them substance. The blank page is my play ground where I can create anything I want. Plus I have to admit I have fun subjecting my characters to whatever my whim fancies. My poor, poor characters...

Well, that's an embarrassing question... I started out writing as I went along, with only a general idea of how I wanted the story to progress. And because I'm sort of a linear thinker, this lead to severe and extended cases of writer's block, and is also why I had to do *two* major re-writes for Shadow of Dular. My excuse is that I started young with no writing experience what-so-ever. I thought you just sat down and wrote, and I didn't have any writers among my friends or family that I could ask for advice. Now that I'm older and (somewhat) wiser, I write a detail outline first, to help work out the major kinks without sweating the small stuff, and this works *much* better. I rarely suffer from writers block anymore. Now if I could just be less tired when I come home from the office...

I like the freedom of choice it offers. With a lot of traditional publishing companies, the author loses a lot of choice once they turn over their manuscript. Once I started researching it I was a little discouraged to be honest. An independent author has a lot more say in what happens with their book with options like self-publishing and on-demand publishing, without giving up the possibility of a more traditional approach if that is to their benefit.

Well, I have plans for future stories, but right now my main focus is finishing Shadow of Dular. I've been thinking up stories since I was twelve, so I have a lot of ideas, but one thing at a time as they say.

Reading, hanging out with family and friends, 3D modeling on the computer. I design most of the graphics used for my website and book covers, and that is a fun challenge.
My parents and I are really close, and we get together a lot to watch movies and TV series.

Mostly fiction. I enjoy a wide variety of genres, but Fantasy and Romance are my first picks. I'm kind of a sucker for romances, mostly because I can usually count on them to have a good ending. If book makes me laugh then I love it all the more, so I also try to pick stories that have some humor in them.

I'm going to cheat a little here because my favorite books are series. My top favorites are Chronicles of Naria, The Lord of the Rings, The Circle Trilogy by Ted Dekker, The Alcea Collection by Richard S. Tuttle, and Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels; the first four because of the masterful storytelling and compelling characters, and the last because I laughed my sides sore and loved every minute of it.

A lot of books I discovered are from personal recommendations, but I have found quite a few on podiobooks.com, though I guess those aren't technically ebooks, but they have introduced me to some great authors.

Whoo boy! That's a tough one, but I'll try to keep the list short. I think my top favorites would be C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Frank Peretti, Grace Livingston Hill, Richard S. Tuttle, Terry Pratchett, Fred Saberhagen, and Lynsay Sands.