I read all types of things. I adore books on minimalism, frugality, the Law of Attraction (and similar subjects), science fiction, fantasy, and the occasional romance.

I read my ebooks on an old iPad mini I purchased several years ago, though I occasionally drool over the Kindle. Maybe one day I will switch but for now I am content with my iPad.

While I was born in Chicago, I spent the majority of my formative years in the Mountains of Eastern Kentucky. My father was disabled, so he bootlegged to help pay the bills. I grew up helping him.

I saw a lot of interesting things as I grew up on "killer creek" in "bloody Breathitt." I learned about a completely different worldview. My father always taught me to do my own research and make up my own mind about everything so that gave me the courage to make my own path in this world.

I learned that many things people consider essential really aren't. For many years, we didn't have a phone. The Internet wasn't even a thing back then. Clothes were purchased when needed and kept until they wore out. If something broke you fixed it or did without. Instead of constantly rushing here and there our days were spent relaxing on the front porch, hiking in the woods, or occasionally hanging out with friends and family. There wasn't that big rush to make money or just stay busy like there is today.

As I look around at this modern age, where people stare at their phones instead of talking to the ones they are with, where they strive to fill up every moment of their time and their children's time, where they work long hours to buy stuff that will be obsolete or out of fashion in a blink I realize that we have lost something essential to true happiness.

Smashwords gave me the ability to start living on my book royalties. When I discovered that Smashwords was going to send me a $1,500 royalty payment I stopped going in to work (I had a day job at the time) and focused on my writing full-time. I didn't even bother to give notice. Smashwords allows me to reach readers that I couldn't otherwise and I cherish the fact that they work so hard to help Indie authors. I would not be where I am today without Smashwords.

I do a lot of random browsing. If a book interests me I grab it. Occasionally I will have one recommended to me but I discover most of my books by happy accidents.

I have an inexpensive folding table set up in my kitchen (it is the brightest, cheeriest room in the house), set up with an old Windows XP computer, a large monitor, and external keyboard and mouse. Beside my keyboard I keep a dictionary, a thesaurus, my coffee cup, and a pad of sticky notes that I stick to my monitor whenever I want to remember something.

This particular computer is completely dedicated to my writing. It doesn't go online, which eliminates any distractions. I use an old laptop or my iPad mini whenever I want to check my email or go online during my breaks.

I started writing before I even knew how to read. My father would bring in books that he picked up from goodness knows where. My mother explained to me that the markings were letters, the letters made words, and the words made stories. I decided then I would make my own. My very first story was about Spider-man. I wrote it on the empty leaves in one of the books my father gave me by picking out the "pretty" letters and making up my own letters to form words. I cornered everyone who would stand still and forced them to listen as I read my story to them.

Apparently I never grew out of that. I write every single day, if only in my journal and I have been writing professionally for around ten years now. I learned how to publish my own books by asking a lot of questions and putting their advice to good use.

My five favorite books...that's a toughie. It is hard to just pick five.

1. "The Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. I received that book through the RIF (Reading is Fundamental) program in second or third grade. Every night I would lay in bed and read on the book. I loved it so much I would flip back to the beginning and start over every time I finished. That book introduced me to the magic of other worlds.

2. "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. It was required reading in English class my Senior year of high school. It opened my eyes to a society that I could have never previously imagined and really made me "think" about society in general.

3. "1984" by George Orwell. The older I get, the more that book resonates with me. When I first read it I thought "Oh, that stuff will never happen." And then the Internet became a Thing. Next thing I knew everyone had a cell phone. And now if you look at some random whatsit on one website that item will follow you all over the Internet, popping up in advertisements when you least expect it. "Smart" televisions come equipped with cameras, microphones, and Internet access, and there have been reports that they can be hacked and used to spy upon you. If someone wants to know where you are, they just have to check your Facebook posts for a check-in or one of the other sites we use daily. Our phones constantly ping the towers, telling companies where we are at all times. News agencies have become so biased that it is hard to know *what* to believe anymore. It has made me look at the world and wonder what will happen next. It is also one of the reasons why I keep my writing computer, the computer where I also keep my journals, completely offline. That sounds paranoid but I consider it to be a healthy caution.

4. "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne. That book came to me in the strangest way. I was seeking answers and had a computer client press it into my hands and tell me to take it home. Normally I would have left it but something told me not to. Within a month of reading it I had achieved my dream of being a stay-at-home single mother. In less than six months I was writing professionally. I have seen some amazing things come to me by practicing the tips in that book. I cannot recommend it enough, though I advise you to read it with an open mind.

5. "The 50th Law" by 50 Cent and Robert Greene. Reading the story of how a poor kid went from dealing drugs to a famous celebrity has inspired me more than I can express. This is the book I turn to when I'm down and feeling sorry for myself. If he can make it, anyone can.

BONUS TITLES: The "Dragon Tattoo" trilogy by Stieg Larsson, "The Flame and the Flower" by Kathleen Woodiwiss, "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin," "Total Recall" by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and "The Art of Being Minimalist" by Everett Bogue.

A mountain of rejection slips. As a kid, I submitted story after story, book idea after book idea, and saw them all shot down. In time I discovered other authors publishing their own books and realized that I could bypass the gatekeepers. I wrote the authors that were doing it, asked them *how,* and the rest is history.

My fans keep me going. The simplest email, saying that I helped them achieve their dreams, live within their means, or simply gave them food for thought are treasures to my heart. I have several fans that email me regularly. We talk about all sorts of things and I cherish those friendships.

And when I am feeling down, when the times come when I wonder what the heck I've gotten myself into, I open the file where I save each and every one of those emails and they inspire me to keep going.

Any author with the ability to make me think or carry me into another world is my favorite author. I love them all, each in a different way. It would take ages for me to list them all.

That said, off of the top of my head I would have to select George Orwell, Henry David Thoreau, Kathleen Woodiwiss, Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, J.K. Rowling, and Steig Larsson.

I read books, draw, hang out with my youngest daughter (she is 17), play with my pets (2 cats, 2 dogs), take long baths, talk to my beloved Auntie on the phone, and do a lot of thinking. Occasionally I watch a movie or a television show.

I'm a night owl, so I usually haven't been in bed very long before my daughter wakes to get ready for school. I make a point of spending a few minutes chatting with her (half-asleep or no) before I doze back off.

My next, official wakeup call is my pit bull mix Lilliput (Lilly). She sits down by my bed and stares me in the face until I get up and let her out every single morning. She refuses to let me slack and sometimes my chihuahua gets in on the fun by slapping the daylights out of me with her paws. Once I let them out I make a cup of coffee and get started.

Sometimes I look at my critters and wonder which of us is *really* in charge at my house!

A novel. By golly I am going to write and publish a novel if it kills me. That has been on my bucket list for ages!