This changes as I find new ones. Right now I am reading Juliet Marillier, Kevin Hearne, James Oswald, just about anything by Brandon Sanderson, Jim Butcher and Robin Hobb.

I love being in the garden, digging in the dirt. I am an organic gardener. I grow vegetables, herbs and flowers. In the winter I dabble in genealogy.

I get emails from GoodReads and Amazon that help. Sometimes I scroll through Smashwords. Sometimes I use recommendations from other author or review sites.

I believe it was fan fiction involving a rock group that I won't name because then you will realize how old I am. But it was a piece of fan fiction trying to blend Dr. Who with the original Star Trek that taught me that you can not have 2 heroes in a story.

I write down the bones front to back and then flesh it out. Sometimes, once the bones are there, I can see more readily what's missing. Sometimes I will have my first reader take a look before I make any fixes, because it's possible that what I think needs fixing isn't what a reader needs fixed

Mostly fantasy, a little science fiction and the occasional mystery. I love a smaller story these days. The monumental fight against evil and the reluctant messiah stories have gotten a little stale for me. I really enjoyed the Tanyth Fairport books by Nathan Lowell. They are completely character driven.

Kindle Fire, but it's a little heavy. I liked my first Kindle for weight.

I like my desk to be very neat. I have a small glass top desk with a laptop on it. Only the work I am doing gets to be on the desk. I stack everything else to the side.

I grew up in New Jersey, in what we called "the greater metropolitan area", which meant we got NY television. It's a strange state separated into several distinct regions - North, South, the beach, the pine barrens and the western bit which is essentially a suburb of Philadelphia. The town I grew up in is lovely for adults. I thought it was the most boring place on the planet when I was in high school. That made me want to wander, to see what else was out there. Travel and coming home, driving cross country and settling elsewhere has all helped to give me insight into people that are not like me. I think that enriches my stories with believable characters.

I've always been a do-it-yourselfer. When I found out that I could do it all myself I was very excited. I had gone the route of querying agents, and truthfully, I wasn't ready then. But when I was ready, the industry had changed so much that I felt I could self publish, and did so happily.

When people enjoy the story. The first time someone asked me about a character I was nonplussed. Something from inside my head was public! A person I had made up had made an impression on someone. It was an amazing feeling.