Kindle

Well there is a computer, a pile of books, about a dozen notebooks full of research and novel drafts. Oh and a piece of rose quartz that I found in New Mexico.

I grew up in Texas. How did it influence my writing? Well I'm not exactly sure as I've never thought about this before. But it probably puts me somewhere in the company of southern writers who viewed the world through the lens of promise and reality, faith and disbelief, prosperity and struggle.

I wrote a script when I was twelve about a vampire named Brad who kidnapped a beautiful girl named Amy and had to be rescued by a guy named Evan. It was terrible, but you can probably tell who picked on me, who I liked and who represented me in the description. ;)

Autumn Leaves is the backstory to the backstory of a script that I wrote in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina to impress a beautiful girl from my film studies class. Unfortunately, she's never seen it. I hope one day she will read it and enjoy what I wrote, because without her this novel would not exist.

Well, I'm not very good at being a scientist or historian, and like most artistic types I possess no real marketable skills. But I am good at writing and throughout my life people I respect and admire have told me I'm talented enough to write professionally so I'm giving it a go. And indie? Well I prefer to do as much of my own work as possible to retain creative control. I think the new vanity publishing is being obsessed with getting your work published by one of the major houses. That's not to say I would reject it if given the option to have my book published via one of the traditional publishers, but I would insist on as much control, especially over ebook rights as possible.

I love the feeling of having written. And when I'm writing I go into a kind of Zen-like mode where all that exists is the description of what comes next.

I have fans? Well if I do, they mean the world to me. It is because of them that I have any success at what I'm most passionate about.

I'm working on a followup to Autumn Leaves called Andy the Ninja. Its an adaptation of an old screenplay only without the financial limits of a film budget. So it is significantly different from what the screenplay looked like. It is a look into the world of guys of my generation who wanted to be a ninja when we grew up, but Andy never gave up the dream.

Hemingway, Bulgakov, Faulkner, Nabokov, Dostoyevsky, Dick to name a few classics. I am just now getting into more modern authors and I'm really enjoying Heinlein and Gaiman.

Zoloft.

Playing around in Photoshop and Illustrator. I'm an artist, sort of, well I don't get paid to do it yet, but I enjoy painting in Photoshop. I'm also a huge indie gamer. Right now I'm playing Kirble Space Program, it is a simulation game where you build your own rockets and space stations and explore the universe.

Usually through referrals from friends, but sometimes I just check out what Amazon recommends based on my past reading. I read a lot of history because, to be perfectly honest, I don't like a lot of modern writing. It is boring to me. And history is interesting. That's probably what led me to pursue a PhD in history (I didn't finish it though, I dropped out of the program once I saw how damn difficult it is to get a job as a professor).

Unfortunately, yes.

First I start with researching my idea. Usually it is a period in history or a place in the world I'm unfamiliar with. Then I move on to an outline, then I create the main characters (I fill in smaller characters later as they are needed). From there I move on to handwriting out a first draft in those $1 notebooks you can get at Office Max (I refuse to pay $10-20/notebook from Moleskin, that's just pretentious). From the first draft I type out my second draft in Word, then send it off to my editor Brian Spreng. He gives me the corrections he saw and I approve or disapprove of each change. Then I do a final pass to make sure the language says what I intended. All in all the process can take me from two months for something short like what I'm writing now, to two years which is what Autumn Leaves took to write to completion.

The Three Little Pigs. I'm still irrationally terrified of wolves to this day.

I think a good cover does two things. First it attracts the eye. That means it stands out using color and composition. It doesn't fade into the background of the website or shelf. Second it should have something to do with what the novels is actually about. It should give a sense of place and feeling. It should convey genre if possible, and make your readers understand the tone of your story. Is it funny? Sad? Adventurous? Romantic? Mysterious? A good cover impels you to pick it up and read the back cover.

History, sci-fi, dystopias, fantasy.

1. Dracula - It was the first book I ever bought with my own money. I was about twelve. I read it and loved it, and read it almost every October just before Halloween. I also read Frankenstein and Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde and maybe some Poe short stories.

2. The Master and Margarita - This book is probably my favorite book that it is acceptable to like in the company of literature majors. I enjoy the way Bulgakov ties three stories together. It inspires my own writing in that I tend to tell multiple stories at the same time just as he does.

3. A Confederacy of Dunces - This is the only book that has actually made me laugh out loud. I read it during high school during a class I took called 'Reading for Pleasure' Yes that was actually a class at my high school. I also took bachelor cooking. I'm a real prize for any lady ain't I?

4. A Farewell to Arms - Hemingway at his best. Probably the best war novel I've ever read.

5. Ivanhoe - I read this as a kid and it together with Robin Hood helped shape my writing. I write what I call 'classical romance' novels, that is a romance with some adventure and action as the pretext for the relationships in the story. It has influenced me greatly.

Probably word of mouth. But I have no real idea of how to measure marketing technique success.

I like this question because it gives me the opportunity to say that Smashwords has opened up markets beyond just Kindle and print, which is what I had used until now. I'm actually just waiting for the EPUBchecker to approve my novel for inclusion in the Premium Catalog, so maybe I'll come back later this year and reanswer this question when I can see how many purchases I received from each of Smashwords' distribution channels.