I've been writing all my life. When I was eight, I wrote a monthly roundup of all the events happening in and affecting my family. I called it The Homestreet Journal. It wasn't a literary masterpiece, but it provided entertainment to my parents. Thankfully, as I got older, I ventured a bit further with my writing goals. In my professional life as a lawyer, I wrote legal briefs, memos, and contracts. Those were not nearly as fun as writing fiction, but they did require a lot of discipline and taught me wonderful researching skills. After my triplets were born, I wrote about my experiences with the pregnancy and surviving the first year. It started out as a journal for me to be able to remember everything, but I ended up publishing it in the event it helped others facing a pregnancy with higher order multiples. As for fiction, I'd always dreamed of writing a novel, but it wasn't until I retired from my legal career to focus on my kids that I actually had time to try it. I've been writing fiction now for about two years, and I haven't looked back. I love it.

Right now, I'm finishing a Christian YA speculative fiction book that's tentatively titled When Angels Fear: The Race for Heaven. It's all but done. I'm putting the finishing editorial touches on it. It's set in a heavenly realm and involves Lucifer, angels, an enigmatic lion, a prophecy, three young humans, and a race to save heaven and the world from Lucifer's attempt to jumpstart the Apocalypse. But while I'm polishing off that manuscript, I've also begun the second volume in The Legends of Aewyr Series, the sequel to A Flame in the Night. It's exciting stuff!

I've got so many. Let's see. Right now, Sarah J. Maas tops the list. She's fabulous! I also love Leigh Bardugo, Cassandra Clare, Amy Bartol, Joelle Charbonneau, Sabaa Tahir, Patrick Weekes, James Rollins, Patrick W. Carr, Vince Flynn, Pierce Brown, Jay Kristoff, Wilbur Smith, Michael J. Sullivan, Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, Nelson DeMille, and Patrick Rothfuss. Whew! That's just a few.

I get to make all these fabulous ideas that live inside my head come alive before my eyes. Characters and places that I've mulled over and become attached to suddenly take on a life of their own. I get lost in building their worlds and identities, and it's an amazing thing, when the writing is done and the story is finished, to know the entire concept was spun from my mind.

My children and husband. My faith. Knowing each day offers endless, new possibilities. Knowing I get to sit down with my computer, my characters, and my imaginary world and lose myself as I write and build and make ideas come alive.

Hauling kids back and forth all over creation to their sports practices and other activities and appointments. Cooking dinner. Washing clothes (does it ever end, ugh!) and cleaning the house (but, gotta admit, I'm not the greatest housekeeper.) In between it all, I'm pretty much never without a book, whether in physical form or e-reader.

It's hard to answer this one without giving away the ultimate ending for the Legends of Aewyr Series. I'll simply say I wanted to do an epic YA fantasy with the timeless theme of good versus evil and with a strong heroine, who had strong male and female support, but who must discover who she is and who she's meant to be, learn to make tough choices even when they cost her everything, and ultimately learn to trust herself.

Ideas will come to me, and some will stick. I'll turn them over in my head for a while and slowly they will germinate into any idea of a story. I don't do a detailed outline. Instead, I have a general idea of plot and ending and flesh the details out as I write. When I stop writing for the day, the characters and events continue to swirl in my mind so that the next day, I have a scene ready to write without having consciously mapped it out. I know it sounds weird. But it works for me.