Family and work occupy most of my time. Playing, writing and recording music is my biggest passion. I love to read, and to observe the life around me.

I do remember some early writings in elementary school in the 60's-70's. I remember winning some sort of poetry contest. I started writing songs pretty early, too.

I think over the unfinished ideas for days at a time, working through the details, and then I get the overwhelming desire to put words on the page. Sometimes this flurry of writing lasts for several hours, until I'm either satisfied or spent.

Anything and everything. I have always liked a good magazine, and I look for books at thrift stores and such. I read a lot of books about musical celebrities, how their lives and careers came about. Lots of books on native American history.

In one word, cluttered. Laptop, speakers, books, tools, different projects, guitar parts, CD's, wiring, tools, stage jewelry, drumsticks, things given to me as gifts...I think there's a desk under there.

I grew up on my grandparents' farm in very rural Alabama. My mother worked, my father lived somewhere else, my older sister had her own thing going on. I ran in the woods from morning to nightfall, sometimes with a cousin or two, mostly alone. I think all the solitude helped develop my imagination.

Writing was encouraged in my elementary school, but I also remember my grandmother writing poetry. By high school I was turning in some work that had the teachers paying attention.

I published Soapstone in print in 2004. I travel in native circles, and I had always heard "they stole our land". I wondered why the first cut was the deepest, why 500 years of atrocities were being sort of overlooked. I began to turn over in my mind what events could bring about a realistic scenario that facilitated the return of Turtle Island to the natives, and what they would do with it anyway. 9/11 answered the scenario question, the rest is just fiction. People familiar with native ways should be on the lookout for symbolism in colors, directions, numbers, etc. to get the story inside the story.

I have read so much, reading has been such a huge part of my life. I used to wear out the public libraries. I honestly just wanted to give something back, to add my story to the literature of the ages. To be a source, not just a consumer.

Being able to get the point across, to paint a word picture that justly portrays the scene in my mind. Finishing a work and feeling like there is nothing left to add to it, that it stands on its own strength.

Writing and recording a new collection of songs to be released in Europe, and maybe an expose book on some of the underhanded, back-room deals that have been offered to me in my music career.

Life itself, good, bad, or indifferent. Who could possibly sleep through it?