I grew up between the SF Peninsula and Hawaii, where I spent several years of my childhood. I'd say that Hawaii influenced the way I deal with people a lot more than it did my writing, but in terms of my writing, it fostered a sense of individuality and imagination which I am sure could not have blossomed on the mainland. And the SF Peninsula in the late sixties-early seventies was a very fervid cultural and counter-cultural environment, and all those things were definitely a big influence on me. It was the de facto capital of the world, or at least the West Pole, for a number of years.

I like to write and would write even if there were no commercial impetus to it. I like to create stories I would not mind reading myself. If others enjoy my writing then, I am gratified. The act of creation itself is personally more meaningful than monetary concern, although of course that IS a factor. But I write for the same reasons I make music-for the love of it. It's a life, if not a living .

Ken Kesey, Kurt Vonnegut, Lawrence Durrell, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Theodore Sturgeon.

I began writing early on, around age nine, and happened upon a real deep period of short story writing at fourteen. This period was very heavily influenced by two (or three) musical albums in particular- Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits and New Morning, and Neil Young's After The Goldrush. In the intervening years, Dylan has only come to influence me more and deeply so, and Young, much less. But at the time, these opened up an entirely new personal conception of my creative self, and so that ought to be noted. I had been writing songs since eleven, but my early teens were my first steps into the kind of fiction writing I produce now.

Practicing guitar and mandolin, gardening, reading, & "doing what I need to do to earn a living," which has absolutely nothing to do with all those good and fine things.

I tend to do my best writing in the early morning. I tend to write in spurts, some days it might be for an hour or less, others, three hours, depending on the business of the day. I find it best to keep away from other distractions such as internet communications & social media until I've plowed through whatever work I feel suffices. My best days I write for an hour or more, and have a general goal of five to ten pages. Other than early morning I like working on Sunday afternoons, since most garden work or housework or errands get done on Saturdays. Beyond that I have 2 different "day" jobs with weird hours and much of my free time goes into napping just to recover! Nowadays I do it when other considerations are completely out of the picture, I have time, and inspiration...

Currently working on another sci-fi story set on a distant exoplanet.. No interstellar fairies here- they don't even have telescopes there! The society has no creation myths, recognize no creator other than their star and thus, have no shame as to their bodies or actions nor concepts of same as inculated thru Genesis to the people of Earth. There's more to it, but why spoil the fun of writing it by spilling all the beans?

The stupid idea that publishers exist to help writers make money. Actually, they exist to make money OFF of writers, and god help the writer without a "name" and "track record." Why beg some publisher to put your work onto paper, when you can publish electronically, save whole forests, and get your work out there without kowtowing to the idiotic "merit system" enforced by major publishing houses?