By writing process I assume you mean do I use outlines to write my novels. I'm of those writers who doesn't use outlines but what I do use is my dreams. I know it sounds a bit crazy but most of my books are a result of something I dreamed about first then I started to write about it. Sometimes, it starts as a scene in my dream or a conversation I remember from the dream and ends as a novel. Needless to say, I keep a notepad, a flashlight and several pens at my bedside.

No but I do remember one of the first books I read was to KILL A MOCKING BIRD. The book was in one of those Reader's Digest volumes that had 5 or 6 bestselling book in one volume. I remember reading the Mrs. Arris goes to Paris series, too. Both books made me realize how everyday events could have powerful, earth-shattering consequences.

Not very well, I'm afraid. I have an art background so at first I thought I could do covers myself but they looked amateurish so I went with several designers before I found one who listened to my ideas. Now my illustrator and I are creating covers that match the content of my books but still be eye-catching, drawing a readers's attention to the book then encouraging her to buy it.

Lately as I try to understand the world of self-publishing, I've been re-reading some of my how to publishing manuals

I usually read e-books on my laptops because I can enlarge the print and back light the screen for easy reading. If I'm not home then its my Nexus tablet

I don't know yet. I just published 10/31/14. I've been tweeting, using Facebook and Linked-in, sending ads to Facebook discussion groups and Amazon discussion groups, author pages on Smashwords, Amazon and Author's Den. My next thing is email blasts and bugging friends to buy, buy, buy.

It's a small folding table just big enough for a laptop, a mouse and a wrist rest

I grew up in an all-white country town just outside of Akron, Ohio. My family and two other families were the only African Americans in a township of about 20,000. I never got used to being looked at as the odd girl, the outsider. I guess that's why I write about Black women..lesbians who work in city jobs but aren't typical civil servants and are looking for that one in a million perfect mate.

I started writing years ago...maybe about 40 years ago if not longer. Long before post it notes, I'd make little notes on paper scraps, or notepads or along the margins and spines of books. I even wrote notes to myself on the backs of forms I used for my city job. I wrote them out of anger and frustration about situations I couldn't change or when something was funny or I wrote to remember some theory or inspiration I had while reading the book.I finally turned those notes and paper scraps into a workplace memoir six years ago.

I’m fascinated with the idea that men such as Ted Bundy, John List, and Wayne Williams who commit murder but can live among us normal folk and go undetected for long periods. They look and act as we do. In fact, they could be us.

'Old Man Peterson' explores that possibility through a murder mystery with a romantic bent. The novel opens with the discovery of a skeleton embedded in the wall of an apartment in Upper Manhattan. The secrets in an old woman’s journals, her rapist’s contradictory 60-year-old memories and her recent statements during a murder investigation, tell several versions of the same incident. The opposing viewpoints of the old woman and her rapist provide a glimpse into the 1940’s and 1950’s world of cash poor but land rich southern Blacks and their northern wealthier counterparts.

A second story line traces the growing attraction between the principle characters who are African Americans lesbians, newly promoted Lieutenant Abigail Truman and wealthy party-girl Jannita Peterson Davis, feel for each as a current murder investigation proceeds.

The third story line, chronicles the battle of wits between Jannita’s granduncle, Hiram Kennedy and the lieutenant for Jannita’s affections. The battle gets underway when the murder investigation exonerates the paternal grandmother as the prime suspect and the lieutenant finds the uncle as a more likely suspect. She proves the granduncle committed multiple murders.

The fourth story line describes obstacles a gay woman of color encounters working in a straight, mostly white, male-oriented police culture. With her passive-aggressive personality and her tenuous status as a new lieutenant, Abigaile Truman is the perfect foil for her uptight captain and prime murder suspect, Hiram Kennedy’s crafty maneuverings.

After an unpleasant publishing experience, I decided to take control of my own fate and that of my books.

It's too early to tell but I hope it will move me along my journey into self-publishing.

I love being able to release my inner bitch through the characters I create. I also can examine who I am through my characters. I can work out my stuff through them too.

When I have some, I hope I'll be respectful and so pleased they like what I do enough to spend money and convince their friends to do the same. FANS ARE GREAT, GREAT, GREAT!!!!!

I just published 3 novels, OLD MAN PETERSON which I talk about here in the interview.

I also published SAFE HAVEN, the story of a runaway ‘wife’ discovers love in the arms of a female doctor who treats her broken bones and bruises then mends her broken heart.

The third novel I just published is I'M YOUR BABY TONIGHT, supposes you could be anybody that you wanted for one night. You could dress up in a magical costume and party ‘til the sun came up. A city park ranger trades in her identity for one night of loving an older woman who refuses to accept the real her.