I'm not sure that it is a process as such. I sit down in front of my PC with a blank page open and ready, and I start to write. I have a vague idea in my head of what I'm going to write about, I have a theme or subject matter rolling around in my brain, and as I write it is like putting flesh on a skeleton. I aim to write a certain amount each day (up to 4000 words if I'm in the zone). I aim for a minimum of 1000 a day but if I write less that is no bad thing. Writing even a line is an achievement. After writing I save and close my document then when I go back to it the next day I read back through what I'd written the previous day, checking for errors, spelling, grammar, and refreshing my memory as to what I had said. Then I continue. At some point I get a feel for when I'm nearing the end of the book then once I've finished I go back to the very beginning and I read through the entire book, editing and proofreading as I go. Then I put the book aside for at least a month, go and do some other things, then go back to it with fresh eyes. I read through aloud the second time because I find reading aloud is useful for spotting any last mistakes and helps to judge whether my story flows. I have been known to go through a book about four times until I'm satisfied that it is as good as it's going to get. Though, in all honesty I am never entirely satisfied. I always think things could be better. But eventually you reach a point where you have to say to yourself "it's now or never, publish or die." Once I've put my book out there I start another one. Depending on what I'm writing it can take anywhere between three and nine months to write a book, and that does not include the time taken to read through and edit. I write usually in the morning, at a desk that's in my living room. I use a PC with keyboard. I can't type on a laptop. I need to be able to "feel" the keys under my fingers. I usually write in silence, or at least as silent as you can get with outside background noise. I can't write and listen to music at the same time, as some people seem able to. I need relative quiet and no interruptions. I'm always writing something, whether it's a novel, a poem or just an entry in my diary, and, touch wood, I've never yet experienced writer's block.

I've been writing since I was in junior school, though I can't recall any of the stories I wrote then, but I know I enjoyed the creative writing side of English lessons. I enjoyed that side of things in high school. It was about the only thing I enjoyed about school. I've always been writing something, whether it be short stories or poems, but it was about ten years ago that I decided to go for it and write a novel. I thought it would prove too difficult a challenge but when I finished my first book I couldn't wait to start on the next. I've found publishing and marketing a book far more of a challenge than writing one. Compared to that writing is easy!

To see a world appearing under my hands as I type. I don't want to come off as big-headed or anything but being a writer is in a small way a bit like being a god. I have the power to create a world and to make characters live or die at my whim. I can make good things happen to them, and bad things too. Though, at the same time I also find myself somewhat powerless as my work shapes itself into something I had not quite planned. I love how creative a process writing is. I love how I learn new words as I go along. I love telling a story, giving my characters voices. Writing allows me to say or do things I could never do in reality. I can explore different points of view through my characters. I can use them to explore thoughts and feelings. I can live various lives through my characters. Writing is quite magical in its way.

And it's not just about the feeling I get from writing I also enjoy the act of writing itself. I love hearing the clicking of the keys on my keyboard. I love seeing the words appearing on my screen. I love the ease of Microsoft Word. I can make words appear and disappear so cleanly, no more inky splotches, messy crossing out and smelly Tipex, and editing is so effortless. I love how neat my writing looks on the screen. My hand writing is atrocious so I consider the PC and Word to be some of the best inventions ever designed.

Just a second hand pine desk 48inches long, 28inches wide and 28inches tall, with three sliding drawers to the right. There is just enough room on my desk for my PC, monitor, keyboard and printer. I have a dictionary at my left hand, my folders with work in them piled up under the desk, and I'm sitting in a black swivel chair.

Anything by Stephen King, Diana Gabaldon, Anne Rice and Terry Pratchett. There are other writers I like but I would be here forever if I listed them all.

At the moment I only own the basic Kindle. I would have preferred a colour one because covers look so much better on them.

After trying to go down the traditional publishing route and getting nowhere I decided "what the heck" and started looking into ways of getting my work out there by myself. The growing popularity of ebooks and sites like this and Amazon and Lulu have enabled people like myself to get our work out there and at least have a chance.

Stephen King
Diana Gabaldon
Terry Pratchett
Anne Rice
James Herbert

There are many others who works I enjoy but I would be here forever if I listed them all so I will say these are my top five favourite writers.

I have it in mind to go back and edit some of my other fantasy novels before I think about getting those out before the public gaze. I took a break from fantasy writing to write some erotic fiction. I also want to write some more erotic fiction. I also want to write some more poetry at some point. I have so many things I want to do that it is often difficult to prioritise and concentrate on just one.

I read. I exercise (or try to; sometimes the motivation is there, sometimes it's not). I enjoy digital photography. I like crosswords and jigsaw puzzles. I bake now and then. Sometimes I knit; I can knit you anything square or rectangular (please don't ask me to turn a heel because I've no idea how). I enjoy listening to music, from pop to rock. I enjoy cinema and films (and film soundtracks), and I like looking for bargains in charity shops.

I need no inspiration. I have a furry alarm clock by the name of Rogue who looks more like a gremlin than a sweet little pussy cat. She wakes early and then wakes me with very soft but extremely persistent meowing that doesn't stop until I get out of bed. I generally leap up with a cry of "alright! I'm up! for God's sake!" Then about five minutes after I've got up she goes and flipping well nicks my vacated spot on the bed.

One good thing about being woken early is that I then have more hours in the day for writing or working on marketing my books, so I suppose I shouldn't be too cross. Though I have to say being woken at quarter past five in the morning is not fun. Not at all.

I grew up in a small town called Walkden, in the Northwest of England. Though I think it's more down to who I am rather than where I was raised that turned me into a writer. Though perhaps if I had lived in an exciting place with a variety of activities available to growing children I might have spent more time out and about rather than sitting in my bedroom scribbling stories. I can't swear to that though. I was, and am not, what I'd consider an outdoorsey sort of person. I like the indoors and indoor activities. I was always into reading and it was a natural progression from reading to writing. Creative writing was always my favourite thing in school (about the only thing about school I enjoyed). For an introvert creative writing, or any type of writing, is wonderful; the ability to express ideas and explore thoughts and feelings and images without having to speak those thoughts aloud is liberating. My attraction to in particular fantasy writing I think comes down to escapism and the lack of magic in reality. Real life is often dull and boring. There is no magic. There are no miracles. There are no gods or angels; no mystery. There are bills to pay and washing up to do. Writing fantasy is a way of escaping the ordinary and creating gods and miracles. Where I grew up was ordinary; my writing takes me away from that.

I don't really like questions like these. Favourite book, favourite film, favourite song, food or colour. There is an assumption that one single thing is so amazingly brilliant that it outweighs everything else. But there is no such thing. When it comes to books there are so many that I enjoy and I can't say that one is better than all the others because they are all different and can't be compared in terms of better and lesser. And what makes something a favourite anyway? To be my favourite must it be the book I have read more than once or the first book I ever read or a book that spoke to me in some personal way? There are books I've read more than once, more than twice, but I couldn't go so far as to say they are my favourites.

The best I can do with books is say I have particular authors that I read and whose work I will always buy, for example Stephen King, Diana Gabaldon and Lee Child. Can I pick any particular book by any of these authors and say that's my favourite? I couldn't possibly compare The Dark Tower to the Outlander series and claim one is better than the other. Two vastly different stories. Two vastly different authors and styles of writing. Picking favourites of anything is just not something I have ever been able to do.

It would actually be much easier to say what are your five least favourite books. I could commit myself easily to saying what was my least favourite book of all. I could go on a long rant as to just how awful that book was, but I won't as I wouldn't be able to stop describing just how hideous a piece of work it was. I'll let you guess as to which book I'm talking about.

Back to the question of favourites I will go so far as to saying Mr King is my favourite male writer (though you should not take that as me being critical of other writers whose work sits on my shelves alongside his). I started reading his stuff when I was a teenager and am still reading it twenty five years later. He is the writer I have stuck with the longest.

There was a time when I would have called Anne Rice my favourite female writer but some of her latest novels haven't thrilled me as earlier ones did. Diana Gabaldon has taken her place. Her work is just so astonishingly good. And so unusual.

But again, naming favourite authors is a little easier than naming favourite books.

Certain books do stick with me for reasons I'm not even certain of. I have always enjoyed King's Rose Madder. A story of an abused woman who doesn't just get away from her abuser but confronts and defeats him. I have never been an abused woman so why this story sticks with me I don't know. Roald Dahl's Matilda is a story I have always enjoyed. That one I understand because like Matilda I loved to read as a child and I dreamt of having powers like hers. I still remember Enid Bylton's Mallory Towers series and I can't for the life of me think why I liked them so. A bunch of stories about girls who practically salivated with joy at the thought of going to school! And not just school but boarding school. I would have considered that a very special hell and yet I loved reading about Darrell and Sally and Alicia.

I could write reams on books that have stuck with me over the years. Some for reasons I sort of get and others I don't, but I can never really go so far as to say with definite conviction that one in particular means more to me than any other. Committing myself has never been my way. Favourite authors will have to do you and even that may shift. Five minutes after pressing post on this question I may start thinking, you know, even though I love Mr King I'm so enjoying the work of Jo Nesbo at the moment so maybe he is in fact my favourite male author.

Committing myself to an answer regarding a positive is just so difficult. But, as I said earlier, committing myself to an answer regarding a negative is so much easier. Worst author... Worst book... That would be so easy but like I said, I'll let you guess. I wonder if you'll get it right.

Not really. I remember that in junior school I always enjoyed any chance to do creative writing and I was always scribbling something but I don't recall what I was scribbling about. What I remember is the enjoyment factor. I remember English lessons in high school and how I only ever really liked the creative writing aspect of them. We wrote short stories and I always got excellent grades for them. I'd probably be embarrassed by those stories if I read them now. I was also really into poetry as a teenager. A bit of a cliche really. The depressed teenager writing angst riddled poems in her bedroom. I tore most of them up in the following years and now I only write poetry on occasion. I see all that scribbling as good practice for the future. I may have written some absolute tosh back then but it taught me how to structure a sentence, how to put a paragraph together and how to let my imagination run free. The idea that I would remember the first story I ever wrote is a nice one. The idea that I knew even at the age of nine or ten that I would one day be a writer is a very romantic thought but not a realistic one. Did I hope when I was young that I would one day be a writer? Of course. I hoped I would be living a life that had some connection to books: a writer, a proofreader, a librarian even. I love books and the idea of a life and a career connected in some way to them was a nice one, but I can't say that I knew I'd be a writer. How many people really know at a young age that they are definitely going to be a thing? Looking back, you might say, "I always knew" but did you really or are you saying that because it's a nice idea? You had a destiny or a plan. You were meant for this thing. You never had doubts or fears. Your life has meaning because you had an end goal. Most people's lives just don't work that way. I don't want this to sound depressing but I also don't want to lie. I'm not one of those people (if such people exist) who knew what they wanted at a young age and then spent the rest of their lives looking to that goal with laser like focus, and achieved everything they wanted to achieve when they wanted to achieve. I'm one of those people who enjoyed an activity, who hoped their life would include that activity in some meaningful way, but were never truly convinced it would. Even now I'm not completely convinced.

A difficult question. Short answer. No.

I was always aware from a young age of having books all around me, whether at home or school, but I cannot go so far as to say I remember the very first story I read. It was likely the same story that everyone else was likely reading at the time. Probably a story about a dog called Spot. Those are the sort of early books I vaguely recall from my school days. At home I had books about princesses and fairies. Ladybird books. Big picture books. So perhaps the first story I ever read was Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty or some other princess book. And it wasn't so much the story that grabbed me but the beautiful pictures. Flaxen haired princesses in their big flouncy dresses. They were pretty pictures. I grew up to be the sort of woman who hates wearing skirts let alone big flouncy dresses but I still think those books had some amazing artwork. As I grew up I began reading stuff like The Famous Five, Mallory Towers, The Hardy Boys, Judy Blume and Roald Dahl but which came first I don't recall. How old was I exactly when I started reading those books? Under eleven is the best I can give you. I recall reading Charlotte's Web in junior school but whether that came before or after Enid Blyton I don't know. I don't know if I recall it so vividly because it was such a good but sad story that made me think, if only for five seconds, that spiders are not horrid (they are!) or because I was made to come up to the teacher's desk to read part of the book to her. That was what teachers did in my junior school. Made you read aloud to them. A thing I hate doing. I love reading aloud to myself. I love reading in general. But I hated and still do hate being made to do it in front of others.

So, in summary, short answer to the question is no. I don't recall the first book I ever read or its impact - though it clearly must have had one.

What I remember is the general bookishness of my formative years. Books around me at home, books around me at school, loving it when the teacher said I could go to the library as I had finished all my work, hearing the teacher read to us at story time. Going to the actual library in my home-town and trying not to make a noise as back then children didn't go around screeching like demons. Sssssssh! I recall getting for one birthday one of those books where you yourself are written in to it as a character. Now, that was cool. I even thought it was quite cool when at the end of my time in junior school I, along with the other leavers, was given a copy of the new testament. I'm in no way religious but it was a book and books are cool. I never did read it in the end though.

Certain books over the years stood out: Matilda, The BFG, Tiger eyes, The Eyes of Karen Conner, The Witches, Anastasia Krupnik (during my time in junior school). In high school my love of Stephen King kicked off by the Dead Zone. I saw the film first and thought ooh, it's a book too? I wonder if the library will have it in? Then my love of Anne Rice novels kicked off by The Vampire Lestat. I had been looking for Interview but the library didn't have it in so I read the second book first. I'm not as wildly enthused by Ms Rice as I once was. Since she re-found her faith I've not found her books as interesting. Now, I'm still into King but I'm also into Nesbo, Larsson, Steig and Gabaldon. I stumbled across those four and found I loved them so that I bought all their books.

Whatever that very first story might have been I cannot honestly recall it but whatever it was I'm grateful to it because whatever it was it led me to become a voracious reader and to eventually sitting down to write my own stories.

Always tricky for me because as a struggling author I can't afford my own book designer or proofreader so have to do it all myself and there's only so much I can do with my rather basic knowledge of Photoshop. I wish I could draw but I was never skilled that way. So I just do my best with the photographs I take and what I can achieve with my image editing software. The covers I put out are not what I really would have wished for but the images I had in mind I couldn't do myself. If I ever became a rich author as opposed to a struggling one I'd get all my covers redone by an expert. I think what I put out isn't too bad and if they are not the best I could achieve I hope my stories make up for the lack of design skills.