Stealth Publications

Vividly. It was 1982, I believe, and I was a sophomore in high school. At that time, the book was called The Unreal Key. It was a fantasy novel that I typed on an old IBM Selectric II typewriter after weeks of drawing maps, doing brief character builds, and designing a partial language. I still have the original manuscript in my "hidden for no one to see ever" box in my home office. The writing was bad, but the characters and story were salvageable, and I rewrote the story as "Father of the Key" and its sequel "Sword of the Key" in the 2002 time frame. Got pretty positive feedback in a rejection letter from ROC and a couple of contest judges at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference, and that was enough to keep me writing. Never ignore a personalized rejection or professional judges' feedback!

That depends on what I'm writing. Everything starts with a "what if" question, though. "What if parents hear a ghost on their baby monitor" (Shaken) or "What if a man steals an object from a grave" (The Snow Globe). Once I have that, I'll brainstorm the idea in my journal for as long as it takes to decide if the idea will make a good story or not. More often than not, they don't until a couple of them come together.

Once I decide it's going to be a short story or a novel, that's where the process changes. Short stories might get a character build or two and a brief, basic outline, but novel-length work, especially for a fantasy novel, gets the full treatment. World building, character builds, weapons and language designs, maps, a more detailed outline, and so on. I can usually start a short story after a week or less of planning. A novel might take me months of preparation.