About Me.

I hate writing bios.  I really do.  That’s why I don’t update them very often.  After all, you want to read the books – you don’t want to listen to me babble about my very boring life.  Trust me, it’s boring.

So I thought instead of just listing stuff about me, I’d do a quick FAQ of the questions I get asked the most.

Here goes!

“What’s your home life like?”
I currently live in a 2-bedroom apartment with my saint of a husband and three kittens that run our lives.  Two little boyos, Bear and Sebastian, who are black, and one little tiger-striped female, Tayla, who has double-paws.  The apartment is really theirs: we just sublet the bedroom and fill their food bowls.

“Where do you get your ideas?”
Where DON’T I?  I’m currently looking for a good plotbunny home, because I got way too damn many here.  Anyone looking for a few good plotbunnies?

Seriously, ideas literally are everywhere.  I’m an avid reader, of just about anything, and ideas come to me from songs, books, movies, TV, talking to my sister…everywhere.   Don’t turn your mind off, and you’ll soon be looking to farm your excess ideas out too.

“What’s your favorite time to write?”
Any time I can.  With my current job, that tends to be for a few hours in the morning, and then more at night, after I get home.  I like to write at night – people don’t call me then.

“Why do you still have a day job?  When are you going to quit and write fulltime?”
Because I need to pay the bills, and when I retire with a large pension, so I can afford it.

Writing is great, but the paycheck, unless you’re a Big Name, is sporadic at best.  And I like knowing that I can pay the rent, buy food and go to the doctor’s if I need.  In fact, a great many of the authors currently published (I’ve seen figures that are anywhere from 75% to 95%) have day jobs.

Besides, I like my day job.

“What’s your muse like?”
My muse is a Black Siamese with an attitude.  He smokes like a chimney, sounds like Dean Martin and likes his vodka martinis shaken, not stirred.

“What else do you do besides work and write?”
Well, sleeping’s right up there too.  Besides that, I like to cook, read and fence.  I throw knives occasionally, shoot archery and sew.  I weave beads.  I’ve got lots of hobbies.  And I’m a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism – we’re a medieval recreation group.  There’s a link to my barony on the Links page if you want to check us out.

“What do you listen to while you write?”
Christmas carols.  I find I can do more mayhem to carols than anything else.  Loreena McKinnett is usually in my cd player, and I like to listen to Celtic music/filk when I’m working on some of my books.  But usually, I fall back on Christmas carols.

“What’s your secret to finishing a novel and getting it published?”
Sell your soul.  I know a good dealer – he’ll give you a great price.

All joking aside, there’s only one way I know to get a book finished and published.  Sit down and write the best damn story you can.  Polish it until it shines like a diamond, and then send it out.  While it’s out, start working on the next one.

Tools of the Trade:

1) Notebooks. I have about four of these, one for each project I'm working on (Seasons, Dreams, Wings and Treaty). I'm contemplating adding one more for OTSOA, which will not stop eating my brain, but we'll see. I use my notebooks for everything while writing, because I refuse to write on my work computer (I got fired from a job for that, once upon a time, and will NEVER make that mistake again), so my notebooks are a jumble of notes, scenes, character sketches and dialogue snippets that come to me at work.

2) Pens. Random lovely pens, in all shades of the rainbow. I love pens. I love to write out longhand, using different colors to show telepathy (I have yet to write a book that does not have some form of telepathy.) and thoughts. Silly, yes. But fun.

3) Merlin, my laptop. I adore my laptop - he's a 4-year-old Gateway that doesn't connect to the Internet and has only one game on him, so he's good to take places. I use him when the Internet becomes too addictive, or when I go to my treatments (because it's easier to type on a computer keyboard with an IV in my arm than it is to write on a notepad).

4) My desktop. Who does not have a name, which disturbs me. Although I did just inherit her from hubby in October, so I have an excuse. Must think of a name for her. She's a 5-year-old Dell and I adore her as well. I do all my editing on my desktop, although I print my pages out first and mark them up extensively.

That’s it, folks.  If you have anything else you want to see answered, drop me a line and I’ll add it in.