In your bio you say you’ve been writing
since you were 18. Were you encouraged to write as a kid? Did either of your
parents write?
Encouragement
would have been wonderful as a pre-teen sadly that did not occur. Neither of my
parents wrote. In fact I was discouraged by the both of them stating writing
can be done by anyone with a paper and a pen. What made me so special? Those
words alone were wood added to the fire within.
I made sure to focus and encourage myself until I managed to finish my
FIRST official novel myself.
Did you start with short fiction or did you
dive right into novels?
My first
book which I hand wrote with a paper and pen was 6 pages and 17 Chapters
long. Obviously, once I got a computer I
re wrote that story which then become over 200 pages with 19 Chapters. I went
big or what was the point of being an Author.
Do you remember the first time you were
paid for a piece of writing? What was it?
My first
novel was picked up by a publisher which I was surprised and excited at that
time. They helped me self publish my
novel and 3 months after I was given a cheque for $300.00. It was for a novel which is now discontinued
but it was called “Secrets of My Past”.
Do you follow a set schedule for writing,
have a process, and have a certain word count you want to hit each day?
Every day,
no matter what I come home, in order to de-istress from the day, I sit down and
depending on my mood I will work on Character or Chapter Outlines for books
pending or work on an existing novel which means I would write about 3-7K
words.
Do you outline?
Yes, of
course without that I would be lost.
What part of writing do you enjoy the most?
The least?
-Dreaming of
my Characters, what chaos I can ensue upon them and how they will get out of
it…alive. I guess it’s the aspect of
creating this new world in my mind then transcribing it on paper.
My least
favorite thing is when I find it hard to shut my thoughts off and I have more
than 1,2,3,4…and growing ideas for different stories or sequels. I find it hard
to focus on the ones I have outstanding with new ideas popping up inside my
thoughts.
Do you reward yourself/celebrate when you
finish a book? If so, how?
I
originally gave myself a goal that if I finished 10 novels I would buy myself a
new laptop which I did. My new goal was if I did more than the last time I
would buy myself an IPAD PRO which I am getting this holiday season as I did
manage to surpass my goal.
To me
having my book in my hand is exciting enough. No need to celebrate every novel,
at least for myself.
It's no secret that I love book covers, or that I currently have more covers in stock than I have books. (I use them for writing prompts and for inspiration. Yes, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.) I buy a lot of premades, but even my go-to sites for premades are getting kind of pricey. I don't begrudge the designers their money--they have skills that are worth money and they have to eat--but sometimes covers I covet are just plain out of my reach.
