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.
