1. How did you get started writing?
I have been writing since I figured out how to hold a pencil. I had a very active imagination as a child and always wanted to be someone other than who I was. The combination of the two was magic. Rather a paradox actually, that in imagining myself as someone else that I would discover who I really am. It’s been a long road to get to the place where I can begin to fully embrace and cultivate this passion of mine, and do something with it. I’ll spare you the gory details. I’ve been writing my entire life, but I’ve never been more serious about my writing than I have been in the last three years. I’m finally on the cusp of finishing my first novel, creating an author business for myself, and being able to create my dream. Which is really exciting and terrifying, all at the same time.
2. Out of all your books, which one is your favourite and why?
The one I’m working on, because it’s my first. Haha! I intend to have the first draft finished by the end of the year.
3. If your friends were asked to describe you in one word, what would it be?
Stubborn.
4. What is your favorite thing to do outside of writing?
Read, read read. Buy books. Play my drums. Watch movies. I’m pretty boring these days. Haha!
5. What do you love most about the genre you write?
Cyberpunk is usually full of really delicious story twists that bring us face-to-face with the darker side of humanity and our paradoxical love/hate, independent/interdependent relationship that we have with technology. The genre tends to revolve around ethical themes like, what does it mean to be human, how do we define humanity, how do we define life, how human-like do you have to be to have human rights, can technology ever become sentient and what will happen if it does, who are we in relation to technology, and what are we becoming? These are some really deep questions without a whole lot of answers, and cyberpunk is really an exploration of these themes.
6. What do you want readers to take from your books?
Enjoyment, escape, the ability to live vicariously, and maybe, leave them thinking about something much larger than themselves for a little while.
7. Describe yourself in 3 words.
Persistently paralyzed perfectionist.
8. What made you decide to write in your current genre?
When I started trying to visualize what to write for this anthology, one of my first thoughts was of a cyberpunk story. And specifically a short story by Peter F. Hamilton called, “Sonnie’s Edge”. It had such a delicious twist at the end of it that caught me completely by surprise. I loved it! And when I read it and watched the animated short I said, “That! That’s what I want to do!”
That’s the really my reason for writing anything that I do, regardless of genre. Something, some idea or image, will grab my attention and my fascination and make me say, “I want to write that!”
9. Tell us about your current release/or new release?
I am currently working on a YA urban fantasy novel which I hope to be able to release in 2021. As I’m in the middle of drafting it right now, there’s not a whole lot I can say about it yet. Except that I hope it’s going to be good, and that people will enjoy reading it.
10. What does your writing space look like?
Complete and total chaos. Surrounded by towers of books. If you remember Merlin’s shack from Disney’s animated The Sword in the Stone, it looks a lot like that. Haha!
11. What’s the one piece of technology you can’t live without?
That’s a tough one. For every piece of technology that I can think of, I can picture myself surviving without it. Not happily, perhaps. But I could do it. I could write by hand on paper. French press my coffee. Read more books without handheld devices. I sometimes don’t watch TV for months. I know how to use a rotary dial telephone and I hate checking email. If the power went out I could read by candlelight, and might even prefer it. Even toilet paper. I was very creative at inventing substitutes when I thought we might have to go without. Haha!
12. Do you find it hard to kill off your characters?
I haven’t physically killed off any characters yet, but psychically. And I didn’t find it hard to do at all. I think it was easier because I knew from the start that was where this story was going, and that was his fate and purpose in the story. If I had written the story more organically, and his death came to me as a surprise idea, that might have been different. But I didn’t really like the character so, when I plotted the outline and I knew that was where and how it was going to end, I was actually more excited. Haha!
13. How much of your characters are based on your traits or someone you know personally?
There’s always a piece of me in each character, no matter how small a shred. Each character is created out of my understanding of human nature and people in general, all of which is filtered through my own personal perspective. So there’s a nugget of me in every character I write.
14. What are you working on now? Can you share a teaser of it with our readers?
I am working on a YA urban fantasy novel about modern Fae, lost portals to the Old World, magic, love, and sacrifice.
15. Is there one genre that you have not written in yet, but would love to try writing?
Everything! Except horror. Haha! Already have more story ideas than I have time to write in my life, at the rate I’m going. And I keep coming up with more. I’m very eclectic in my reading moods and story ideas.
16. What do you do when a flash of inspiration hits you at an inopportune moment?
I try to hold onto the memory, ground it in something tangible, a vision, a sound, a feeling, something that will keep that flash alive for a moment. And then I keep trying to revisit that flash and experience it again, with the tangible reminder, until I can get to a point where I can write it down.
17. What keeps you going while writing?
Peanut butter cups. Coffee (LOTS of coffee). Nag champa incense. And the most excellent babysitter ever invented, named Netflix.
18. What’s next for you?
I’m continuing to work forward on the first draft of my YA urban fantasy novel.
19. Where can we find you on the internet?