I was asked recently about my writing process…hmmm. First of all, I use an outline…but I’m not married to it. I find that if the outline is loose enough it stimulates the writing flow. Even though I get up every morning with the idea of getting to work, being methodical; the fact of the matter is most of my ideas come to me in the middle of the night in the form of dreams. The characters in ALL of my books are modeled after people I know. That way it’s easier for me to hear conversations that would involve them. For instance, the character Stephen Anthony from my novel “Vengeance of the Wolf” was modeled, in part, after my father. He’s intelligent, brash, aggressive, impulsive and prone to say whatever is on his mind at the time. He is the perfect characterization of the private detective. So…if I wake up at 2am with an intense idea of a conversation between characters, I’ll make a bee-line for the computer before the idea simply fades away. It was during one of those nights that I kept hearing a clicking sound. I don’t know how long it took me to realize what I was doing, but eventually it dawned on me that my forehead was on the keyboard. I had typed one letter for several pages! As a result I have developed my own curriculum; the number of hours changes daily. I do however try to keep my face off the keyboard!

As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve also been known to take long sojourns around my back yard; pretending to be both characters in any given dialogue. I’m sure my neighbors think I’m nuts! It does however make them seem more realistic. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to stand at the end of a rainbow in Ireland? Or watching the earth light from the moon? Or at the very least, have you ever seen a martian sunset? The answers to these are probably no, because in most cases there is probably no way for you to know…But, it occurred to me to ask the characters that I’ve created; and I’ll be a son-of-a-gun, they DID!

In conclusion, let it be it known that I also work on more than one book at the same time. However I recognize that this is potentially a recipe for disaster. Take two stories, add fatigue and total darkness; paragraphs have actually made it from book one to book two! I’m glad it doesn’t happen very often because whatever it is that flows is where my computer goes.

Oh! One more thing…

Call me paranoid, but part of my routine everyday involves saving the document I am working on in two completely different folders on two completely different hard drives. This ensures that should one of my hard drives crash, I have a backup. This actually happened to me while writing my very first book. I come by my paranoia honestly.  🙂