GUTGAA Meet & Greet

September is GUTGAA (Gearing Up To Get An Agent) month and the first thing I'm supposed to do is provide a short bio then answer the meet and greet questions to help others get to know me.  

Sooooo...here I go...

BIO:

I have spent many years hanging out with my cat, Tommy, and perfecting the worlds in my imagination.  I write children's picture books, as well as middle grade and young adult novels. When I'm not training for my Master Fifth Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo or helping run our school, I'm working on my latest project.  My story, "The Road Less Traveled" was picked up by Chicken Soup For The Soul: Angels Among Us and is due out in January, 2013.

GUTGAA Meet and Greet:

Where do you write?

    

     I have two places I like to write.  Either in my study or in my recliner in my living room.  Tommy prefers my recliner because he can snuggle next to me and play with the keyboard.

Quick.  Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left.  What is the first thing you see?

      My filing cabinet.  I'm a pretty organized person when it comes to my study and my filing cabinet is to the left of my roll top desk so I can keep track of research info, wips, submissions, and hopefully published pieces of work.

Favorite time to write?

      With my crazy work schedule, I have to split my writing time into two different times.  During the weekdays I wake up around 6 am each morning and write until I have to leave for work around 9 am.  I will get back home usually around 9 pm and will write again until around midnight.  On the weekend I run errands on Saturday but usually get a chance to write Saturday night and all day Sunday.

Drink of choice while writing?

     It depends on my mood and the weather outside.  I will rotate through water, Coke Zero, hot tea, or hot chocolate.

When writing, do you listen to music or do you need complete silence?

     Most of the time complete silence but again it depends on my mood. Sometimes I will have the music cranked up and sometimes I'll have the tv on as background noise.

What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it?

     I'm a visual writer so pictures and the outdoors give me a lot of ideas for stories.  The story I wrote this weekend came from a picture I ran across on the internet which made me think of life during World War II.

What is your most valuable writing tip?

     Don't stop believing in yourself.  You won't be able to please everybody with your writing and there will be times when some people will think your writing stinks.  That doesn't mean your writing actually DOES stink...it just means it's not for that particular person or audience.  As long as YOU believe and work hard at this career every day, it will reward you in ways you never imagined!