Questions You Always Wanted to Ask . . . And Did

See those eyes flashing in the dim light over in the corner? Don't worry. It's not a mutant killer spider or a crouching zombie waiting to take a bite of your brains. It's just me.

I'm a lurker.

Yep. One of those. I'm on lots of Facebook groups, but I don't usually participate. Why? Well, besides the fact that it's hard to explain why my persona is an adolescent boy named Jayshua, I'm really content to read what others have to say without adding my two cents. Except for last week over at Avid Readers of Christian Fiction. Someone asked the question:

"You can ask your favorite author any one question: what would you ask?"

So I did it. I **gasp** commented. I said I'd answer all the posted questions over at my blog, and just in case you didn't realize what you're reading, this is my blog. Here are the questions from that post that I figured I'd give a whirl answering. . .

Why do pets make the best readership appeaser in between books? Almost every author I follow on FB has a pet they reference in their daily posts.

Would you rather hear about my laundry pile or my elderly mother's daily battle with constipation?

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Eavesdropping. Wasting time on Pinterest. The burning desire to make more money for another trip to England.

Do you start with the beginning? Or where?

I start with a feeling. Emotion. The soul of a character. Goals, motivations, conflicts. Who are my players and what are they like? Then I figure out my beginning, end and climax, with a few inciting incidents leading toward that climax. Once those items are ticked off my checklist, I start at chapter 1, scene 1 and plod along until I hit somewhere around 90k words.

Can we sit down for coffee and a chat???

Sure, I sit for coffee. Shoot, I'll even roll over and play dead for dark chocolate.

How did you get started writing?

I ran away from home one night a week to escape from the insanity of four children. Yes, they were mine and I might be slightly to blame for their sometimes bizarre behavior, but honestly, I'd rather blame my husband for that.

What's your favorite book and why?

I'd say the Bible, but the Bible and Jesus is always the easy answer. So I'm going with Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Jane is a passionate, strong woman who knows herself and is willing to sacrifice the good for what is best.

Who is YOUR favorite author, why, and what would you like to ask him/her?

Sweet pickled pineapples, Batman! How can anyone answer that? A single, favorite author? Gah! Can't be done. Well, maybe by genre. Yeah. That's how I'll get out of this one. And guess what? I'll answer this one tomorrow in a post of its own.

Why do you make your readers wait so long for new books and tease us relentlessly with progress and snippets of the books progress?

There's this tiny little thing called life that sometimes gets in the way of our writing schedules. Yeah, I know. I hate it when that happens too. Writing takes time. A truckload of time. Thinking, scheming, plotting, capturing, rearranging, and research kind of time. Extracting what's in our head so that it doesn't look like a pile of dissected grey matter splattered on a page but instead is a heart-warming, soul-wrenching piece of magical fiction that lives on in a reader's memory for years to come takes a FAT LOT OF TIME, people. 

The teasing part is just a bonus to satisfy the sick and twisted half of our creative mind.

Why do you write?

Because being a pirate is frowned upon and I'd make a crappy life insurance salesman.

There you have it. Got any more questions? I'm just getting warmed up. Bring it on in the comment section.