Ask me anything. Well,…almost anything.

First, thank you to everyone who just read my recent release with Sapphire Books, McCall.

I’m grateful as well because McCall certainly wasn’t written by just me, it was created by us. It was you that listened to the lapping of the lake water against the dock and felt Sam’s hand slide around the back of Sara’s neck. It was you that held your breath when Sara didn’t come to the surface of the water, and your laugh in the room when Mary starting waving a gun over her snicker bars in the drugstore.
So thank you; McCall wouldn’t exist without what we did together.

After it was published in August however, I was surprised to be fielding questions…about the book and characters, but also about me, what inspires the stories, and how I get the words to settle onto the page in a somewhat timely manner. The answer to that last one is that I don’t, but I’ll take a shot at answering the rest below.

Please feel free to ask me any other questions you may have; just send them to [email protected]. 
I’ll answer every one personally in a short video and place it in a future post. So ask away!

So how do you come up with these characters, are they based on people you know? I loved getting to know them!

Thank you so much!
There are elements of people I know in each book, but the actual characters take their sweet time introducing themselves and prefer to just keep me writing at their pace in the direction they’ve chosen. They write themselves into the books, and I never know who they are until they are good and ready to tell me.
It’s a surreal experience sometimes; I’ve had to delete scenes I’ve written that I loved but the characters immediately vetoed, and change the entire direction of the book to accommodate their whims or an unexpected secondary character becoming much more than I intended. I realize it sounds like I’m talking about actual people, and that there’s a real possibility I may be crazy, but that’s just how it happens.
And I always shed a few tears at the end of the book because I’ve gotten close to them. I miss them after that last chapter.

I read in the About the Author (on the Barnes & Noble listing for McCall) that you live in a tiny house in the woods. Is that really true? How tiny is it?

It is true; I helped build and design it myself. It’s a 220 sq feet including the two lofts, and it’s perfect for me. I tend to value people and travel over material things and need to be surrounded by nature to stay balanced, so this seemed the perfect solution. It sits within seven acres of undisturbed forest that my dogs see as their personal kingdom, and they might be right. I have a resident walking stick named Ella that climbed in my window one night and refuses to go back outside, and a pack of shy coyotes in place of an alarm system. Deciding to live tiny is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

OMG, those sex scenes… are you writing those from experience?

I’ll err on the side of subtlety on this one, but let me assure you, I am certainly not as skilled as Sam or even remotely irresistible like Sara. In fact, I know for a fact that women find me easy to resist. It’s been proven.
I also can’t write a sex scene without a gin and tonic or a large scotch.
That should clear up lingering questions nicely.

Have you actually traveled to most of the places in your books?

That’s a great question!
I’ve traveled to all of them so far and lived abroad in Ireland, Scotland and the UK.
My next book, London, is set in several of my favorite parts of the city and of all my books, is the closest to my heart. It will be available November first of this year at the Barnes & Noble and Amazon websites, as well as my publisher’s site, www.sapphirebooks.com. As a side note, if you go to the Sapphire site and then my author page, you’ll find one of the worst pictures of me ever taken.
Brace yourself.

Are you single? Can I take you out?

I’m so flattered, but am in a relationship with an amazing woman, Suzie, whom I adore. Her military career is also the inspiration for the main character, Parker, in the book I’m writing now.
But thank you;)

That’s all for now, but please feel free to forward any questions about books or coyotes to me at [email protected].