Before we get to the essence of your relationship with writing, let’s get a few random facts in…

Who is your favorite writer?

That’s not the simplest answer, as I’ve gained invaluable insight for different writers in different ways. I loved Frank Herbert’s world-building, but I loved George Orwell’s grasp on humanism. Then there are music writers, wherein Natalie Merchant just might take the cake…
 

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING TO ACCOMPLISH AS A WRITER, IN TERMS OF BUILDING A LEGACY?

That’s another tough one. I write what I want to write and hope it’s going to be loved by a lot of people for a long time. But when I think about the legacies of the past, the one I’m probably the most envious of is H.P. Lovecraft. He constructed a sprawling mythology in a dark world. I would love to build something like that, something mysterious and psychological. Wherever the man is now, I hope he’s proud. He deserves to be.
 

Who is more important, the hero or the villain?

The villain.

Cats or dogs?

Cats.

Alright, now that we’ve got the basic points out of the way…

What prompted you to become a writer?

There are things I love to do; there are things that give me fulfillment; but the only facet of my life which occupies both realms with such magnitude by far is storytelling. It’s the one thing I never get bored of, never get tired of, never need a break from. I started when I was eleven years old and never looked back, never saw my life as building up to anything else but a legacy of literature.

Yes, of course, but tell us about your journey: how did you come to discover this thing that means so much to you?

That’s a much longer story.

Give us the short version.

Power.

Okay… maybe you should give us the long story. Start at the beginning.

Alright. Let me start with an instance, a moment from my early childhood. It seemed so insignificant at the time but for some reason, I always remembered it…

It was the early 90’s and I was watching The Jungle Book, the Disney animated version. I remember the scene came up where Mowgli was walking along a cliff in the midst of a massive waterfall.

And I wanted him to jump in.

I yelled at him, saying “Jump! Jump in!” But of course he wouldn’t.

But he’d listen to my mother.

And so I demanded she command the story’s hero to jump to his death.

Mother humored me. Mowgli did not.

I was powerless. The story just kept going, exactly as it was designed to: with all the predictability of a children’s cartoon.

You can probably see where this is going.

Fast forward a year or two.

First grade. Circa 1995. Our teacher, Mrs. C., took us down to ground level of the three-floor block of an elementary school for our “special.” And this was indeed a special excursion: We were going to experience the magic of these wondrous new things called computers!

We each sat in front of these mountainous cathode monitors, staring at black screens, following instructions to navigate it.

That is, after all, what being a kid was all about: following directions.

Eventually, we pulled up a black window with a tiny white line blinking on the upper left side. Just blinking. Waiting.

So… what do I do now?

“Anything,” the teacher said. “Write a story.”

What…? I can do that? I’m not an author. I… I don’t have the credentials. Woman, you’re mad!

Needless to say, I didn’t even know where to start. All I ever did was follow directions. All I ever did was experience the stories other people told.

But even then, as far back as I could even comprehend a story, I knew I wanted that power.

And so you wrote your first completed story for which you won a contest and have kept in a leather envelope to this day?

No. Actually, I barely even got a paragraph in. All I remember is that my aim was out of inspiration for the scary short stories I read and loved.

But it didn’t matter, because at such an early age, I got the taste of that power I craved so desperately.

So you went on from there to start writing your own magnificent adventures?

No, I went back to doing what I was told. We left that computer room and never went back. What was I going to do? Ask questions? Advocate for myself? Don’t be silly. This was just another thing I wanted to do but couldn’t. Like recess all day. Like eating candy for dinner. Like staying up past midnight. Nothing more.

Sounds depressing…

Not really. Like I keep saying, I was a kid. That’s how it is.

So what happened next?

Well, what happened next was that I enjoyed writing whenever I was told to do so. Not only being prompted, but being mandated. An assignment to write any kind of story was always golden for me.

And when did you finally break out of that? When did you finally come to terms with that inner hunger and do something about it?

When I turned eleven.

Did you finally have your epiphany?

I can’t say that I had. It was happenstance. An accident.

What happened?

I got a certain video game from my uncle as a gift for my birthday. It was, in a way, my introduction to high fantasy. It came with artful cover work and a box set of four beautiful discs. Being the materialistic child I was, I was in love with the game before I even played it.

When I finally did begin to play it, the love only grew stronger. The artistry, the atmosphere, a cast of characters who were not quite adults, but old enough for me to admire.

So you were inspired to begin writing your first fantasy story?

No. I was inspired to look up cheat codes. I was a kid, remember? So I had to go online to find them. Now, this was back in the days when, one: getting onto the internet required a dial-up connection and two: every parent was afraid of the internet. But my parents were also kind, and endured the headache and general inconvenience of signing me on.

In my scouring of Al Gore’s greatest invention, I became increasingly frustrated. You see, the game in question was not the sort of game for which cheats were designed. So I dug deeper and deeper.

I never ended up finding codes, but what I did find, well… it perplexed me.

Porn?

Oh no, that came a little bit later. No, what I found were blocks of text concerning the game.

At first, it seemed obvious to me that what I was seeing was a walkthrough, instructions on how to master the game and all its secrets.

But no… this couldn’t be a guide.

This had dialogue. And dialogue tags. And description of scenery.

This was a narrative.

This can’t be right… I thought. Are they just describing the story of the game?

No.

They’re telling their own stories. About the game; the game that took place in a fascinating world, and involved characters with whom I was falling deeply in love.

Who were these people?

Upon further research, it seemed that they were just ordinary people writing these stories. Just ordinary fans.

Like me.

Oh, hell yes.

I started printing these stories like our hallway was the printing press of the New York Times. I didn’t know at the time how expensive ink and paper were back then, but I do remember how annoying I became, incessantly asking to be logged back online, and that dial-up tone of which I’m still fond today.

These stories started to pile up in my room like a skyline of skyscrapers.

Late in the school year (I was struggling through fifth grade at the time), I had decided to take one of these stories and make it the first chapter to a story of my own. The next chapter begot more chapters. One story became two.

And that was my life for a while, printing these many stories, which I had soon learned were called “fanfics,” and writing my own.

But that’s obviously not where your journey ended…

Of course not. It occurred to me before long that I should build my own world. This way, other people wouldn’t have to know a game to know my stories. They would only have to know me. And my stories would truly be mine then. All mine.

But you were hesitant?

I was. I was attached to these fanfics, to the world of this game. I knew it so well. How could I leave? How could I start over? Well, after about three years, I took that next step.

The last city of america!

Heavens no! Not for years. No, what I worked on late middle school, through high school and even into college were terrible. But I learned from them. And it was all I wanted to do while I sat in class. Kids were always easily distracted. Passing notes, throwing paper planes. I had my stories.

That must have been convenient: the teachers must have thought you were just taking notes!

There, you see? It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while the world stands aside and lets you do what you want to do.

See my interview with the media team at writingforums.com: