In the beginning
Right from nursery I have been an avid reader (I learnt to read when I was @ four) and as soon as I could write I enjoyed making up stories. The fact that I actually enjoyed reading and writing was all that made English lessons bearable, I never could and still can't see why school kids spend so much time studying and 'understanding' Dickens, Shakespeare etc when they should be enjoying the humour and skills of the writers.

It seems that it has taken the skills of J.K. Rowling (a good story teller but not exactly a Dickens!) to get kids wanting to read again after decades of misery! My favourites however were weekly doses of Biggles, Bunter and other adventure tales from the likes of Enid Blyton and poetry from A.A.Milne thanks to the kids library. Not exactly PC or girly eh? But such storytelling skills - that's where I learnt to write, not in the classroom! I guess my writing was sometimes a bit 'mature' for some of my peers, my imagination with regard to situations beyond my personal experience seemed to worry one or two of them. Jealousy perchance?

On leaving school my writing ceased for several years but instead I started reading with a vengeance, for enjoyment now. Ian Flemings original James Bond, Arthur C. Clarke, Douglas Adams, Harry Harrison, Frank Herbert and that brilliant story teller James Herriot took their place on my book shelves. I do not like romance novels at all! As time passed I turned more and more to Sci Fi & Fantasy work spreading my reading across all variations from Brook's Shannara series to Pratchet's Discworld.

I returned to writing out of boredom really and inspired by various TSR novels I started to write Anja & the Druid. I completed that epic, all handwritten and wrote a sequel. Then another 'short' tale and another etc. There are probably a dozen handwritten manuscripts awaiting their turn to be typed up.

Once I got a word processor and then a PC I started typing straight to file and often I've written a story right through in one or two sittings, Sam an tha was written in this way. Other times I write until the inspiration fails, I have a few of those waiting patiently for me to continue them.

...there was the word.
Obviously I've been influenced by what I have read and what interests me. For example tattoos and piercings fascinate me, and yep they turn up in many of my stories covering the extremes and all points in between. (And yes I do have the 'odd' piercing, you'll have to guess where, but no tattoos!) So you will find several of my interests popping up in my work, if you have knowledge of a subject it will always come across more convincingly.

One thing you won't find in my work is much sex. In my experience sex is used to prop up poor work and if I have to sink to that level I'll stop writing! Don't get me wrong, I could put it in (I do have a daughter you know) but beyond telling you, the reader, that sex is/has/will take place, I think my work can survive without it! So there!

More recently I've been reading a bit wider again, my current favourite is the 'Plum' series from Janet Evanovich, Stephanie is my kinda girl! (See! No sex!) Again my work is influenced by these and the several thousand stories I've read on the web. And here's a big gripe. Why oh why don't people use spell checkers or read what they've written before they distribute their work? Some authors put together a good story and ruin it with bad or non existent grammar (sorry but it irks!)