Write a million words before thinking about getting published.

I like to write stories that read like historical fiction about great, world-changing events through the lens of a flawed protagonist.

Write. Write. Write. Learn how to revise. No story is perfect straight from the keyboard.

No one inspired me to write, but writer Harlan Ellison terrified me into getting published.

I enjoy worldbuilding very much. I generally start with an approximation. With 'Flesh and Spirit' and 'Breath and Bone,' because I was thinking of a world on the brink of a dark age, I began with the sense of Roman Britain. But I purposely set the geography to match something other than Britain - which has been overdone.

I would love to have written Roger Zelazny's first five books of 'Amber.' What a great idea he had about the shadings of reality!