“So, tell me a little about yourself?”
“I’m Irish and also an Australian citizen. I’ve lived in Australia for the past 30 years – but I still do have a slight Irish accent – although when I’m in Ireland they think I’m Australian!”
“Were you interested in writing at school?”
“No, not at all. While I loved reading I hated, and wasn’t very good at English grammar. All those silly rules! But I did love using my imagination to tell stories.”
“Did you ever think that you would become a writer?”
“No, definitely not. But I did become a voracious reader. I learnt to speed read so that I could get through more books in my free time.”
“What sort of work did you do?”
“I worked in hotels for many years, working up from the kitchen to human resources and training. Then I moved into having my own business focusing on training and development.
“How did you get into writing?”
Work often involved designing training programs to help employees learn new skills or resolve workplace issues. That meant coming up with a concept, designing the training materials and delivery methods to make it interactive and interesting.”
“How did you develop in that field?”
“Later I worked for several corporates as an Instructional Designer. That meant working with SME”S (Subject Matter Experts), understand their complicated information and break it down into smaller logical steps .That way learners could follow the process, or information at their own skill level.
“How did you make the jump from instructional designer to writing fiction?”
“I wanted to write in a different way. Through fiction I wanted to tell stories about the issues I was interested in. I wanted to simply write for my own enjoyment. Then I discovered that I had become absolutely hooked on writing these stories. Now it’s my passion.”
“What approach do you take to your writing?”
“I like to use my life experiences and interests in my writing. I focus on the spiritual in my own life so I am inclined to incorporate that into my writing.”
“What do you find the most interesting aspects of writing?”
“I love taking time to allow the idea for a new book to form in y mind. Sometimes that’s as far as I get, but I write it down and file it away. At the moment I have outlines and some chapters done for about ten different books. But then one of those books becomes more persistent and in my head the book idea develops. Then that’s all I focus on.”
“How often do you write?”
“I need to write almost every day. Sometimes I only write on one day of the weekend, occasionally I take the full weekend off. But I become very grumpy if I miss several days of writing in a row.”
“What has surprised you most about writing fiction?”
“The way my characters suddenly stop following my plans for them, Instead they start dictating to me, or they object loudly and often to some of my plans for them.”