What made you want to write this book?
Flawed is the first romance novel I’ve ever written, and the first book in the Young and Privileged of Washington, DC series. I had read many romance novels over the few years leading up to 2015, when I wrote this book. My commute included a 25-minute metro ride each way; I read the entire time.
While I read these novels, I was constantly reminded of my own stories—things that happened to my friends and me during our teens and twenties. One day, out of the blue, I decided to write down my stories with no idea of what I wanted to do with the result. It was that simple.
Where do you get your storylines from?
My own stories, and those of my friends, are what drive my storylines. Oftentimes, our stories are only minor parts of the overall books (the rest is pure fiction), but there’s still some truth in each book. Events, places we hung out (and still do), and real-life characters were all used to drive my books.
Flawed, the first of the five books in the series, has the most truth to it. As I wrote the first draft of the story, I fell in love with it, and kept re-writing the chapters. At that point, the real life events started to take a life of their own. I changed some things, embellished others, and replaced the characters’ names with made up ones. But those who were in my life at the time of the real life stories can still easily identify the actual events in the novel.
Was this book easier to write than others?
Yes!! The first book was the easiest one of the five so far. I actually wrote the first version in just over a month (then spent a few months editing, etc).
Why?
This book was the easiest to write because I had such a strong desire to tell this story. The first version started with mostly fact, with a changed ending. Then I kept editing it (start to finish) over and over, adding and changing things. It was so much fun to relive events…and as I did, I kept coming up with ideas for future books.
Do you only write one genre?
For now, yes; all of my books are contemporary romance novels. I also have plans to continue to write more books in the series, and those will be contemporary romance novels as well. But I do have plans for a couple of screenplays—one is a romantic comedy, the other is a thriller.
I also wrote non-fiction in the past, but I’ve unpublished those works so I could update them and revise each. This is on my to-do list, but not a priority right now.
Do you have a specific place or setting where you write?
Yes! The vast majority of my writing takes place in one of three locations: my living room (on my favorite leather recliner, with a thick blanket thrown over me), on my balcony (if the weather’s nice), or on
Most of the work happens in the recliner, but many of the editing happens on the metro—it’s a 25-minute ride each way, every day. I email the draft in Word to my Kindle account, and then use Kindle to read and edit the document—it works well for me.
Describe what made you want to be a writer?
I’ve been asked this question before and I still don’t know the answer—mostly because I don’t really consider myself a writer! Yes, I’ve written a handful of books, but it’s a hobby of mine, not my profession. I have a fulltime job (in Information Technology), so I consider myself a consultant. If I retire from my fulltime job and continue to write, only then I’ll call myself a writer.
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