Bursts of speed alternated with crippling lethargy. Seriously, some days words flow like water. Others I can’t remember that a spoon is called a spoon. Despite the ebb and flow of these mercurial tides, I sit down at my computer every day, usually first thing in the morning before the demands of life have had a chance to worm their way through my groggy brain, and try to get one to two thousand words written down. Sometimes that takes an hour. Sometimes it takes all day. Sometimes I realize the scenes I wrote yesterday had gaping holes big enough to shove a planet through and my word count moves backwards as I patch things up. But that, too, is progress.

You know that state when you’re about to fall asleep or you just woke up and you can’t quite tell what’s real and what’s only in your imagination? It’s called hypnagogia or hypnopompia, depending on which direction you’re going. That’s where stories live. Only I don’t have to be in bed to find them. I live half my life in daydreams. Walking, working, even while I’m talking to you, probably. Part of my brain seems always to be half asleep, and that’s the part that’s most alive.

For me, “writer’s block” is synonymous with “depressive slump.” I’ve never experienced a time when I didn’t have stories to tell, when I simply didn’t know what should happen next in a book or have a dozen new ideas clamoring for attention. I do, however, have days when the mere act of getting out of bed takes more energy than I can muster. On those days, even when I do manage to drag myself to the computer, I stare at the screen like a neanderthal with no idea what the darned thing is for, and worse, no desire to bother making it work.

First I give myself a moment to deal with the sting to my ego and self-confidence. Then I remind myself that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and there’s never been a single thing in history that EVERYONE could agree was good. Lastly, I check to see if there’s any actionable feedback that I want to consider moving forward. Then I move on.

The hardest part of writing for me is trying to be patient while I get out all the necessary in-between bits of a story that is clamoring to get out. In my head, I’ve got a series of awesome scenes that I can’t wait to write. (Think of the key frames used in the process of animation.) But there’s a bunch of other stuff that has to happen between those key frames to turn them into an actual, readable book. There has to be time, and weather, and clothing, and funny haircuts, and accents, and a million other details that ground the reader in the story. I don’t need those, because they’re all instantaneously included in my head when I picture a scene. Unfortunately, the audience can’t see inside my head, so I have to describe all those things for the scene to make sense. It can be very frustrating having to delay the part I’m eager to write to fill in all those other bits. Why don’t you just write all the fun key frames first and deal with the other bits at the end, you ask? Imagine a plate of food. Half the food is your favorite dish, the other half is something you hate. If you eat what you don’t like first, you may give up before you get through the meal. If you eat your favorite thing first, you may decide not to bother with the other bit. But if you alternate the bites, you can get through everything without it being too bit a deal. I want to finish my books. Simple as that. Delaying the fun scenes gives me something to look forward to on days when I’m faced with a plate full of raw squid.

I wrote a few stories in high school just for fun, not ever thinking that “writer” was a possible career path. When I went to college I spent a lot of time on other creative outlets, mostly sculpture and metalsmithing. I got a BA is studio arts, but because I’d also taken just about every class that promised I could read books for credit, I also earned a BA in English literature. Oddly enough, despite the English degree, I never once took a writing class. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that the idea of actually writing a book occurred to me. I’d read thousands of books at that point. I knew what I enjoyed, and I had an idea that I thought would make a good story. So I thought, why not? It took me three months to write that first book, and five years to get it published. A Drop of Magic came out in 2019.

Take your time. Be kind to yourself. Don’t give up.

Because I write mostly in series, some of my characters and plot lines are dictated by what came before. Having said that, every book is different and I love the creation process before I start actually writing, when I get to look at all the infinite paths a story can take and come up with the plot hooks and characters that will bring that story to life. I plot my stories in advance, at least loosely. I find this helps keep me motivated and on track. That doesn’t mean there are no surprises. I’m always finding new alternatives and connections as I write, so the plot grows organically. It’s like cultivating a bonsai tree. You can coax the plant in a desired direction with a bit of judicious pruning, but in the end, the branches will grow where they want to grow. The same thing happens with my characters. I start with an idea of who I want in my story. They might start as a personality, or an ability, or a trauma. I flesh them out with a character bio to get to know them better, but it isn’t until I’m writing that they truly reveal themselves. And sometimes they weren’t who I thought at all!

Right now I have seven books published with an eighth scheduled to come out this fall. Six of those books are in my Magicsmith urban fantasy series. Demon Riding Shotgun was the start of a new, spin-off series set in the same world, and the upcoming book, Personal Demons, will be a sequel to that. I also have short stories in a couple of anthologies. Choosing a favorite book is like choosing a favorite child. Each one is unique, with its own triumphs and failures, and thinking about any one of them gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling that brings a smile to my heart.

When I created the spin-off character of Mira and gave her a story of her own in Demon Riding Shotgun, people really took to her, and she and her demon were just so much fun to write that I wanted to do more. That first book had been a good introduction to where Mira is in her current life. With this next book, I wanted to show readers how she got there, where she came from. Of course I didn’t just want to have a backstory info dump. I had to make it fun, exciting, and new. I had to show not only where Mira came from, but where she was going. That meant giving her a reason to face her past that would also allow her to grow as a character. That’s what Personal Demons is.

The scene where Mira is ambushed by her overbearing family when she returns to her abuela’s house was difficult for me to write, mostly because of the number of people I had to juggle in the scene. I wanted the reader to get a sense of how Mira was overwhelmed by all the people wanting to talk to her, ask her questions, give advice, judge her, etc. But I didn’t want the readers themselves to become overwhelmed, because that wouldn’t be much fun. I had to be careful not to bombard the reader with names and descriptions while still giving the impression of a room full of people. I also had to be very careful with my dialog tags to avoid confusion as people talked over and interrupted each other. And that was further complicated by the fact that Mira often has secondary, overlapping conversations with the demon in her head. Scenes with a smaller cast are definitely easier, but sometimes you just need a lot of characters to get a point across.