1. Where do you get your ideas?

A. As a famous writer once said, “From my head.”

I get ideas from everything — that’s the fun.  I may be driving or watching television and I will see something that suggests a scene or plot.  Some ideas come from past experiences, things that are burned into my memory (which isn’t all that great these days).  But, having an idea doesn’t write a book.  A painting teacher I had at the San Francisco Art Institute once said, “Ideas are a dime a dozen.”  He was right.  Very few ideas are so special that they write themselves.  And an idea is not a story.  Someone has to give that idea framework and substance (concept), breathe life into it (theme), and get it down on paper — or into digits.

2. What took you so long to start writing?