When did you start writing?
I started writing when I was in the sixth grade, with a children's book about Joe the mouse. It was bloody terrible; sometime I'll put a clip of it on here.  I did, however become infatuated with writing and lost total control of myself from that point forward.  I was hooked.  Developing a story and a world alongside my main character was the best thing in the world: there was no where I couldn't go and nothing I couldn't do.  For me, writing is the most incredible feeling of journey and triumph. Of course pursuing publication has its ups and downs, but the writing itself seems to fulfil something in my life.  Simply put, I'm happiest when I'm writing.

Quickly after Joe, I wrote Lies, a historical fiction book based on one family's struggle through the Holocaust.  Lies was supposed to be a short story, but when it wound itself up it was a novella. My first full length novel started as a challenge to see if I really could do it.  Language Barrier was the result.

Do you have any advice for others that dream of writing a novel?
DO IT! My promise to you is that if you start writing, by the time you finish, you'll have written something.

Everyone always tells me they want to write a novel.  Wanting to write one and actually doing it are not that different; the only difference is that the latter is much more frustrating. I've met people who have started writing, but after their first moment of thinking it is crap (which happens to me several times throughout the course of a story, starting with about page two), they stop.  Don't worry about making it perfect, let it progress from the mess you'll start with to a story YOU like. There's only one way to do that, though, and that's to put words on paper and to stick with it.

Tell us about your writing process. 
I am always looking for ideas. For me, reading books, driving a car, and walking down the street are all fodder for stories. I catalogue my dreams and try to write down every idea - good or bad - I think of.  At the time none of them seem connected, so I'm always drifting through disembodied plot lines and characters in my head. With a bit of luck something will click, and a storyline reveals itself.

From there it's loud music, sleep deprivation, and coffee (though more recently tea). Sometimes I'll write pages and pages, but other times it's just a sentence. Unfortunately, the amount of time I spend during these sessions is never proportional to the work I get done.  The biggest trick for me is to never leave the story where I'm stuck.  I try to leave it when I can't possibly imagine walking away at that moment.  The best news is that the more regularly I write, the easier I find it to do so.

What about your next book!
I just finished a science fiction novel which took on its tentative name as the one that stuck: "The Plague."  See below for an excerpt from a story you won't want to put down:

The Plague.  That’s what we had come to be known as; a disease that spreads by its own faculties.  Growing like weeds we offshoot, multiply, and disperse.  Carried by the whims of human desire, we drift to infect the ends of the Universe we have yet to afflict.  Money and power – that which rules the thoughts of every man – has fueled our incessant growth.  And we have obtained it: total supremacy.  No race would challenge us for our sheer numbers.