The Sparrow's Nest

Some construction workers were hired to redo a part of the Theodore Roosevelt School. They were going to stay in a hotel, but were invited to stay in the school dormitories to save money. The construction workers readily agreed, and moved in. Their boss went out to buy them dinner, and when he returned, the construction workers were standing outside of the building. They said they were not going to sleep in the dormitory. When asked why, they said they kept seeing kids, kids too little to be in the boarding school. Located on the Fort Apache Reservation, there is an old soldier's fort equipped with a museum, the Officer's Row, ancient barracks, and of course the boarding school. From the outside, it's a historic gem. This is General Crook's cabin. They found a man hanging in this room, so don't go here at night. This is a monument in his yard. In 1881, there was an uprising with two different accounts. The Apaches say they won and the soldier...

Making monsters, one of the best past times ever! I sit down with a drawing pad, and I just start sketching. I don't know what the monster is supposed to look like, or what it is I'm drawing. Sometimes I don't even know how many eyes it should have. My hand just goes, like when I'm writing without thinking, and something appears. Kind of scary when I think about it, like I'm actually conjuring something. After the monster is out, I look at it's natural weapons, like if it has claws, teeth, a weapon in its hand, and from there, I begin mapping out its strengths and weaknesses. A monster must have a weakness, or it ends up like a one-dimensional character who does everything perfect. I make it a little overpowered, because what's a too weak monster? It won't give the protagonist something to worry about, and the threat is gone out of the story. After I make the rules for the monster, I stick to them. Every incident with the monster must make sens...

In a land of monsters and soulless creatures, there is a secluded compound terrorized by a fallen demon-killer, the Grand Apwor. He's claimed its youngest occupant Vijeren as his son. The Grand Apwor can't be killed, he can't be escaped, and his punishments are severe and horrific. Somehow, he knows where Vijeren is at all times. When a law enforcer named Zhin appears like a living flame, a family war that's been sizzling for decades finally ignites. It drags Vijeren in, revealing secrets of a long-forgotten past and a family torn asunder in recesses of lost memories. Only Zhin knows how to kill the Grand Apwor, but the answer rests on the love between a father and son--something that Vijeren doesn't have... "Pariahs" coming to you in November.

When I was in grade school, I loved playing with Barbie Dolls and my Spiderman play-set. I hated writing like nobody's business, but I loved to read. Books, dolls, Spiderman and dinosaurs were my thing. And then a few days before Christmas, my friend gave me a gift bag with a little present inside. I thought it was some kind of toy, and hoped with all my might that it wasn't clothes. The kids in my neighborhood loved getting clothes and shoes for Christmas. Bizarre to this day. I pulled out the present while I was in the car, and realized that it was a tiny painting. It was shimmering in the streetlights. What in the world was this? I had never received art as a gift before. When I got home, I pulled out the present in bright light. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I have never seen its equal since. Something happened inside me that day. It was like a spear of light sliced straight through me, and my imagination burst from its confines. At that day...

"Midnight Dreams" is my first fantasy to get published, and not just a fantasy, but a fantasy romance. At the time that I wrote it, I had been thinking, wouldn't it be nice if someone were in love with me and I didn't know it? It was just a thought, but then I thought, suppose this someone was a powerful being? But what kind? I thought of all the things that I liked, and chose rain. I love it like nobody's business, so I turned him into a storm, and he controls the monsoon season. And then I thought, the woman whom he loves needs to be somebody deserving, somebody who needs to get away, somebody who will benefit most from it. Abusive men are such jerks, so I made the main character an abused wife. When I was in high school, my friend took me out to eat. We were in earshot of the bar, and I could hear a man bragging how he had made his wife cry, and that that was how he had left her when he came to the bar. His loser friends laughed like it was the funniest...

While I wrote "Pariahs," I listened to various soundtracks over the years, and of course the music changed before and after the book erased. In the first stages of "Pariahs," the main music that I listened to was from Enya. I played her songs "Fairytale," "Epona," "Bard Dance" and "The Celts" over and over again. Along with that, I listened to the soundtrack from Braveheart, and The Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. "Pariahs" was a full fantasy, with nothing scary in it. The main story line was just about a boy running away from home because he was dissatisfied with it. The story was full of dragons and regular earth creatures, and regular earth vegetation. My creatures were humanoids, but not really human. There wasn't any real societies, norms, or anything. And then the story gained some monsters, like vampires, zombies, demons, werewolves, so the typical things. I started listenin...