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Q: What inspires you?
You get some of your best material from your real life situations. My first book was about two little pigs, inspired by growing up and sharing a room with my sister. She was a slob and I was very neat. It was called Whose Mess Is This? It came out in 1988.
Q: Do you make any money from writing or is this a labor of love?
I made a small amount of money from my first book. I got a flat fee and there were no royalties involved, but I took the offer because it was a way to get published, and to be able to say you are a published author is a big help when you send out your manuscripts. Now I get an advance and royalties based on sales. I can make money from this, but in order to make a living out of writing and rely on it as a living, you have to be really, really successful. It can be years between the time when one manuscript and the next get accepted. Rejection letters come quite often, but you can get lucky when your manuscript strikes something in someone and it's just what they're looking for.
Q: What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
I would say that you really have to love writing and have faith in what you do because it's hard to face all the rejection letters that will come. The manuscript for my next book was completed in 2002 and I got rejection letters left and right, but I had faith in that book and I kept sending it out. I'm glad that I did. If you have faith in something, don't give up. Whenever you get rejection letters, you have to realize it's just someone's opinion.
