I’m really enjoying all the questions coming in on Question Time over on FB! You guys! Today, I’ll start answering and continue during the week. Some of the questions are way more interesting than the answers will be. For example, Linda Price writes: “How in the world do you write in Chet‘s voice? Do you get drunk first? Are you like a dog expert? I know you have dogs and love them. Actually know a romance writer who gets drunk before she writes the sex scenes.”

Answer: No drunkenness before, during, or after. I wasn’t aware of the M.O. in romance writing. Maybe I should start my career all over again. As for Chet’s voice: I am not a dog expert. Fiction writing has two engines – in my opinion – imagination and technique. Due to a combination of lucky factors I have quite a bit of technique—which I don’t think about. It’s just there. I enter into an imaginative space every writing day. I don’t want to sound artsy but it’s a real physical feeling in my head. Sometimes I have to wait for it, but it’s a matter of minutes. After that whatever’s going on—Chet’s voice, for example, is just there.

Didn’t I warn you the question was better than the answer?