Do you recall how your interest in writing began?

My interest in storytelling began when I was about ten. Upon the advice of the elders in my mom's church, my siblings (older sister and younger brother) and I, along with every other child in the church, were pulled out of the church's private school and thrust into the home-schooling system. The elders said it was the parents' responsibility to teach their children.

My Mom was a single parent trying to raise three kids on her own. We usually lived in two bedroom houses or trailers and my brother and I always shared a room. We'd hold school classes in the living room. Before school would begin in the morning, my Mom would make us read the Bible and pray. My brother and I would read in our room and my sister would read with my Mom. I didn't like reading my Bible and I didn't like praying for those long periods. Time seemed to stand still as we knelt there.

It was around that time that I had read a book called The Swiss Family Robinson. The adventures in that book had set my mind to wandering. Instead of reading my Bible, I began daydreaming my own adventures. I found that it helped to pass the time. Finally, one morning I told my brother that I had had a dream on the previous night and I asked if he wanted to hear it. He was as bored as I and he said yes. I began telling him the stories I had been daydreaming. He sat with mouth agape and a gleam in his eye. He hung on my every word.

The next morning, he asked me to tell him my dream again. This went on morning after morning. The adventures would become more elaborate and exciting with each passing day. There were even times when my Mom would tell us that our prayers were over, but we'd tell her we weren't finished, because I hadn't reached the end of the story. My brother became dependent on hearing my "dream" and I became dependent upon telling it. In those early years, I also penned a couple of stories and some poems about the Old West.

I never lost that love for storytelling, but life got in the way for many, many years. At the end of 1998, I wanted to begin telling stories again, but I didn't know what I could write about. The only books I'd ever read were Westerns, but I didn't know anything about the Old West - other than what I'd learned from Louis L'amour. Then one day I read something about a mystery writer getting with his local sheriff's department to learn about different police procedures. I read about an author who used to be a cop and she began writing mysteries. I also read that a person should write what he or she knows. The wheels began turning. I'd been a detective since 1993 and I had a lot of stories swimming around inside my head. I decided to start writing police mysteries.