I use quite a variety. Most of the books I use can be found on my Goodreads page.

I self published my first two books, Tiger’s Curse and Tiger’s Quest in October 2009 through Kindle. In January of 2010, about three months after they went on the market, there was an incredible spike in sales. I went from selling three hundred e-books a month to three hundred in a day. Soon I’d been contacted by publishers in China, Korea, and Thailand and by a movie producer. An agent, and my Tiger series publisher, Sterling, soon followed. The wonderful and extremely fortunate thing about Sterling was that they shared my vision with getting the books out to fans as …

As far as the writing process goes, I like to establish a routine. Writing at the same time every day, surrounding yourself with things that make you comfortable, having a huge bottle of water or your favorite drink nearby, and keeping reference material near is helpful. I got a mini-fridge which I fill with snacks and drinks in case I’m on a roll and don’t want to head downstairs. For me, I light a candle to remind me to incorporate the sense of smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound in my writing. If your character doesn’t feel it, neither does …

For me, writing is like a road trip. I travel from point A to point B, say Los Angeles to New York City. There are dozens of ways to get there and I give myself leeway to travel down different paths that peak my interest. I may stop off in Denver for a few days or take a day trip to Memphis but I always turn around after my wandering and fix my gaze on New York. I’m a bit of an organizational freak. I like to catalog ideas into neat little spaces, but every once in a while I …

I think the hardest part for me is just opening the document. Once the file is up and my hands are poised over the keys, I do just fine. It’s often easy to get distracted by everything else going on. My husband works at home too and we interrupt each other often. Also, if I get up and see the laundry basket is full, I may end up doing laundry instead of writing. I’m something of a clean freak.  So I’d say setting aside the time to just focus on the book is my biggest obstacle.

Most of my ideas come from books. Two of my favorites are reference books-one is about dream interpretation and the other is about signs and symbols. I have dozens of books about the mythologies of the world and keep detailed notes of any cool ideas I find. The tests of the four houses actually came from a myth found in Mayan culture. I also get a lot of ideas from dreams. My husband says he doesn’t dream at all or at least doesn’t remember them when he wakes up, but I remember mine. I write them down and hope to …

I check email and work on my correspondence in the morning then write in the afternoons. When I finish a chapter, I get my husband who also works from home and we go over it together. He reads the entire thing out loud, we argue about punctuation, and then when we’re done, I send it out with pictures to my early reading group who give me their thoughts and feedback. When I’m in full on deadline mode I try to write 1-2 chapters per week which averages out to about 2000 words per day four to five days a week.