What I read: while I'm writing, I tend to go off reading fiction for relaxation - especially the challenging stuff. It's too much like the day job.

Biggest influence: my mother.

I do not click on random youtube videos.

If I wanted to be in movies, I'd have gone into scriptwriting: the fact that I write novels should be a big hint about what I prefer to do!

Any civilization where the main symbol of religious veneration is a tool of execution is a bad place to have children.

Idiots emit bogons, causing machinery to malfunction in their presence. System administrators absorb bogons, letting machinery work again.

Today, we see some "file sharing" sites that rely on fans uploading cracked copies of ebooks, and which then make money off those books by charging for downloads (via cash subscriptions or advertising). Again: I take a dim view of this. They're making money off the back of my work without paying me.