My joking answer to this question is that I leave a bowl of milk out on the back porch every night for the Idea Fairy. In the morning, the milk is gone and there's a brand-new shiny idea by the bowl.

Then, I realized that there is an indigenous presence in the Solar System. It's us. So, then, I got to wondering what would happen if a more technologically advanced society moved next door to us, the way we moved next door to the American Indians.

Fantasy is, of course, booming, and I think it's beginning to stretch its range as well.

I graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Communications and left formal education behind.

The Lord of the Rings movie set an entirely new standard for fantasy in the movies.

If I get blocked, it is generally because I don't know enough about some aspect of the story or the characters. The answer for this is generally more research, or making more background notes, so the place and person can be more fully realized inside my own mind.

I myself was born in Sacramento, California in 1966.