Frequently asked questions...

How do you find time to write with three young children?

All I need is a two-hour chunk of time nearly every day to feel like I'm moving forward and accomplishing. Sometimes I go weeks on end setting my alarm for five in the morning and writing until seven, or until the first child wakes. Morning writing used to be my favorite but then my daughter started waking at five fifteen and it's frustrating when you've downed a cup of coffee, are fully warmed up to write and a baby feels like playing. It's why lately I've switched to writing mostly from 9:30 to 11:30 at night.

I only write when my children are sleeping, which is hard. It means watching very little television, and having hardly any personal time, but writing, I've found is relaxing. It might not be the same as soaking in the tub or sitting down to watch a good movie, but I do consider it my selfish time and I thoroughly enjoy it.

I did join a gym a couple of years back. It had a nursery. Soon, however, instead of working out, I found myself plugging in my laptop in the lounge, working on Portion of the Sea. After months of this, my husband noticed I wasn't getting in better shape and I confessed. We cancelled my gym membership.

I'm content now with doing what I can when my kids are asleep. I will say, however, a nice cup of coffee at two o'clock helps me stay alert for when I start writing later at night. Without that two o'clock coffee, I'm asleep on the sofa by nine!

When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

I never thought about it. I just wrote. When I got my first journal at around age eight, I wrote about everything-what I had for hot lunch that day to who the bullies were at school. I filled it up and needed a new journal before the year was over and I felt compelled to write daily in my journal for the next thirteen years. I also wrote letters, especially to my grandmother living on Sanibel Island. It was when I was at college in Michigan, majoring in Spanish and Communications, that she told me my letters were so good she had a feeling I'd become a novelist one day.

I mostly wanted to become a journalist, but my school at that time didn't specialize in journalism. I never took any writing classes, but after college, landed my first job writing and announcing news for radio. After that, I went for a job at a newspaper. They said I needed a journalism degree. I asked the bureau chief to give me a chance, to send me on an assignment and let me write a story. If she liked it, I would go out on another story. She wouldn't have to put any of my stories in the paper and she didn't have to pay me (despite the fact that I was broke). I just wanted a chance.

Where do you get your ideas?

While walking down Periwinkle (on Sanibel), I had a burst of inspiration for Sanibel Scribbles, and because I take frequent walks, also for Portion of the Sea and ran into a store to ask for a pen and paper. Watching the sun set with my family at Blind Pass gave me the idea for the "glistening steps" theme in Portion and my almost daily bike rides (on the trike) with my newborn daughter, and looking at the flowers all around, was how I got most of my ideas for Sand in my Eyes. By the time I'd hit Tarpon Bay Road at Bailey's on my way home, I didn't want more ideas because I'd have to keep them all inside me until the kids were asleep.

I'm not the type to brainstorm. I cannot sit down and try to think up an idea for a book, or a scene. When I try to do that, nothing happens and I find myself thinking of other things instead, like what do I have to buy at the grocery store today and what should I make for dinner tonight?

The only way I get ideas is when I'm not forcing them. It's why having fun outdoors with my kids inspires me. I'm also inspired while standing on either my front or back porch in the morning, holding my daughter while listening to the birds, or watching the osprey in its nest, or the pilleated woodpeckers and the cardinals. Nature inspires me, as do times with my children. I also like Mozart, or certain songs by Beethoven. I enjoy a beautiful environment and do my best to create one.

I do like going to bed thinking about where I'm at in the story. I don't stress over what I should write next. I fall asleep and come morning-if I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to write in the morning-it comes to me as my fingers hit the keys. Often, when I take a shower after I've written, all kinds of new ideas come and I can't wait to add them later.

What advice do you have for writers?

Write consistently each and every day if you can. I like writing two-hours a day either from 5 to 7 a.m. or from 9 to 11 p.m. or 10 to midnight. Find a chunk of time that works for you, even if it's only a half-hour each day. I once heard a quote that went something like this: writing isn't talking about writing. It's not thinking about writing. It's not fretting over not writing. Writing is writing! Of course I've reworded that quite a bit, but what I believe is that if someone wants to be a writer, well, they should just start writing!

Enjoy the process. Writing a book can take years so make it ‘your time' and write through good times and through bad. Life enhances the writing and the writing can be therapeutic.

When you are writing, take the critic hat off, put the creative hat on and let yourself go. There will be time later, when you walk away from it awhile, then print and read, that you can put the critic hat on to tweak and fix. I started writing in a diary when I was a little girl and continued journaling feverishly for the next fourteen years. I think that is where I learned, or developed my comfort for writing, or where I came to know my writer's voice.

Learn what situations inspire you. I get inspiration when I am outside-walking or biking-or when I'm listening to music like Mozart and sitting on my front or back porch. I've gotten some of my best novel ideas while wading in the water with my children at the beach.

Regarding finding an agent, then a publisher, or choosing to self-publish, all I can say is go to the bookstore (which is what I did) and spend a lot of time in the section for writers. For every question you have, there is a book that answers it. I bought books on everything from writing query letters to contacting agents to self-publishing. It was the only way I learned what to do and because the industry is constantly changing, it's the best advice I can give to any writer wanting to get published.

Read. Read novels. I don't read-don't have time to read-when I'm writing, but in between projects I love to read. I like to pull books off the shelf, flip them open to any page and stand there, thinking to myself, "Wow, what a beautiful paragraph, and oh, what a sentence."