About book 10

      I love it when a story begins to reveal itself to me as I'm writing it.  I began the process of writing book 10 today.  Now you should understand that all those professors and author guides that tell you to create an outline, then summarize each chapter, develop all of your characters and then begin writing your novel have probably never written a novel.  For me, it all begins with an opening line.  On this book (which I don't know the title of yet) the only thing I was sure of was that at least one character would be a dryad named Alisterra.  But I could not begin writing until I had been given the first line.  Once it came, the story began to flow.
      It may sound funny but for me, writing a novel is a lot like you reading it for the first time.  When I sit down at the computer to write, I usually do not know what is going to happen anymore than you do.  I hear the conversations, I see the scenes, and I witness the action as it flows from my fingers through the keyboard to the page.  A week ago when I knew that another story wanted to come out; I had no idea what or who that story was about.  Even now that chapter one is complete, I still don't know where it is going.  But I do know one thing.  I won't publish it until we can both enjoy reading it over and over.