I started out in the theatre. In school, majoring in it in college, obsessing about it, doing it, reading ancient Greek tragedies and writing  one-acts for my classmates to act out. But it was always about dialogue.

Somehow it turned into jazz. You know how life is, right? I took about 10 or so years and sang professionally in night clubs and restaurants. Composed and arranged most of the songs my 3 to 5-piece band performed, and just went with the flow when my lyrics were interrupted by a much louder, "Sandman, party of 8, your table's ready."

Then it morphed ungracefully into writing advertising copy. And from there into writing magazine articles, and finally getting a regular column.

The jazz years turned into a book. It's doing pretty well. (Non-fiction book on vocal technique)

The commercial writing was supplemented by poetry and non-commercial blogs and websites.

And now I'm basically writing novels. Writing novels gives me everything: dialogue, theatre, a love of the concise, and even, in one book, music. (The novel with music in it has been rejected enough times that I don't think there's anyone else on the planet to send it to.) I love writing novels. Everything I hear that I like, goes into a novel (or a notebook for a future novel - I mean it's got to kind of go along with the plot).