I didn't read at all until I was 12. I just couldn't. It was too frustrating.

I miss my Dad. My Dad loved cheesy monster movies, so we'd have Godzilla movie marathons. Those are some of my favorite memories, laughing at how the monster outfits were so bad, like black garbage bags for heads.

I would ask my parents something, but then go to my siblings. We were encouraged to bounce ideas off everyone.

When we had to do book reports, I would pick a book that no one read and just make it up and turn that in. I got praised for my imagination.

The way this whole novel thing came together was, I sold them one bill of goods and then didn't communicate very well. I am like Captain Run-on Sentence.

I picked books by their covers - the worse the cover, the more I wanted to read it.