1. What inspired you to write your first book?
It started out as a short story based on the strange diary that Auden finds early in the book. The concept of getting “lost in a good book” swam around my head and churned out of this dark interpretation of some bad dreams I was having.
Then one night I dreamed about a strange man with a key that opened rooms that previously weren’t there. These odd rooms sent shivers deep into the pit of my stomach. I’d wake up sweating and fighting for breath so wrote it down. Looking closer, It seemed to fit in well with the diary idea, so I incorporated them together.
When Booktrope asked me to turn the story into a novel I was more than happy to develop the ideas further. A year and a half later “the Key to everything” came to fruition and unleashed the squirrelpocalypse on the world!!
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2. Writing can be a difficult job, what inspires you to keep going?
Ideas are constantly boiling in my mind. Writing helps me to clear some space for reality. Writing is a release for me that also aids in adding structure to my life. I’m usually a scatterbrain (just ask my wife) and getting these ideas out of my head leaves room in there for the non-fiction of everyday life.
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3. What are you working on now? What’s next?
I’m in the middle of a new book called “Down the Sunday Hole”. The first part of it was published in my latest collection of short stories called “A Chorus of Wolves” I have an idea to put out more collections that contain different parts of that story along with other shorts. I’m also writing pieces about my misadventures as a musician in Los Angeles for an awesome blog called “Dumb White Husband” I have a few other projects that are up in the air and I’m crossing my spleen that they’ll happen. It’s some pretty great stuff that I can’t talk about right now so you’ll have to trust me that groovy things are on the horizon
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4. What’s your writing process, schedule, or routine?
I don’t have a schedule. With two kids it’s a challenge to get anything accomplished! I try to work on projects while they’re at school and my wife is at work. Unfortunately I am unable to have a day job at this time due to health reasons, soon the plus side it does offer me some time to write. I’d love to get more done than I do, but wrestling with the muses can often be much more difficult that we would like to admit.
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5. Who is your favorite book character of all time? Why?
I’d have to say Frankenstein’s Monster. Not the movie adaptations. Most of them miss the point of his motivation entirely. He is not evil. He only becomes a “Monster” because he is rejected and abandoned for no reason that is explainable to him. His loneliness and self-loathing springs from no fault of his own. When he learns the difference between love and hate, he initially and quite naturally chooses love. He is forced into hatred by being attacked and condemned without cause other than his physical appearance. It is an extremely sad story. Frankenstein is one of my top five desert island books.
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6. What advice would give to aspiring writers?
The only advice I can give is to write write write write. Write all the time. Use napkins at restaurants. The back of movie tickets or cereal boxes. Anything you can find. Keep a notepad with you at all times. Get those ideas out there even if they’re awful. It helps make room for the good ones!
In addition, read read read read read. If you’re not writing, be reading. If you’re not reading, be writing.
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7. What’s your favorite quote?
My dad always used to say this and it rings true in nearly all situations.
“Perfect is the enemy of done.”
In other words, you can strive for perfection, but does it really exist? Perfection can stand in the way of accomplishing anything realistically. There is nothing wrong with striving for excellence, but sometimes the flaws can make the inherent beauty stand more strongly.
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8. Who would you most like to have a cup of coffee with? (Dead or alive) Explain…
I could make a list that stretches one hundred miles long of names answering this question. People from the master of horror, HP Lovecraft, Albert Einstein, musician/producer Brian Eno or one of my favorite authors Michael Marshall Smith. But honestly, I’d just love to have a couple more hours hanging out with my dad.
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9. What is your biggest pet peeve?
I have a ginormous list of pet peeves. I think the biggest is probably dishonesty. Most lies don’t last and the truth will eventually out. It’s so much easier to simply tell the truth and deal with the consequences than worry about remembering the wobbly foundations of stories and fabrications that continually add up to steady the leaning tower of B.S.
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10. Tell us something quirky about you.
I am such a nerd it’s not even funny. I grew up collecting comic books and loving science fiction. These days it’s not such a big deal, but back in the olden days it was a dangerous thing to admit. Add the dork factor to the red hair and freckles; I got beat up more times than I can count.
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11. Favorite comfort food?
Food in general is comforting for me. That’s how I keep my spectacular spherical shape. (Dig the alliteration?)
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12. Star Wars or Star Trek? 
Star Wars. Though I am a Trekker too. It’s kind of like asking Chocolate or Vanilla. No fair man. I dig both!
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13. Sunrises or Sunsets?
You’re seriously asking the scary, horror, squirrelpocalypse guy about Sunrises or Sunsets?
Quick story: On our honeymoon we took a cruise in Hawaii. The crew were expecting quite a few more guests than arrived. I would hardly reach the half-way point on my mai tai and they would put another full glass in my hand. Needless to say, I wouldn’t have needed waves to make me weave back and forth on my feet. When we developed the film from that night (yes I’m older than digital cameras) it turns out that I took three rolls of pictures of that sunset. “Art” pictures. The mast from this angle, a half-finished skewer of shrimp on a plate… I thought I was Ansel friggin’ Adams. That sunset is immortalized on celluloid, and yet will never be seen by anyone other than my wife or me.
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