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Go ahead: ask me anything about my stories. Inspirations, predictions, questions....anything.

What motivates you as a writer?

I am motivated by several things, depending on what I am writing. When I first started writing, I was 11, and decided to write a practice book before going on to write a real book. While doing that, what motivated me was simply the will to write a full-length novel, and while I didn't succeed then, it's played a huge part in my writing since.

When writing Balto stories, I am motivated by my characters' thoughts. When I get to a certain part of a story when I get writer's block, I usually ask myself, okay, how would my characters get around this part of the story? Most of the time, the answer presents itself within a few minutes, and in case it doesn't, I start thinking about different characters than the one I'm working on, ask them, and they give me an answer.

In writing other stories--i.e., a story about somebody finding a rare coin and deciding to eat it--I am motivated with a mixture of the above two options, plus the topping of the cake: I ask my friends their opinions, and take their answers quite seriously. With the stories where I have the general plot but no specific points to emphasize, this comes in quite handy. Sure, he eats the coin, but who finds out about it? Was the coin really that valuable? Others make those choices for me, so I only have to concentrate on the major things of the story.

In short: what motivates me are 1) The will to finish the story, 2) The characters in my story, and 3) The help my friends provide.

Makes sense. Do you ever write a story for some specific purpose apart from the story itself? For example, have you ever written to relay a particular message you wanted to get across, or made a story to encourage someone when they were going through a hard time in their life?

That's a difficult question to answer...I suppose the simplest answer is "only sometimes".

When I first started writing, I did so just to pass the time; I don't use the TV very much, usually no more than a movie a day. My first stories were just ideas that popped into my head. But as I progressed, I realized that I needed a point to all my stories; for example, you can't just have a story when someone finds an apple--they need to understand what powers the apple has. So I started utilizing points--sometimes even morals--to all my stories, and eventually I even put in a few elements of religion, based on my personal beliefs. You will see this even in my Balto stories.

As for writing stories for a specific person, I have only done that once, and though it cheered them up, it didn't work quite as well as I had hoped. So I have decided not to do that again unless I feel a calling to.

Apples with powers and swallowing coins. You sound like someone I know.

Just shouting out random examples--no more.