Every decision has some level of consequences—a ripple effect. Not everyone can coexist and no relationship is simple. Ruby is figuring out what all that means. Her journey to discover who she really wants to be begins with her in Volume One: The Adventures of Miss Mind Shift, when it is clear to Ruby that her body can’t keep using her telekinesis to kill and steal. While Ruby is swallowed in doubt about her current way of living she goes against her crew leader’s orders to kill a homeless teenage girl, who witnessed their use of powers. This thrusts Ruby into a whirlwind of hard decisions. The decisions she makes have severe and overwhelming consequences.

Going for walks to ponder is something I did a lot of in the early stages of creating Emerald City Nights. Seattle, in my opinion is teaming with fantastic things to look at. The wind that comes from the sound is remarkable, each neighborhood has it’s own special vibe, two major mountain ranges are either side of the city, the weather around here sticks to it’s own rules, and the Space Needle is just asking for a super-powered battle to happen in front of it with it’s futuristic appearance—in others words it’s a great setting for supernatural activity. So when I came to fleshing out the supernatural aspect of the series I decided to use Seattle as an obvious stage to  increase the overall atmosphere of the series and to make the line between reality and fantasy a bit grayer. Some real aspects of Seattle such as the large amount homeless residents I used to help tell the story. Being homeless at one point is something most of my characters share.

Oh man, that’s tough one! I honestly don’t think I have a favorite character. I have a unique and special attachment to each one. Over the last several years I have kept character journals in each of the main character’s voices and have developed a relationship with each of them.

I don’t think that anything in particularly inspired me to write Emerald City Nights in a darker less traditional way, the story and characters just came out that way once I took the plot from outline to prose.

I feel that Ruby is an incredibly flawed being that makes rash decisions based on impulsive feelings. All of my favorite super powered characters have major flaws and situations working against them. Peter Parker is Spider-Man but that doesn’t mean his life is easy, it’s anything but. When bringing Ruby to life I wanted to show my readers how human and imperfect she really is despite her incredibly powerful telekinesis.

Anytime I pictured the covers I saw them in Anime. So I decided to find myself an Anime artist. Both Volume 1 and Volume 2’s covers are designed by Christine Chong. Working with her was a lot fun: emails back and forth discussing Ruby’s appearance and personality traits in order to really convey realistic emotion in Ruby’s face-a bucket list item for sure.

Honestly my characters Ruby and Darcy were my major inspiration while writing these books. Once I created them I was so interested in what would happen to them that it kept me writing and plotting. I was dedicated to staying true to who they were and let them led me down their intertwining paths.

It has already changed the market in the sense that it has empowered a lot of individuals to get their work out there. The whole market place is still in the process of changing and I think there are still a lot of things that haven’t been figured out yet and I find that really exciting.

Writing is a craft so don’t get discouraged when it doesn’t come out perfect the first or even the fifth time and certainly don’t toss it away. Keep writing and believe in what you’re doing.