I was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and at the age of three my parents were divorced so I moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota with my Mother, Sister, Aunt and Grandmother. I’ve been in Minnesota ever since and now live with my wife, Cindy, in a suburb of Minneapolis.

Tell us your latest news?

I’ve been working on a blog called “Books For Youth”, where I write weekly reviews of Speculative fiction for Children and Teens while providing an unbiased Christian perspective.

When and why did you begin writing?

Ever since I can remember, my mother would read me story books. Before bed she would sometimes make up the beginning of a story and then let me finish it in my head while I laid there to sleep. Perhaps this is the reason I have trouble falling asleep to this day <laughs>. My mind seems to wander and I find that I do my best problem solving when I hit the pillow. Unfortunately, mornings are not a good friend of mine.

I would say that “Stories” have always been a part of my life, and it was only natural for me to try and write my own. When I was 13 my mother bought me a Smith Corona Typewriter, and that was the beginning of my first attempts to write. I actually started working on my story, “A Wizard’s Tale” at that time, which many years later, I plan for it to be my first full-length novel.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

For me I consider writing just another avenue to express myself creatively. There are many tools for creative expression, and writing just so happens to be one of the best. There are many opinions out there as to what classifies one as “a writer” but for me it started before I even put "a pencil to paper " so to say. The stories are inside of you, the tool is simply a way of getting them out.

Yes. I have composed Electronica style music, dabbled in drawing--along with other forms of visual art, developed Web sites, print materials, and graduated from a Computer Graphics / Multimedia college which is my main career path.

What inspired you to write your first book?

The house I grew up in had many cats, and I had an idea to write a fairytale story about one in particular named Sam, who was my mother’s favorite cat. I wanted to write a story about him mainly for her, but after receiving such positive feedback from people I decided to put the story into book format.

Do you have a specific writing style?

I believe that everyone has their own unique style, or rather: voice. What molds this in each person can be an assortment of many various things such as other authors you’ve read, your personality and experiences in life.

I write in a way that can reach all ages, providing stories that children can understand, yet still giving enough depth and symbolism for adults to relate to.

How did you come up with the title?

I came up with, “The Cat That Made Nothing Something Again” on a whim. Actually, I came up with the title before I came up with the story. I liked how the play on “Nothing” worked with “Something”.

Is there a message in your book that you want readers to grasp?

There are several messages in the story, but the main one is that of doing for others as you would have them do for you. In other words, it’s a story that attempts to thwart the idea of selfishness.

Well, it is a fairytale, so there are a lot of “otherworld” ideas, but the messages in the story are very real and can meet anyone where they are at in their “real” lives. This is the great power behind fiction; it has the ability to make someone look into themselves in a way that real-life situations just can’t reach.

The experiences of the main character, Samuel (or, “The Nameless Cat” as he is first known by), are more a product of truths I have learned in life than direct situations I’ve been in. Though my first reactions of seeing a clown is very similar to the contempt that Samuel felt when meeting the fool on the road. There’s just something creepy about them.

The Bible is the one that has probably influenced me the most, but that’s more on a moral and spiritual level than a writing one.

I believe that every writer is asked the question, “what famous writer are you most like?” at one point in their lives. Where I understand the reason for the question, I think if a writer pulls a name out of their hat then they risk being accused of being a copycat. The truth is that reading books do influence a writer, but they do not make the writer. As C.S. Lewis said, “Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”

That said, I’d say the writer whose works most influenced me is Michael Ende, who is probably best known as the author of “The Neverending Story”. If I can become even half the writer he was, then I will have achieved more than I could have dreamed.

Book? As in singular? <laughs>. I tend to have several going at a time, and right now it’s: “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life” by Anne Lamott; “Letters from a Lost Uncle” by Mervyn Peake; and, “The Amulet of Samarkand” by Jonathan Stroud.

Since I run a review blog it forces me to keep reading, which is a good thing.

I don’t know if I’d call him a new author, but Darryl Sloan’s second book, “Chion”, is one of the better ones I’ve read. Very creative too. I wrote a review about it on my Books For Youth blog at wordpress.com.

I’ve been working on marketing, “The Cat That Made Nothing Something Again” but will be going back to writing “A Wizard’s Tale”. Unfortunately, even though I came up with that name almost twenty years ago, someone else has published a book under it (even though I own the domain awizardstale.com and .net) so I may need to change it to something else when I finally publish.

The Church. Their support may not have been specific to my writing path, but the people there had really helped me during difficult times in my life, particularly in my teen years. I would not be where I am now if it wasn’t for them.

There’s little more I’d love to do than to sit on my deck with a notebook in my lap while pluging away at my current story, but the reality of it isn’t practical. Bills need to be paid, and very few professional writers are compensated well enough to make it a career path. Either that or you get stuck writing topics you have no interest in and thus kill your love for the art. I don’t want the chains of professional writing to keep my creativity at bay, so I keep it as something more of a hobby. The other problem I can see with being a professional writer is the great time commitment that many writers give by flying from place to place and making public speeches. I don’t know how they can do it. I find that most “speculative fiction” writers tend to me more introverted, which is why we are writing about fantasy worlds to begin with.

There were a few, minor formatting and editing changes that even my editor missed, but overall I am happy with how it turned out.

As mentioned before, I believe it originated from my youth. I have recognized the need to sometimes escape into a fantasy world in order to find solace, and so I write stories that instill truths, hope, encouragement and inspiration into the hearts and minds of my readers to help equip them with ideals that will aid them in everyday life.

Of course. As mentioned, my current work in progress is "A Wizard's Tale", which is a story about a fifteen-year-old boy who is involuntarily forced to walk in his father's footsteps -- after his death -- and finds himself fighting against a powerful and opposing force.

Speed and time…or rather, lack of speed and lack of time. I’m such a perfectionist that I find myself constantly going back to rework the writing rather than just moving ahead and worrying about fixing the issues later.

I did. Well, to be fair, I purchased the artwork and then put everything together. I’m not a bad drawer, but painting was never my strong suite. Since the cover is the first impression a reader gets, it’s very important for it to look appealing.

Finishing it. I had edited it so many times that I could no longer see the words without knowing in advance what they said. This is bad because it makes your mind wander over mistakes, and finding a good editor was extremely key to making the book professional and high-quality enough for the market.

I learned how much work a simple 90 page story can be. Finishing a novel will be a great challenge to say the least.

Read, read and then read some more. The more you read, the better you write. Also, be sure you understand the modern writing process as many things become outdated and make your writing look “hack”. The most helpful book for me was “Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print” by Renni Browne.

Thank you for your support. The best writer in the world is nothing without readers. If you would like to follow my status, you can sign up as a “fan” (I know, I hate that term) to “James D. Maxon” on Facebook.