Tough question. I feel like a fraud as a writer for a lot of reasons. One of them is that I never had a ‘lightbulb’ moment, where I was inspired by another writer and I just knew I wanted to write. I’ve enjoyed reading hundreds of books, and there are some authors I like more than others, but I can’t point to any author specifically as an influence. I’ve never wanted to emulate any authors style, or had a “books I wish I wrote” moment. Like I said I feel a bit like a fraud because of it.

However, and there is a however to this answer. There is one author who I would say has influenced me but not really because they were an author. Holly Lisle is an author, and has lived my dream and made a living from her writing, but it wasn’t her books that influenced me, it was her courses. She’s offered a number of online writing courses and ‘How to Revise your Novel’ is the single most useful writing ‘lesson’ I’ve ever taken.

It gave me the tools to be able to analyze my own work, so that I could (hopefully) work out what was wrong with it. I can’t tell you how much confidence that gave me. I guess I felt more in control of the process which was something I sorely needed. I still wouldn’t call myself a good writer but I can see how much I improved from this. I wrote this book, it’ll probably never see the light of day, but I must have redrafted it, and then ripped it to pieces, half a dozen times or more. That taught me so much and I would never have been able to do it without Holly Lisle giving me the starting point.