If you had to describe yourself in one word, what words wouldn't you use?

"Organized". I also wouldn't use "extroverted", "daring", or "silicon-based".

What was your nickname at school?

I didn't have a nickname at school, thank goodness. I did, however, have a nickname at home. When he first learned to talk, my younger brother could not pronounce "Carolina" (it is a pretty long name, after all). For some reason, he settled on being able to say the "li" syllable, so he called me "Lee" or, more often and more annoyingly, "LeeLee". Now let us never speak of this again. EVER. Seriously, if anyone has the nerve to mention this in the comments, know this: I will hunt you down.

When you were a young padowan, what did you want to be when you grew up?

As a singularly unimaginative child, I didn't want to be anything when I grew up. I simply couldn't imagine adulthood in any way that made the question meaningful. So, when asked, I'd always just stand there looking stupid for a good long while, my brain racing to try to come up with something, anything, to say in response. I generally eventually said something, but it was never the same thing twice.

What is your favourite quote?

A favourite quote? You mean I need to pick just one? You are cruel. Cruel and unjust. Um. Well. I guess I'll pick this one:

"I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be."

It's from T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and of course, it means very little without the rest of the poem. If you haven't read the poem yet, go read it now. I'll wait.

<waits>

There, wasn't that an interesting poem? Okay, I'm ready for the next question.

Other than writing, what hobbies do you have?

I like to take photographs, though I'm even worse at that than at writing! I also make origami flowers (and, you know, other random origami stuff, when I get bored with the flowers).

As your crew cast your lifeless body into the core of the nearest star, list three pieces of music likely to be rattling the bulkheads.

Is it bad that the reference to bulkheads rattling makes me immediately want to select Ride of the Valkyries? 'Cause that would be sort of awesome, don't you think? Except, meh, you know, it's just so . . . Wagner. Of course, Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" would be pretty great too, no? Just imagine a huge space ship resonating to that! Not very funereal (awesome word, isn't it?), but oh-so-cool.

Anyhow, more seriously, for my actual space funeral, I'd definitely want the crew to rustle up, at the very least, the Dies Irae (the plainchant version, not that fashionable Mozart stuff), the Largo from Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony, and the Pie Jesu from Andrew Lloyd Webber's requiem mass setting. Maybe the crew could perform themselves. That would be pretty impressive, no? Full dress uniform, of course.

If you were one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which one would you be and why?

Death. The others are all clearly Death's subordinates.

What was the first piece of writing you were ever truly proud to have written?

When I was about six, I wrote a poem where I rhymed "four, five, six" with "I ate a Twix". This rhyme pleased me a great deal, not least because it allowed me to imagine having two whole chocolate bars (for anyone who doesn't know, Twix bars are sold in pairs) to myself.

Who is your all-time favourite author? How much - if at all - have they influenced your writing style?

For Science Fiction, while I admire a lot of authors, my all-time, hands-down favourite is Ray Bradbury. The very first science fiction story I remember reading was one of his,"All Summer in a Day". I cried when I heard that he had died.

Has he influenced me? I'm not sure. I don't deliberately imitate him – I don't think I'd be capable of that – but I've read so much of his work that I think it would be impossible not to have been somehow affected by it.

Do you have a muse?

Nope. But I am willing to hire one should the right candidate present suitable credentials.

Walk us through your writing process. How do you begin and how do you decide when a story is done? What do you use to write, and whereabouts do you use it?

For short stories, I'm usually a pantser – I just sit down and write. For the few novel-length things I've written, I've usually (but not always) been a pretty extensive plotter. When I'm feeling very plot-y, I write out all the important events, and copy them onto index cards. I then throw the index cards up in the air or down the stairs,and then put them back in order. This usually results in it being really clear what the critical path scenes are, and which scenes I can slide around to serve other purposes. That said, characters kind of like to go off on their own tangents anyhow, so the end result isn't always what was planned.

I'm not picky about the mechanics of how I write except in one respect – I refuse to write on a phone. Desktop computer, tablet, pencil-and-paper, scrawling in mud, I'm good with all of it, except for phones. Phones are evil. This means I have to carry a notebook around with me wherever I go, but hey, in case of emergency, you can burn the paper for light and heat.

Of everything you have written, what is your favourite?

That's like asking a doting parent which child is the favourite. I write in a lot of different genres and have lots of characters whom I love to pieces. However, in terms of Science Fiction, one story which I really like but which didn't get a lot of attention is actually something I submitted to Tevun Krus. Appearing in TK's most recent holiday edition, "Saturnalia" is the story of a small boy who lives a tightly circumscribed life in a futuristic world. I was reading a lot of '40s and '50s Science Fiction shorts at the time I wrote it, and I like to think something of their flavour is in my story too. The feeling I was aiming for is something like a square of good chocolate – small, rich, and dark.

...and what is your fans' favourite?

Among my science fiction, at least, this is an easy one. Daring Dashwood's Wasteland Wanders is fanfiction based on the in-game radio dramas in Fallout 3 – i.e. a fandom within a fandom. I thought I had found a niche so obscure that nobody would ever read a word of my story; instead it's far and away the fan favourite on my page. The story is done in radio script format, and follows gentleman adventurer Herbert "Daring" Dashwood and his manservant, Argyle, as they get themselves into and out of trouble with slavers, evil twins, and the female half of the species. Fallout 3 is fairly serious post-apocalyptic science fiction, but my take on Dashwood's life is very enthusiastically comedy.

We know some of the big authors, Orson Scott Card and Tolkien, for example, incorporate their religious beliefs into their work. Are you religious? If so, do you incorporate those beliefs into your work?

I'm quite religious (I attend mass regularly and volunteer at my parish – I got to hand out the "how to reduce your carbon emissions!" postcards), but I'm not particularly spiritual. By this I mean that theology, ethical philosophy, social justice, rituals, liturgy, religious practices, etc. are all both intellectually interesting and emotionally rewarding to me; the nebulous feel-good stuff that many people call "spiritual", on the other hand, bores me silly. Go back and look at my list of funeral songs above, if you don't believe me. They are pretty funereal (see? Told you I liked that word) funeral songs.

I only occasionally incorporate my religious beliefs into my work. However, I think it very important that my characters have philosophical beliefs and opinions, and that the characters are striving for internal philosophical consistency, regardless of whether that philosophy is religious or secular. I also think that the act of writing in an imagined world has some interesting religious connotations, with implications for one's interpretation of the nature of God, in particular. Read up on Tolkien's concept of "sub-creation" and you'll see what I mean.

Was there one idea that you had that didn't turn out quite the way you envisioned it?

One idea? Try every single idea I've ever had. Do you ever have that sudden moment where the characters stop doing what you've laid out for them and start doing whatever they please? That happens to me a lot – if I've imagined them well enough, they start doing their own thing, and it can take a lot of work to rein them in.

Do you use real life experiences to influence your writing?

Not intentionally . . .

If an alien race was, unbeknownst to us, watching and studying us from afar, what do you think their primary findings would be?

I like to think that there's something inherently similar about all intelligent beings ('cept maybe A.I. - see below) – that they share not only many of the same glories, but many of the same foibles. So, I imagine that the aliens would see something of themselves in us, and vice versa.

If you were to gain control of some form of time travel device, where - or when - would you go, and why?

What are the consequences of using this device? I don't want to change the past to the point that I destroy the entire universe by triggering a paradox – but there are so many times in the past I would like to visit, just to observe. A short list would include such exciting times and places as late Republican Rome and the Napoleonic Wars. Obviously, I'd have to be careful to stay far away from oh, knives and cannons and poison and such. As for the future, I think I'd just try a date and place at random and see what happens.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Wait, wait, I need to think, 'cause we already talked about time travel, and I assume that includes time control powers (though those would be my first choice). Instead, I'll go with . . . Meat vision. No, no, not heat vision. Meat vision. It totally is a real superpower - I saw it on tv.

Is there a particular moment in history that you would change if you could, regardless of the consequences?

Nope. There are three good habits I always strive to cultivate: using cash instead of credit or debit; holding the door open for others as often as possible; and refraining from messing with the space-time continuum.

The Technological Singularity presents a rather daunting, some say inevitable, future. Does the prospect of that level of Artificial Intelligence excite you, or make you quake in your boots?

Actually, it makes me feel melancholy. I daresay A.I.s just won't "get" us real humans.

Myths and Legends have been around since forever and will most likely continue to grow and develop until we, the human race, are nothing more than a memory but of all such things you have read, what is your favourite 'modern,' interpretation of a particular tale of old?

A hard, hard choice, but I'm going to go with T.H. White's version of the Arthurian legends, The Once and Future King. It's not an especially novel take on King Arthur, but it's quite thoughtful and a fun read.

Fan Fiction is a little bit like Marmite, you either love it or you hate it. On which end of that scale do you sit?

I love it. Well, I love it when it's well-written, which a surprising amount of it is!

Now this one might prove to be a bit of a shout-out to a fellow Wattpadder, but that's no bad thing if you ask me! If you could experience the world of any science fiction book on Wattpad, first hand, which world would that be and why?

So many of my favourites are set in such dystopic worlds that, while I love the stories, I'd never want to live in them! That said, can I live the life of TK's own intrepid wanderers, Smith and Jones? They always get to see new and exciting things and, eventually, one of those worlds will turn out to be a pretty decent place to settle down.

And finally, any words of wisdom for new and aspiring writers?

If you enjoy writing, then just go forth and write. If you don't enjoy writing, then don't write unless your teacher or your boss is making you do it.

Oh, and if you're writing on Wattpad, be polite and don't spam other people's message boards and stories, okay?