C.A. Rudolph Interview Published on: 03, Jul 2018

How to stay young and keep an open mind. My youngest is especially good at this. She's a true individual.

She used to read them all, but she's lazy like me. :) She prefers to help me proof the audio books before they're published now. As far as being critical, she has no problem calling me out for using something she considers in appropriate. But it's a rare occasion we disagree on the content.

Traffic. It's a bustling area, one of the busiest in the country now. And it's a good place to make money. The DC suburbs, where I work, are the worst. But, where I live, on the west side of the Blue Ridge, it's not so bad.

I've been writing off and on since the eighth grade. My first creative writing ventures began in high school during my junior year. I didn't publish anything until over twenty years later.

Anything outdoor related: camping, hiking, backpacking, exploring. I make time as often as I can.

They're vital. Paperbacks will never go away but ebooks are a huge portion of my income as an indie. AllAuthor and platforms like it are invaluable outlets for promotion.

You'll have to read them to find out.

Of course. Nothing makes a person want more success than finding success in something. I never even saw it coming, but it was an pleasant and welcome surprise. It's inspired me to write not just in the same series but also to branch out into other works as well.

I removed quite a bit of the offensive language in recent versions. But, I also used one of the more potty-mouthed characters and created a scene to poke fun at the situation in Book 3. She "turns over a new leaf," but who's to know if it will remain that way.

Some authors can get away with it, others not. I've read a couple books where the F-word was used repetitively, but no 1-star reviews over it.

I try to write the ending when I'm about 50% through. That gives me a way to know when to quit. As far as how I do it...I'm unsure. The first two ended with unfinished stories, and that was enough. Book three ended with a soft cliffhanger, of which I'm still receiving flak over.

The original title for book one was just going to be "My World," but I decided it was boring, overused, and didn't really tell potential readers anything. Lauren's world is turned upside down...it's a fraction of what it used to be. That's how the title came about. The others also tell a bit about the story and were titled as such. Once I come up with a plot for the books, the titles aren't hard to come up with. Although, I have created titles first, and aligned the plot to work with the title.

I wrote Lauren's character based on my youngest daughter, who hasn't ceased to amaze me every day since she's been born. She's strong, intelligent, mouthy, questions everything, and thinks on her own. A leader, not a follower. And she loves her dad for some reason... she's an inspiration to me. She's growing up to be one hell of a young woman, and I'm doing my best to guide her along the way.

I'm going to keep plugging. I hope to publish at least two books a year from here on out, but the readership is voracious. This year I'm working to get three books out and it's become easier since learning how to dictate and transcribe.

I'll be releasing Divided We Stand, the fourth in the What's Left of My World Series on Independence Day 2018. It's a continuation of where the story left off in book 3.