I grew up in Wildwood, NJ, a tourist town complete with all the trappings: a beautiful beach with white, powdery sand, restaurants, a boardwalk with rides, water parks, arcades, and games. As such, it was never all that hard for a local like me to find a summer job. By the end of my junior year of college, I’d been working summer jobs for 8 years; most recently as the driver of the Chilly Willy Ice Cream truck. By then, I finally saved up enough “extra” money to buy a new computer—this time, one that was top-of-the-line.

The first word processor I ever used extensively was WordPerfect, in high school. I’d write articles and my serialized story for the school newspaper, papers when I could (since I didn’t own a computer), and anything else I had a chance to write, since the experience was so much better than the typewriter I had at home.

Some writers prefer writing their novels out longhand, in notebooks. I’ve never understood people who prefer writing on pen and paper. Maybe I’m weird, but the idea of doing any serious writing by pen—and then having to type it later—has never worked for me. I suppose that means I was born at the right time.