What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?
Alec in The Black Stallion series – I learned to dream that anything was possible when there were words on a page. And I fell in love with action based plot. A little later I discovered Jane Austen and suspect that my desire to do something with my life beyond becoming a wife stemmed from the restrictions her characters faced every day. Both these factors are showing up in my current fiction writing.
Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?
Since my writing career started with my still-in-the-works first non-fiction book several years ago, that’s easy. Personal money management. Unless we want to count the really bad short story I wrote for my college English class.
Do you have a writing “routine”?
When I started writing, the most comfortable place in the house was my husband’s recliner. I am now conditioned. I dragged my husband through six furniture stores looking for a perfect match to that chair for my writing loft. If I want to be creative, I need to be sitting in that chair. I usually read the last sentence and then write. Editing is my least favourite part and I avoid it until the last possible moment and sit elsewhere to avoid contaminating my creativity.
Reading is….
A compulsion. I have slowed down the volume of reading in the last few years as I carve out time for writing but I still consume more words than food in any given week.
Recite a favourite passage from a favourite book. Why is it special?
I suffer from poor short-term memory. Trigonometry was a challenge – I had to rework all the formulas from scratch on exams. I can’t even come up with a quote from my own book. Sigh.
A Choice (or seven):
Juice or Water? Water. I’m acidic enough without adding juice to the mixture.
Geist or Walrus? What are these when they are home? Just kidding, I have read Walrus once or twice.
Summer or Winter? Summer. I grew up in B.C. and still think of moving back every February I spend in Ontario .
Run or Walk? Run – I prefer short bursts to sustained efforts.
Fiction or Non? Fiction any day – I am incurably nosy and love to become a part of other people’s lives. Which probably explains why I became an accountant – an excuse to ask the most personal questions.
Munro or Gallant? Munro.
Poems or Songs? Songs. My challenge in my writing life is poetry. Every time I take any kind of course with The Writing Fairy I seem to get stuck with some form of poetry writing. I took Stuart Ross’s poetry boot camp to get past my resistance – the wine at the end of the day was my favourite part. 
That said, I do enjoy Kevin Craig’s poems.
What is the best advice you never got?
To build a formal structure and outline rather than just write a shitty first draft and worry about the rest when you finish. I’m not enthralled with editing and I find that an outline gives my creativity a base to jump from and soar.
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Rosalyn Cronin is a Certified Management Accountant who loves to give people advice on business and personal money management. She has just published her first book, The Healthy Business: Shape Up, Survive & Thrive. A Get-Fit Program for Small Business. This book grew out of a course for small business and gives the existing small business owner an easy-to-read, practical guide to success.
She is working on a second non-fiction book on money management titled the Healthy Spender in between time spent on her sci-fi novel-in-progress.
While developing her writing skills for the book, Rosalyn has had articles published by the Sun Media and various magazines. She writes a regular blog, found through her website rosalyncronin.com.
Rosalyn Cronin, CMA
Author of The Healthy Business
We absolutely DO want to count that bad short story from English class! (It sounds like it fits perfectly into the ‘earliest work’ perimetres!)
I love this, Rose!
Nice to know these intimate things about you, Rose! I think they should have asked you the question about obsessions, you could have said ‘chairs’, or ‘chair’. But I am with you on that. I am picky about chairs, in my office, my home, and the ones I must have at Starbuck’s (the manager is threatening to put a brass plaque over the one I sit in all day).