Paula Guran, editor at Juno Books interviewed me a couple months ago for the Seaborn page on the publisher site, and if you haven't seen it there, I've swiped the interview part of the page and put it here:

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Chris has many diverse interests and seems to have time for all of them, even though he is a software engineer who frequently travels -- not to mention two children and and a wife. He thanks his parents for his ability to juggle many balls at one time. "My father's an engineer, a career US Army officer, who took us all over the world to live. My mother was an actress (off Broadway), author, journalist, artist, everything.  Growing up, I never felt that any occupation, study, or interest was off limits."

He created Kassandra, one of the two main protagonists of Seaborn, as a way to teach his daughter Chloe how to write fiction.  "We spent weeks in the winter of 2003-2004 doing story structure lessons, world-building exercises, character development. Chloe asked me to teach her, and I said I'd give her everything I know about writing.  My son Christopher is more of the visual artist, graphic novels, movies, and we'll see where he goes with that--someplace exciting, I'm sure."

He does admit to running "in a state of perpetual tiredness, kept alive by coffee" and that he and "couldn't do any of it without my wife, Alice."

Chris started writing Seaborn "thinking about the loss of control, the loss of freedom, and how awful that would be. I had already written about Kassandra, so she came first, but Seaborn really began with me exploring the loss of freedom in different forms.  Corina Lairsey loses everything, all physical control to someone--something--else who has moved in and taken over her body--and she has to bargain, plead, calculate her way back to freedom.  Kassandra has an entirely different problem with autonomy.  She has what appears to be all the power in the world, but can't trust a single thought in her head, can't really be certain that anything she does is her own will, or some other power inside her pulling strings.

He wrote Seaborn's first three chapters,  which ended up being chapters two through five. "then I wrote the ending, and outlined the middle.  I had a lot of characters, and many never made it into the story.  Some of what ended up being chapters of Seaborn's sequel, Sea Throne, were first part of Seaborn, but it didn't make sense to bring in characters that weren't really going to join the main action in the first book.  So, I cut those and moved them to next book.

Chris usually starts with an idea when he writes, not characters. "Characters typically come out of the story as it's developing.  I may start with a character name, but not really fill in the spaces until I'm well into writing the story."

He also paints and draws for each book. (See some of Chris's art.) "I do a lot of character studies, scene studies.  I must have a couple hundred sketches, scribbles, full drawings, watercolors, digital format works for Seaborn and Sea Throne--many of them posted on my blog.  I like to have the ending figured out--and even written to some extant--before I can really get into the story.  I need direction, some point to aim for, a place to drive the characters toward.  After that, it's all writing, and I can usually put down a thousand words a day--easy.  I just push on through even when I'm not sure if it's working.  I do a lot of re-reading.  I know the word is that writers shouldn't go back and read everything, but I do it all the time, a hundred times, editing it at every pass.  I think it works.

On the eve of his first novel's publication, Chris Howard has just completed a short story and hs a couple of novel-length ideas "rolling along".  One's another Seaborn story, although not with Kassandra and the others.  The one that may get off the ground soonest is a YA about food, cooking, and magic."

Nine-cities -- Somewhere on the floor of the Atlantic. Art by Chris Howard.