Jude LaHaye enjoyed a career spanning twenty-five years before ever turning his hand to writing. He worked hard ? always putting in extra hours and effort ? as an Army and then a DoD Logistician, blaming his "day job" for his inability to become a writer.

And then he got his chance: he jumped on an opportunity for an early retirement from civil service.

It was hard. That first book took him almost two years, at the end of which he questioned his life-long ambition to become an author.

But it also broke something loose: after struggling over that first book, he now writes fluidly, finishing as many as three books in any given year.

LaHaye lives a solitary life, preferring his own company to that of others, living and creating predominately in his head ? and then putting many of those ideas down on paper to become the backbones of his novels.

He has a wife, Liz, who is as extroverted as he is introverted. She is his inspiration for some of his more outgoing and optimistic characters.

His four children are all as different from one another as they can be, providing yet more inspiration for good, bad - or simply weird.

LaHaye and his family live on an island in Washington State on the Puget Sound, where they enjoy fauna, flora, and majestic views of forests, mountains, and ocean.