A.J. Thomas's Top 5 Hobbies

Strays is about a pastry chef, who also happens to be half-incubus—naively falling for a hellhound shifter who would gladly spend eternity making watercolor sketches, if he didn’t have to earn a living. My stories start with character tropes I love, but I can’t help tweaking them to make them my own. Why can’t the alpha male cop be quiet and thoughtful? Why can’t the big, burly father be the nurturing parent? Or, like Jory and Mal in Strays, why can’t badass demons have hobbies that aren’t so badass? 

Strays is about embracing the passions and hobbies that define you and not being limited by the labels you wear on the surface, so I thought I’d share the Top 5 hobbies I’m most passionate about. What are your favorite hobbies? Sports, crafts, and obsessions you love, or would just love to try? Here are mine:

1. Baking – I love to fiddle with recipes and drool over cookbooks. I’m not talented enough to pull off French macarons, and my pie crust decorations look like over-worked play dough, but I try anyway.

2. Hiking – My dog is content to walk through the same streets twice a day, but I just can’t.

3. Electric Guitar – In a tiger-mom suburb where every 5-year-old has a violin tutor (and at least 3 other forced activities, because apparently college resumes go all the way back to kindergarten), I decided to start learning electric guitar at 37. Yes, I somehow ended up with my own enthusiastic, prepubescent string quartet, but playing Green Day songs keeps me sane.

4. Photography – I tried art. It turns out my artsy skills don’t extend much beyond some kick-ass stick figures. But fiddling with aperture and shutter speed settings? That I can do.

5. Reading – Kind of a given in this group!