I know I'm not creating transcendent works that will someday be taught in college. All I do is entertain. I try to entertain others by sending them into another world for a few hours. When I see my books read on the beach, the pages dabbed with suntan lotion, then I feel as if I've done my job.

It was kind of a hard lesson when I figured out that not everybody is going to be kind, be sweet. So I've learned that I am never going to make everybody happy. There's always going to be someone who can't stand the way I write, and I can't take that personally.

Once I started to write, it was like all the lights came on. I was always making up stories in my head. I was a daydreamer. I didn't start as a child, but once I started, I couldn't stop. It was compulsive.

I think of my books now as suspense novels, usually with a love story incorporated. They're absolutely a lot harder to write than romances. They take more plotting and real character development.

I 'climbed' Sandia Peak outside Albuquerque. Which is really piddling as far as mountains go. It's a mere 9,000 feet and some change, and what I went up was a path on one of the gentler slopes. It's about seven miles to the summit, and I walked it with my husband, son, and brother-in-law. For me that was a tremendous accomplishment.