It took me ten years to write The Night Journal, so that was a big ordeal.

When I started escaping to a neighbor's house to watch what I darn well pleased, it turned out to be The Big Valley. Every afternoon my friend and I would pour grape juice over mounds of ice cream and settle in to see what was happening with Barbara Stanwyck and Linda Evans and the boys in The Big Valley.

I love the writers in Austin. We stick together. We all like each other and go to each other's book signings in case no one else shows up.

I'm halfway through a novel set in two time frames - Austin in the 1960's and Alpine (Texas) in present day. It started out to be a small, lighthearted, humorous book about family relationships; I was tired of writing war stories and tragedies.

The defining aspects of westerns are still pretty much in place - namely landscape and conflict. In other books the conflict can be internal, but in westerns it usually plays out on a big stage.

I got hooked on TV westerns back in the early sixties when I was about five, mostly because my brother was addicted to them and wouldn't let me watch anything else.

I grew up thirty miles down the highway in San Marcos, and I've still got family there, so I guess I'm pretty well rooted.