I never read a horse book in my life. But I thought that's what my friends were reading and that's what I should be reading. And this was "Dobbin Does This" and "Dobbin Does That."

Its all about your determination, I think, as much as anything. There are a lot of people with talent, but its that determination.

Determination and hard work are as important as talent.

I know where "Blubber" came from. It came from stories that my daughter told me when she came home from fifth grade. There was a kid in the class who was being bullied. We didn't even call it bullying then, that's what's so weird. Victimization in the classroom. The word bully was so out, was so not in use for all those years and now it's back big time.

When I was twelve. And I was going through my parents' bookshelves, I found the most wonderful books and plenty of. Within those wonderful books that were real turn-on's. At 12 or 13, books were such turn-ons.

What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.

I never thought about writing. I was married young, I was still in college, as we did then, and I had two babies before I was 25, and I loved them, and I loved taking care of them, but I was a little bit cuckoo, staying at home and not having a creative outlet.