Short-story writing requires an exquisite sense of balance. Novelists, frankly, can get away with more. A novel can have a dull spot or two, because the reader has made a different commitment.

I write sets of books, but I've also written a lot of orphans.

I'm dense when it comes to discouragement.

When I'm not writing or tweaking my computer, I do embroidery. When I'm not plunging into the past, tweaking, or embroidering, I'm reading books about history, computers, or embroidery.

It took me about 12 years to reach my million-word mark. The challenge now is to continue to challenge myself.

I'm one of those writers who, when writing, believes she's god-and that she hasn't bestowed free will on any of her characters. In that sense there are no surprises in any of my books.

One of my great passions is the collection of historical trivia.