I was never a good journalist, because I would make things up. A lot of people frowned on that, which is why I ended up in fiction.

We writers of series fiction tend to idealize ourselves in our characters, giving them attributes we wish we possessed and ever more interesting lives.

The 1890s was a decade when life began to change in urban America. Modern conveniences that we now take for granted came into use; women's roles became less restrictive; and San Francisco, a port city with influences from all over the world, was a lively place in which to reside.

About 10 years ago, in an effort to gain a better grasp on McCone's world, I took up the hobby of building fully electrified scale models: first of the legal cooperative where she started out, and then of her own brown-shingled cottage, a pursuit that the more tactful of my friends label unusual, and that the more blunt refer to as obsessive.

I never thought I wouldn't succeed. Not because I thought I was good-looking - I just thought I would make it.

If you're a good journalist, what you do is live a lot of things vicariously, and report them for other people who want to live vicariously.