Life is hectic for novelist

She has had to stop answering her e-mail because it has become overwhelming — but she keeps a blog up to date on her Web site (www.oinks.squeetus.

com), so her readers can follow her travels and experiences.

"Austenland" is a book Hale took seven years to complete. As a teenager, she considered Jane Austen her favorite author.

Hale has also always been interested in how books get made into films. "You lose the narrator, which for Austen's work is the intelligent, witty, sardonic voice. I thought, 'How would it be if there was a place you could visit where you were immersed in that time period and wore the Regency gowns?' It was just a story I wanted to tell — and it worked out best with adult characters."

Her mind is highly retentive. She often carries more than one story around in her head for as long as a year before writing it down. She uses the time when waiting in traffic jams or washing dishes for deep thinking.

Although she expects her writing will change as she grows older, Hale said she will never stop. "I have to keep doing it. I'm so addicted to the satisfaction I feel when I finish something.

"It's probably a really good drug to be addicted to — but it feels more like a mental illness than a gift."

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E-mail: dennis@desnews.com