New Orleans life is such a night life. The thing that comes up very often is that our day essentially doesn't start until midnight or 2 in the morning.

I'm pretty much a 9-to-5 kind of guy. I usually get to work about 8 in the morning and I work until 4 or 5 and sometimes I work on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Pretty much I keep the same hours as an accountant or clerk or whatever.

If I'm on location on some island we usually get up at four in the morning to set up. By seven thirty we're on the beach working until noon then we rest. It's not exactly a vacation.

I'm a morning person because I learned to write my novels while still practicing law. I would get to the office at 6:30 a.m. and write until other people arrived around 9. Now I still do that. I start at 6:30 or 7 and I'll write until 11 then take an hour off then work until about 2 p.m. By then my brain has had enough.

As we moved along in a little procession I was delighted with the illumination of the streets. So many lamps and they burned until morning my father said and so people did not need to carry lanterns.

I hated high school. Ugh. I couldn't wait until it was over so I could sleep in. In college I made sure all my classes were in the afternoon. I hated getting up in the morning.

We had cocktail parties and I'd stay up until 5 in the morning.

Each of our children during their high school years went to 'early morning seminary' - scripture study classes that met in the home of a church member every school day morning from 6:30 until 7:15.

For me growing up Christmas time was always the most fantastic exciting time of year and you'd stay up until three in the morning. You'd hear the parents wrapping in the other room but you knew that also maybe they were in collusion with Santa Claus.

I doing casual labor by the day. They wouldn't pay you until the next morning. There was a bar that would cash your check if you bought a beer first. A lot of guys never left until they'd drunk up all their money.