| My mother tells the story of me recounting the tale of the Three Little Raindrops — Drippy, Droppy and Droopy to my two younger sisters when I was four | Even before I could write I was making up stories |
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| But I also write about relationships and the difficulties people sometimes have in understanding each other, or expressing affection, or overcoming problems | Here I worked as a children's librarian until I left work when my son was born |
I can still remember the moment that a letter arrived instead of the rejection slip I had been dreading.
| Well, if being romantic means caring about other people enough to make that extra special effort, then yes, I am | During my working hours my four cats, all adopted from the RSPCA, usually keep me company in my study, though they have to be dissuaded from sitting on the piles of papers that they are convinced are there just for them |
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| I love all sorts of fiction, especially Romance, obviously | My first attempts at novels were written on the kitchen table, often late into the night when my son was asleep or during a few snatched hours when he was out at nursery school |
I love to travel and visit new places, especially places with an interesting history, and I always enjoy visiting old castles or stately homes and imagining how the people who used to live there spent their days.
28| Fitting in hobbies around working and being a wife and mother can be difficult, but I always find time to read | After three years of being a full-time housewife and mother, I was ready for a new challenge, but needed something I could do at home, and so I turned to my old love of writing |
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| But everyone, particularly teachers and my parents, told me that I would never make a living as a writer, and I should work towards a more secure career | Sometimes—when the right words won't come, or an idea hasn't worked out as I'd thought, I wonder why I don't have some regular nine to five job, but when the story's flowing and the characters come alive, I really can't imagine a |
I can't remember a time when I wasn't scribbling away at something, and I wrote my first 'book' when I was eleven, an adventure story, most of it in secret in lessons at school—particularly maths lessons, which I hated.
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