Happy Christmas!

Have finally handed in my third novel, A Good Girl Comes Undone - published 1st May 2008 - and am heaving huge sigh of relief. I'm not sure why I ever thought writing a book and having a baby at the same time was a good idea. But after a lot of pain, not much sleep and lots of confidence crises, it's in! (Thank fxxk for that.)

I'm now feeling very festive indeed. Alcohol- check. Mince pies - check. New Marc Jacobs heels bought in sale while Christmas shopping - check.

A very, very happy Christmas to you too!

Polly xx

Thank you!

... to everyone who bought A Bad Bride's Tale and took the time to write to me via this cranky old website. (Apologies if I took decades to get back to you, something strange is afoot with my in-box.) Hearing from readers really makes it all worthwhile. Fiction-writing is a funny old business, mostly involving me sitting at a computer, staring either at the screen or the sky and dunking biscuits in endless cups of tea. (Well, yes, there's also the distractions of Facebook, eBay, Net a Porter...but I won't go into that.) It's very hard to believe the words I type ever make it on to someone else's bedside cabinet. That they do and that they are read and enjoyed is the best feeling in the world.

Thanks for logging on. Many best wishes, Polly x

Spring chicken

At least my body delivers on time, well, early actually. My second son, Jago, arrived on 10 March, three weeks ahead of his deadline, weighing in at almost eight pounds. I am, of course, madly in love with him, despite his nocturnal habits. The only benefit of his nightly 4 am howl-down is that during the day he sleeps, peaceful and milk-doped. (No, Gina Ford would so not approve.) This means that I’m free to write a bit - hence the muddled ramblings here - and potter around the house feeling like a joyously unemployed person, eating away my tiredness with large lumps of Green and Blacks and picking out wedges in Grazia that I can’t get into town to buy. Unfortunately as I only managed to deliver a baby, not my third novel, this state cannot last forever. It's hard to reconcile maternity leave with self employment. But still, who else gets to work with their baby cooing by their desk? Better a baby than a boss.

The Egg Race - on your marks...

The sleepless nights have started. My second novel The Egg Race launches in the UK this week. And, no, I don’t feel in the least bit seasoned. In fact, it still feels like having a year’s homework hung out for inspection. It still feels like practising in public. So it’s hard to concentrate. I’m trying to avoid checking Amazon every twenty minutes for the latest micro-shifts up and down their sales chart – this way madness lies. But I may treat myself to a Tube poster site visit. Like last year, I will make myself look silly by taking a picture with my camera phone, only just resisting the urge to shout out to passers by, ‘That’s mine that is. I wrote that,’ like a deranged fantasist. But I did you know. In all good bookshops now...

Happy New Year!

After what felt like an endless Christmas holiday, I am rather relieved that everything’s back to normal, not least that my three year old son’s pre-school has reopened again. By the end of the holidays it had become obvious that he had tired of ‘quality time’ with his parents and was merely humouring us while counting down the hours before he could get back to his friends. Even my husband’s mood has improved since he started work again. There’s a limit to how much restless hanging out a family can do without driving each other bonkers. It’s not even as if I’m allowed a stiff drink to smooth the edges of the new year. This said, the very fact that I am still pregnant is cause for celebration - after a premature delivery last time, I’m at risk again. Every time the doctors see me – almost as often as my husband does, I seem to spend my life in the ante-natal waiting room – I think I’ll get a gold star, having got thus far to 29 weeks. I’m divided between elation at my obedient womb and panic at the fact that every time I pass into a new trimester my deadline for book three looms ever closer. Both book and baby are on a race to the finishing line. Let’s hope the book gets there first.

Happy new year!