Fairy lights and things

I now have the supermodel contours of a Christmas pudding - my new baby is due next month. Thankfully I've just filed my fourth book - out in May! - and will now concentrate on eating my body weight in mince pies rather than working. AND the Christmas tree goes up this weekend! So exciting. Well, it is when you're not going out and not drinking and can't even zip up your favourite knee length boots because your calves have fallen pregnant too. Besides, don't fairy lights just make the world look prettier?

Have a lovely December. Don't buy loads of rubbish. Eat lots. Have a drink or ten for me.

Best wishes, Polly

Falling for fall

Love autumn. No more expectation of sunshine or hot sandy beaches, therefore no more disappointment when Cornwall feels more like northern Norway. Back to school for the oldest, a relief for all concerned. Apple crumbles - well, what else can you do with the windfalls? And, normally, lashings of red wine. Only that I'm pregnant - again - with my third child so sadly that is off the menu. I'm counting down the days until I can have a proper drink, no, sorry, I mean until baby arrives, which is in January. Until then it's as much writing as possible before I do my usual thing and swell up like a Zeppelin balloon.

Oh, yes, and the paperback of my third novel, A Good Girl Comes Undone is out in the UK, so please read and let me know what you think. Hope you like it.

Best wishes, Polly xxx

Buckets and spades and sprogs

Where are you credit-crunching this summer? I'm going to an electricity-free beach shack on the Isle of Wight. Well, it seemed a good idea at the time of booking. (Fresh air? Check. Back to nature? Check. Beach nearby? On the stoop.) Am now feeling slightly apprehensive about the weather and have promised myself that if it does rain - highly unlikely of course - I will not think about Mediterranean sunshine, nor French cheeses nor ice-cold bubbly. The children of course will love it. And I have a whole load of books to read between dawn and dusk. Yes, I will come back a woman reborn...

Or with trench foot.

Have a fabulous summer!

Polly xx

Already!

The longest day? How did that happen? Not being someone with A Proper Job, I become less and less good at looking at my diary: when I was a journalist I had every hour planned. Now whole weeks can roll by with lovely blank pages, apart from the odd note: 'girls drinks,' 'MMR' 'party?' It's a good way to live your life until you get a rush of appointments - they always come in clumps - and my handwriting goes all stressy and leans to the right, 'radio 7am' 'deadline book' 'wedding anniversary?'

Anyway, my point being that because I don't look at my diary as much as I should I appear to jump whole months. Will I soon be jumping years? Decades? Will I wake up and suddenly discover that I'm forty and have forgotten to file my fourth book?


Better get writing...

xx

The twenty five minute mile

So here it is - the cover to my new novel, A Good Girl Comes Undone, out in May. In case you're wondering, it's actually a rather snazzy gold rather than mustard but gold doesn't show up very well on screen. I'm rather pleased with it. If only they were my legs.

But I'm working on it... Yes, I've started running. For someone built for pleasure not speed I'm surprised to say I rather like the exertion. It balances writing/eating at a desk rather nicely. And it's free! Unfortunately I am one of those comedy runners, odd foot motions, laughable pace, ancient unsuitable trainers. Yes, I'm about to hit a 25 minute mile. Still a girl has to start somewhere...

Daffs and all that

A very happy new year. Hope you had a good one. I'm reluctantly back in work mode now, after taking a month off to hang out with my not-so-wee baby, who is the most persuasive distraction from writing ever. Still, it's good to focus again. After finishing the final edits of my third book I've got to start thinking about my fourth - seriously daunting. This time next year, hopefully, all being well, a new story will exist, another 100,000 words will be unleashed upon you. All that exists at the moment is a very blank screen. Scary.

As for new year resolutions? I've already exceeded my alcohol limit for the week and it's only Wednesday. I've also polished off half a slab of butterscotch Green and Blacks and it's only 11am. Hopeless.

Start as I mean to go on.

Wishing you all the very best for 2008!

Happy New Year!

A very happy new year. Hope you had a good one. I'm reluctantly back in work mode now, after taking a month off to hang out with my not-so-wee baby, who is the most persuasive distraction from writing ever. Still, it's good to focus again. After finishing the final edits of my third book I've got to start thinking about my fourth - seriously daunting. This time next year, hopefully, all being well, a new story will exist, another 100,000 words will be unleashed upon you. All that exists at the moment is a very blank screen. Scary.

As for new year resolutions? I've already exceeded my alcohol limit for the week and it's only Wednesday. I've also polished off half a slab of butterscotch Green and Blacks and it's only 11am. Hopeless.

Start as I mean to go on.

Wishing you all the very best for 2008!