Polly Williams

Daffs and displacement activities

2011-03-10T14:46:00.004Z

Daffs are out. Marvellous. Less marvellous is that these yellow flowers are reminders that the deadline for my next book is looming ever nearer. (Writers. Self obsessed? Nah.)

Isn't the world just too full of displacement activities? I have noticed that the more I Tweet the less I write. The less I write the more I shop online. The more I shop online the more journalism I have to write to pay for the rubbish I buy. It's a flickering downward spiral of words, Adobe Flash and neon yellow shoes. (Hated neon yellow all my life, now, oddly, love it. Why is that?)

I will also blame the unfinished book on the fact that I've been helping pull together the debut Queen's Park literary festival - Sat June 11, in the park. Put it in your diaries. I'll be there. More enticingly so will Sebastian Faulks, Tasmina Perry, Christina Hopkinson, Geraint Anderson, the brilliant Peep Show writers and many others.

Ooo. Shall I Tweet that?

First bite

2011-01-26T16:15:00.005Z

First draft of my new book has just pinged off to the eagle eye of my agent. Yikes. Waiting for a response to a first read is always nail biting, especially if it's going to a candid reader. So much easier to be convinced of one's genius when no one else has read it. So much easier to laugh at one's own jokes. :)

Moving on, the paperback launch of my new book It Happened One Summer is slated for the 26th May, which is very exciting. Set in Cornwall during one long sexy summer, I hope it offers you a good few hours of page turning pleasure. It's probably my most sweeping novel to date. It's meant to immerse you like an Atlantic breaker. Oh yes.

That's the best bit about books isn't it? Total immersion from all the other stuff going on in the world right now. (Have just finished reading the brilliantly chilling Room by Emma Donaghue, like everyone else, and am still to come to the surface.)

Other good news - the days are getting longer again! Raise a glass to that!

Polly xxx

New year, same old me

2011-01-05T10:12:00.003Z

Happy new year!

I hope you had a fabulous Christmas and new year. It's all back to work here now, along with a houseful of sick children, boiler on the blink, tax returns and all those other things that life throws at you the moment you try to knuckle down to write. But having made a resolution not to make any new year's resolutions - watch alcohol units, run more, write faster, spend less, being old favourites - I'm feeling quite chipper. There are no high expectations to dash, no diets to dread. Recommend it.

And the hardback of my new book, It Happened One Summer, is out this month, which I really hope you'll enjoy. (Paperback out May 12.) It's a tangled sexy love story set in Cornwall, a sunny shot of summer in these dark months. Do let me know what you think. I love to hear from you.

Best wishes,

Polly

November 2010

2010-10-28T15:03:00.003+01:00

Hi there

Hope you're enjoying the icy mornings and the chance to snuggle under the duvet with a good book. So nice to sink into a 12 tog London winter, don't you think? No more bare legs to worry about! No more bikinis, and Christmas around the corner with all its eating and drinking opportunities! The legacy of which can be hidden under layers of wooly things. Win win.

I'm also well into my sixth book - never imagined I'd write that - and hugely enjoying it. Headline, my publisher, are putting final touches to the cover of It Happened One Summer (which happens in April 2011) and as soon as it's done I'll stick it up on the site.

My brood - now aged 7, 3, and almost 2 - are still the most enticing distractions from writing and get bigger, louder and more opinionated by the week.

Other distraction? Jonathan Franzen's brilliant new novel, Freedom. You can hear me guffawing from space.

Best wishes,

Polly xx

A good summer

2010-09-14T10:29:00.002+01:00

Hi there!

A whole summer gone by in a blink! Finished one book, It Happened One Summer, which is out next spring and, er, not quite started a new one. But gestating.

Still counting the cost of our summer holiday with three kids. It goes something like this. In the course of three weeks my formidable brood achieved...

Four stitches to back of the head, one sliced-in-a-door finger, the loss of one pair shoes, three hats, two spades, sunglasses and countless Euro coins swiped from my purse. Also managed to break a couple of plates and glasses at the holiday rental, obviously. Good going!

We came back to find that our nanny - essential for me to do any writing at all - is stuck in Brazil until Christmas...

But apart from that a wonderful summer. I hope you had a good one too.

All the best,

Polly xxx

2010-06-22T11:16:00.003+01:00

Hello there!

I've emerged from dark, mole-like experience of writing my book into wonderful sunshine! Nothing like writing 'The End' after a year's work to raise the spirits.

Although, after the last few mad weeks to meet my deadline the rest of my life sits in chaotic piles of unopened post on my desk. My legs are January coloured, I'm in need of sandals - the sales already, all the size 38s gone! - and it's as if I'm a few months behind everyone else, lumbering up for spring in June.

Oh well. Ice creams and summer shopping to catch up on. Life could be worse.

I hope you enjoyed my last book, How To Be Married, and that you're having a wonderful summer.

Best wishes, Polly xxx

Happy Easter

2010-04-15T13:40:00.003+01:00

Happy Easter!

Ate too many chocolate eggs again - saving my toddler from the sugar rush, obviously - and now waddling into spring, one minute wearing Polar explorer gear, the next flip flops. Oh for proper sun. It's been a long, cold winter, no?

My novel, How To Be Married is still out there on the shelves so do pick it up and have a look. Or you can check out some of my journalism - Sunday Times, You, Red, Grazia - with a quick Google online.

I'm putting myself on a strict Net diet as I'm trying to finish the new novel - the temptations of Twitter etc are rather distracting and I need to be busy scribing away, lost in a fug of coffee, biscuits and word counts until I write, 'The End.'

In the meantime keep reading! Buy some nice new sandals and enjoy the spring.

Best wishes,

Polly xxx

How To Be Married out now!

2010-03-04T09:59:00.007Z

How To Be Married reviewed...

The Saturday Telegraph

‘Offers an interpretation of what makes a marriage work that is refreshingly suggestion free...The first-person narrative fizzes with life and Polly Williams gives Sadie some brilliant one-liners...but there's pathos, too…’

Glamour

‘Williams offers a sharp and witty insight into one of the biggest modern marriage dilemmas – status anxiety’

Woman

‘A wry look at modern marriage’

So what's it about? Well, it takes a peek beneath the shuttered blinds of the modern metropolitan marriage. It's about those wives, not wholly unlike me, who don't quite make the grade in the trad sense. The ones who come out in hives at the idea of knitting, the ones who are far more likely to lose their husband's socks than pair them, or make sock puppets out of them. (I have a v impressive friend who does this. Really.)

And if you fancy 15% off your spring/summer threads at Coast and a chance to win a spa break and Coast vouchers (what's not to love?) just push the magic Coast button next to the book jacket.

Happy reading! And happy shopping.

Best wishes,

Polly xx

How To Be Married published today!

2010-03-04T09:55:00.000Z

My new novel How To Be Married is published today!

So what’s it about? In a nutshell, How To Be Married takes a peek beneath the shuttered blinds of the modern metropolitan marriage. It’s about wives, a bit like me, who don’t quite make the grade in the trad sense. You know the ones who come out in hives at the idea of knitting, and would rather pull out their own teeth with a nut cracker than get involved in competitive cupcake baking? Women who are far more likely to lose their husband’s socks than pair them, let alone turn them into sock puppets for the children. (An impressive friend of mine actually does this.) Anyway, it’s about that wife. And love, sex, and the power of good underwear to make husbands happy.

Another bonus is that if you buy my book you’ll get 15% off at that lovely shop Coast so you can stock up on all your new threads now that spring has sprung. There is also a rather fab competition to win £500 at Coast and a spa break. What’s not to love? Just press the coast button next to the book jacket on pollywilliams.com. Good luck!

Happy reading! And happy shopping too.

Best wishes,

Polly xxx

Running in unflattering trousers

2010-02-08T16:40:00.005Z

The publication of my new book, How To Be Married, is almost upon us! It's in all good bookshops, March 4th. Please read it and let me know what you think, but only if you love it, obviously.

I find the publication of a new novel terrifying - will anyone buy it? Like it? - so partly to keep my mind off the whole business I've started running. Last week I was overtaken by a toddler and he wasn't even on a scooter so things can only improve. But I'm looking forward to shifting a few pounds, lifting bottom, feeling less fuzzy headed, speeding up my daily word count etc. Hmmm. Some way to go, obviously.

Am not the first to observe this - Huruki Murukami got there first - but there are many parallels between running and writing. The idea of going running, especially in foul winter weather - see outside - is usually far worse than the reality. Much the same with starting a novel, or even a day's writing when the micro-climate in your head is cloudy, with strong south easterly winds and rain expected later. It's the first few steps that are real killers, and then gradually, painfully you get into your stride, and before you know it you've done a circuit of the park or 1000 words. Personally I much prefer writing. At least you don't have to wear unflattering running trousers to write. (Mine are bad, really bad.) No one can see you either. Very important that, especially when you're beaten by a toddler.

Hope you're keeping well.

Best wishes, Polly xxx

Januaryitus

2010-01-18T16:47:00.002Z

Snow thawed the moment I decided I needed a New York style winter wardrobe, and now there is absolutely no excuse not to do any work, nor to go and hunt down a trapper hat on Bond Street. Really miss the white stuff. London so much prettier blanketed, muted and chilly. Am wondering whether really this all means I should move to... Canada! Imagine, no horrid Tube! No houses all squashed tight as teeth into street! All that room for kids to play wholesomely outside! And all those fur-lined boots...Sigh.

Yes, as you can see I'm suffering from bad bout of Januaryitus. Will report back soon on a higher note, possibly from Toronto.

Happy new year!

Best, Polly

Christmas!

2009-12-23T16:51:00.003Z

Forgot to take pastry out of the freezer - nope, don't make my own - and now my annual mince pie production line has hit a hiccup. It will hit an even bigger hiccup tomorrow. A gulp in fact, involving a very greedy novelist and three small children. Will the mince pies survive until Christmas day? The jury's out.

At least the Christmas tree is up and, unlike last year, is not leaning like a drunk journalist at a Christmas office party. It's a beautiful tree, perfectly proportioned with just the right number of branches, like something from Harrods' shop window. In respect of its natural attributes I've restrained myself this year to a colour palette - how I love writing that line, Kelly Hoppen eat your heart out - of gold, white and red, rather than the usual exploding truckload of camp clashing shiny things. And, hell, it works! Less really is more!

I will remind myself of this fact as I reach for the last mince pie.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

Polly xxx

Shiny new jackets

2009-11-16T18:57:00.002Z

OK, it looked handsome in the flattering bar-style lighting of the Oxford Circus Topshop changing room. I thought it was the one. But I have a feeling that despite initial attraction across a crowded shop floor my new blue jacket and I are incompatible. Something's just not right. We want different things. My jacket wants to itch my neck when I walk in a needy never-forget-you're-wearing-me kind of way. And I want to accidentally lose it but feel too guilty to just dump heartlessly, especially considering it cost me 75 quid. Also, have lost receipt, as you do for all things that you want to return but somehow, inexplicably, never do for things you want to keep - those receipts can hang around in the back of a purse for decades. Anyway, looks like me and the blue jacket are stuck with each other. As long as it doesn't expect fidelity.

The other far more exciting jacket in my life is the jacket of my spanking new reading proof of How To Be Married, my new novel coming out in March. I will get a pic of it up as soon I work out how.

And for those of you interested in such things...the drain is unblocked. But not forgotten.

Best,
Pollyxxx

when the kitchen starts repeating on me

2009-10-27T15:42:00.003Z

It's rebelled. It's had enough of my smuggery. Enough of the endless late night half-pissed discussions about curtains - blinds, too clinical, no? - and gratuitous lunch invites just to show off. Yep, the fabulous new kitchen has stopped working, or more precisely, the drains to which kitchen is attached have blocked and are swilling up beneath the house like a goo monster from a B movie. It's been doing this for weeks turns out, only we put it down to a dead mouse or some such urbanite decomposing beneath the floorboards, as they do. (Then the stench got worse and worse.) Builders come, shrug and scratch their heads.

So we are awaiting a wire worm - no, no idea either - and a man with long, very long, gloves and an iron constitution.

Ooops...

In the meantime, you may notice some changes to the website because my brother's been tinkering with it and it now does swanky things I don't understand. (And if you're reading this on the website - so complicated, sigh - visit my blog spot too, where you can sign up to my feed. Look up. To the right. Yes, it's that B button...)

Thanks for visiting!

Polly xxx

I Heart Autumn

2009-09-02T00:14:00.002+01:00

Love autumn. Love the crunchy orange leaves. Love the cashmerey things in the shops. Love the fact I don't have to expose toes for another few months. And really looking forward to day - four? five years away? - when husband and I can leave all the kids and visit New England for romantic autumn break. Realise that me and husband met seven years ago this September. Gone in a flash of three kids, four novels and two house moves. We didn't hang about!

Novels and sledgehammers

2009-08-01T15:54:00.002+01:00

Blimey, there goes the kitchen wall! Forget concertina doors, there is now absolutely nothing between us and the back garden.

Ah, building works. As our old kitchen had begun to gang up on us, the broken tiles cutting the children's toes, the kitchen doors goadingly hanging off their hinges, there was nothing for it but to replace the damn thing. And I have spent the summer discovering that, yes, I AM the kind of woman who can get excited by a tap! I care, really care, what shade of grey my grouting will be. It's a whole new world of consumer obsession. Forget handbags, let's talk door handles.

Still, the novelty of trying to write while two Polish guys smash our house to bits is admittedly beginning to wear off. The day when 'the works' will actually be finished, much like my novel, seems so far off as to be kind of unimaginable.

I want to write The End beneath them both.

Hope you're having a brilliant summer!

Yup, hot now

2009-07-02T00:28:00.002+01:00

Ok, take it all back. The heatwave IS here! Marvellous. Have brown toes. They look so much prettier in flip flops. Even have a reassuring strip of pink on neck, not good for the old wrinkles I know, but still, oddly satisfying. And justification to eat buckets of ginger ice cream... (Jude's is the best, no?)

With unfortunate synchronicity, have to go back to work after weeks of park-ambling, coffees and staring-at-beautiful-baby action. So, trying to be brave, I waved my youngest (little girl, 5 months) off with her nanny this morning and tried to concentrate on my page proofs. Was v hard. Tomorrow I hope will be better.

Anyway, I've had lots of emails enquiring about when my new book is coming out - thank you! In short, it was titled The World's Worst Wife but is now called How To Be Married and is coming out 1 March, next year, published by Headline. Really hope you enjoy it and it's worth the wait.

In meantime do drop me a note, about anything really. This site is still being splattered with spam so apologies if I don't weed out your comment from all the Viagra offers and reply.

Wishing you a wonderful summer.

Polly xxx

Pimms and brown toes please

2009-06-02T00:28:00.002+01:00

Pimms. Factor 40. Brown toes. Not quite. The predicted heatwave is merely flirting with us at the moment, isn't it? Waiting for the big hot splosh of summer. Still, as the weather starts revving up, with somewhat unfortunate timing, my maternity leave draws to a close. It's been so lovely not working, rather too lovely actually. Must put work goggles back on.

This site is still being splattered with spam so apologies if I don't weed out your comment and reply. Join me on Facebook (facebook.com/polly.c.williams) or Twitter instead (www.twitter.com/pollywilliams.)

Have a fab summer...

A Good Girl Comes Undone

2009-05-06T00:25:00.002+01:00

My new novel, A Good Girl Comes Undone is out this week. This is very, very exciting! I only got my hands on the finished product myself a few days ago. Nothing quite beats holding a new tome, all glossy and Proper Book-like. It's always hard to square with the Microsoft Word document from whence it came - full of misspellings and large chunks of text that I slice out of the final edit: 'Jee-sus. I wrote that? Terrible!' Right, I'm probably telling you too much...

I really hope you enjoy the book and that it makes you laugh and cry and vow never to snog your boss in the stationary cupboard. Do let me know what you think. Thanks for logging on.

All the best, Polly

Green shoots

2009-05-02T00:27:00.002+01:00

Hi there

Have emerged from bubble of third baby - she's four months now and am feeling almost normal, although all my clothes appear to have shrunk - and thinking about fifth book...In the meantime I've moved publisher and my fourth book, The World's Worst Wife is slated to come out early next year. I'll get an extract on this site as soon as I can.

Thanks for all your messages. Apologies if I haven't replied. My site is being splatter-bombed with spam - go away whoever you are! - and it's taking hours to trawl through to get to my lovely readers. My Facebook page is always a good way to get in contact. Or join me on Twitter.

All the best,

Polly

The cruellest month

2009-05-02T00:19:00.002+01:00

It’s one thing holing up to write when the weather is crap. I can do discipline in the winter. Easy. But the spring, or worse, summer? It’s really, really hard to keep one’s self-employed bottom on one’s ergonomic seat. (Sympathy please...) The sun starts shining, the park beckons, and I lose the necessary guilty gravitational pull. The moment I need sunscreen, I need a boss – any office sociopath will do – someone to micromanage good word count and caution me sternly for long al fresco lunches. All unfortunate timing really, considering that the deadline for my second novel is the end of June. So while the rest of the country yearns for sunshine, like a gardener, I’m willing rain.

The new arrival

2009-02-02T00:27:00.002Z

She's a poppet. In fact she's lying in her moses basket looking up at me as I write and making it very hard to concentrate because I'd so much rather look at her face than the screen. Yes, my new baby daughter is one month old. And she's just perfect and...

No, stop. To spare you from more ga-ga baby-musings I'm going to sign off right here...

Happy New Year

2009-01-02T00:27:00.002Z

I hope you had a fab new year and that it involved more dancing and debauchery than mine did. Yes, still waiting for baby number three to arrive. After two early births I never thought I'd ever get this far along in a pregnancy, or imagine it was physically possible to get quite so blooming large. Chair legs quiver at the sight of me. All very What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

Still, at least I have an excuse to stock up on carbs. What's one more Chelsea bun - current fetish - at this stage? I mean I can't get any larger.

Er, can I?

Fairy lights and things

2008-12-02T00:26:00.002Z

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

2008-09-02T00:26:00.002+01:00

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

2008-07-02T00:25:00.002+01:00

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!

2008-06-02T00:25:00.002+01:00

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

2008-04-02T00:24:00.002+01:00

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

2008-03-02T00:24:00.002Z

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!

2008-01-02T00:23:00.002Z

Happy Christmas!

2007-12-02T00:23:00.002Z

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!

2007-11-01T23:22:00.002Z

... 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

2007-03-02T00:22:00.002Z

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...

2007-02-02T00:21:00.002Z

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!

2007-01-02T00:21:00.002Z

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!

Happy Christmas!

2006-12-02T00:21:00.002Z

No, I haven't finished my shopping yet. Yes, I have scoffed all the mincepies that I was planning to freeze and whip out Nigella-like on the day. The Christmas tree is shedding needles like Britney her clothes. And I am craving stilton and a custardy glass of Advocat - neither of which, being up the duff, I am allowed. But since the peasouper has descended I have been feeling Christmassy at last. The fog makes London look Dickensian and wintry - or like a nightclub smoke machine has malfunctioned and choked the city. And as I'm not travelling anywhere and won't be spending Christmas on a bench in Heathrow I'm rather enjoying the prospect of staring out of the window at the thick whiteness and mulling over the past year. 2006 has been pretty momentous for me. I'm still amazed and delighted that so many people have read my first novel and appear to have enjoyed it. A better present than anything Santa can toss down the chimney. So if you're one of those readers, a big thank you! Have a very happy Christmas!

Polly xx

A pregnant pause

2006-10-02T00:20:00.002+01:00

To my huge relief, people have bought The Rise and Fall of a Yummy Mummy paperback - it hung out in The Sunday Times top ten for five weeks. I have no idea who my readers are but I feel stupidly grateful to each and every one. And I am now almost 30,000 words into my third book, which I was beginning to fear would stay a few scribbles on a post-it note forever. This said, progress is slow. Mostly because I am pregnant with my second child. Well, that’s my excuse. Having written two books while not being pregnant I can vouch for the fact that those pesky pregnancy hormones definitely do something to the brain, slowing it, dulling the spark of connections that make writing come alive. And then there’s the urge to sleep. When you work in an office as a pregnant person, you have something to prove – I am a clever professional, not just a mum-in-waiting – even if you feel sick as a dog and like you haven’t slept in weeks. Work at home as a pregnant person and you are liberated from the pretence. The bed beckons mid-morning. Then again around tea time, just after the cake break. It takes an iron will to resist. Or a rubbish word count.

Back to school

2006-08-02T00:20:00.002+01:00

My tan has faded. Toddler is back at nursery. Holidays are well and truly over. In fact I’ve been back at my desk – old kitchen table covered in oat cake crumbs – for – big gulp – two weeks already. And where my third book should be – document title, ‘tbc’ – is blank. Terrifyingly blank. I’ve written two novels now but I don’t think starting a new one gets any easier. It’s tempting to lie in bed (yes, essential part of the freeform creative process) fantasising about the moment when I tap in the words ‘The End’ rather than working out the intricacies of plot or actually writing, which is, in truth, often a bit of a slog, rather than a rapturous form of self expression. Nudging ideas into my notebook, I attempt to channel the person who wrote the first two books so efficiently but it’s difficult, like trying to channel a slimmer self while eating a doughnut. But I am not despairing. I have displacement activities to be getting on with. My UK paperback comes out this week. (Anxiety: will my sales hold up without the friends and family who dutifully bought the hardback at the bequest of my mother?) I’m gearing up for my US publishing date in January, which is just so exciting because there’s something about being published in America that makes me feel grown-up and rather glamorous. And there is a Chanel sample sale next week. Sure to get the muse going, no?

The egg race draws to a close

2006-06-02T00:20:00.002+01:00

In three days I am due to file my second novel, The Egg Race, to my editor. I shouldn’t be here, writing website entries. Or booking fake tan appointments. Or browsing Amazon. I should be engaged in manic 11th hour tweaking. The problem is that after ten intense months spent writing the damn novel, I can hardly bear to look at it. Not that I’m complacent. But the disheartening thing about the editing process is that it doesn’t matter how many times you rewrite and reread, a text can always be improved. (This is why reading old published work, whether fiction or journalism, is so excruciating. Shit, you think, did I really write that? Give me a red pen now.) The last lap is also the period when I am most prone to creative naval-gazing. My latest anxiety? That I’ve enjoyed writing The Egg Race too much. And now that I have my own office, an ergonomic chair and great childcare, it’s all too cosy. Should I be suffering more? Did I write better on that spine-abusing kitchen chair? I’ll soon find out. Editors, unlike me, rarely mince their words. And they have fearsome red pens.

Groundhog

2006-03-02T00:19:00.002Z

After months writing, and writing some more to promote my writing, I have emerged back into the world, blinking, with a bad back, wearing the wrong clothes. Everyone has moved on. No one wears boots inside their jeans anymore. Apart from me. And no one in London wears bootleg jeans anymore. Apart from me. It’s shocking for someone who used to be ‘in fashion’, albeit very half heartedly, many years ago, but I only recently purchased my first pair of skinny jeans. After a deep inhalation, I zipped the zipper and wore them inside my boots last week. I also bought a pencil skirt. It made me feel like a new woman. Sadly, as I scamper to catch up after my solitary confinement, it seems the rest of the world has already moved on. A fashion ed friend has already assured me that the pencil and skinnies are in danger of becoming ‘very over.' Time to burrow myself in book two.

Blisters and sales figures

2006-02-02T00:18:00.002Z

I’ve hung up my Prada wedges. The launch party is over. I’d been half expecting a vaguely traumatic affair, much like a wedding, but it was actually huge fun. Friends and journos packed out London's Proud Gallery, champagne was glugged, cupcakes eaten and books sold. The next morning one of my friends texted me to say she’d found a cupcake crushed into the pocket of her best coat and had no recollection of how it got there. The sign of a good party, no?

With the party milestone over, I can now succumb fully to Amazonitis, an affliction caused by scanning Amazon’s hourly-updated sales lists to discover the commercial fate of one’s book. Symptoms include heart palpitations, severe impairment of concentration and RSI of the mouse clicking index finger. Today 88! Three hours later, it’s 155. Is someone buying books, then returning them? 77. Oh right, that will be my mother’s friends then. 280! Oh God, it’s all over. No, wait. I better just double check that...

Countdown

2006-01-02T00:18:00.002Z

My mother bought five copies of The Daily Mail, because it featured me (styled in white) talking about my book. She then announced she was ‘off to text friends about it.’ Many minutes later – she hits the keys warily and painfully slowly, as if a mistake might launch a nuclear warhead – she announced that she and her friends think I should probably avoid wearing white in the future. (Oops - see left). So begins my life as a novelist.

There are a couple of things preoccupying me right now. Who will baby sit my son during my launch party? What shoes will I wear? Will there be enough alcohol? The real issue - will anyone actually buy my book, let alone like it - is far too terrifying to contemplate.

Sometimes it feels like the launch of The Rise and Fall of a Yummy Mummy should be spearheaded by someone rather more convincing. It would help if I could read aloud without stuttering, or sign books without leaving what looks like a clump of fake eye lashes squashed on the page. But never mind, me and my book are stuck with each other. It's time to start enjoying the launch process. To quote Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, ‘Let the wild rumpus start!’

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