I wanted to write from being a teenager but I think I believed that life had to be exciting in order to warrant writing about it. It wasn't until I was older that I realised life as lived could be the source of fiction. Of course, the fictional worlds you create are very different from real life but I think, once you get beyond a belief that your own life has to be remarkable in order to inform your writing, then you can actually get somewhere with starting to write.

Smashwords has been invaluable in helping me to develop as an indie writer. There are other publishers catering for the needs of indies but Smashwords seems to be unique in regarding its authors as stakeholders in the development and success of the indie publishing movement, of which it is at the forefront. That sense of being part of something bigger is both empowering and fulfilling.

Feedback from readers is really important to me. Because my writing falls both within and outside of the romance genre, it's particularly useful to know what readers think of books that are less easily categorised.

I'm a big fan of the novelist, Iris Murdoch. She created such vivid worlds that reading her books is an escape from life. I enjoy reading classic Nineteenth century novels, and was captivated by the works of the Bronte sisters early in life. Jane Austen, whom I encountered later, was a real revelation in the concise and witty nature of her narrative. Because I'm interested in history, I enjoy reading writers from the past whose work seems to bring the times they lived through to life.

When I first began to publish my writing I struggled to categorise my longer contemporary fiction. My shorter works are historical romances but my fuller-length fiction has strong elements of social comedy and is, perhaps, better-described as women's fiction than romance. What is great about romance readers is that they are very forthcoming with feedback on what they read, which is invaluable to a writer, so I'm very happy to embrace the romance label in order to reap the benefits of having responsive readers!

My fuller-length writing is dialogue-rich so I'm interested in exploring adapting it to dramatic media, e.g. stage and audio. Forthcoming projects include a series in the contemporary women's fiction / romance genre and an historical fiction novel about real-life characters. For the time being, I'm enjoying switching between writing set in contemporary times and that set in the past.