I chose to write the kind of romance I love best - one with a sheikh hero.
It's not very glamorous. People certainly wouldn't think so if they saw me sitting in my woolly socks at the kitchen table. Many times I sit at the typewriter and think, 'Why am I doing this?'
There are two questions that you ask yourself as a writer, and one of them is, 'But why?' The question that takes the book forward is, 'What if? What if x y or z happened? How would those characters react?'
I was still an avid reader of Mills & Boon romances - on publication day, I used to rush out of work to get to the local book store to grab my favourites before they all disappeared.
What I like writing about are people's relationships, not necessarily great big dramatic things but the smaller things in life and how they affect characters and challenge and change the people that they are. I do like a happy ending, so my books have to have a happy ending.
A thoughtful cup of tea brought to your bedside each morning means more to me than the huge bouquet of flowers bought once a year.
The appeal of romance is love. And that's universal.
I was too ashamed and afraid to confide in friends, and wanted to convince others and myself that my marriage was a success. I lost myself in my writing. Finding ways for my characters to overcome their problems and make their relationships work helped plaster over the wound caused by my inability to make things right at home.
I was always a keen reader. I jotted down one or two things, but it never occurred to me to think of a job in writing. I thought that writers were like demi-gods. I don't know what I thought.
Writing for Mills and Boon taught me a lot of discipline. You have to produce books in a short time scale and four a year, and it teaches you a lot.
