elp - I'm in pain! I have developed RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) from too much typing on the keyboard. This is something most writers get from at some stage or other. My RSI means I have limited flexibility in my right shoulder with shooting pains from elbow to wrist. The best cure is to stop typing, which is a bit of a problem. I could always revert to old-fashioned longhand but even then I wouldn't be immune. Lousia M Alcott (who wrote Little Women) had to learn to be ambidextrous as a result of over-writing and ended up with deformed thumbs!

My other problem is the reason I got RSI in the first place - deadlines. No, I don't mean when the telephone isn't working, I mean those things publishers give to writers to help them focus. I have just missed one for the first time. Brody's story, the second of four in my forthcoming After School Club series was due in last September and I've just taken it to Tracey in the Post Office today (mid-November). I don't know why Brody's story was so troublesome to write, but it was. She is an interesting character - an eleven year old child model who is half English, half-American, but I think I gave her too much to say for herself. The adults in her life had a lot to say for themselves, too, and tried to take over. I bet for every thousand words I wrote, I ended up deleting seven hundred and fifty of them.

The trouble is, I have got to get the tone right because if readers don't like book two, they won't buy book three. My publishers are giving the series a big push which means they are ‘packaging' the series with erasers and pens and postcards and websites galore. It's all very exciting but a lot of pressure, too, especially as Alex's story, the third in the series, is due on my editor's desk by the end of January and I haven't started it yet. I'll get there, though - I always do. There'll just be no homemade cranberry sauce with the Christmas dinner in our house this year!