As I read other people’s posts about discipline, or routines with their m/s or syncing their I-this to their I-that, I realise my approach is more I-haven’t-a-clue. But I have written my book: Jacaranda Wife. All 103, 000 words, not that I’m counting. Well actually I am, but more later. I have had some very strong agent interest… and am writing my next book. I scrawl a cross through my diary for my ‘writing days’. This means that after the school runs (I have three boys), the bins, the dishwasher and driving back to school with a lost hockey sock, I write. I sit at my I-Mac (see, I am in this century) and type. We have a small study which used to be a garden room. I write there in the summer, but in the winter it’s too cold so I type in the kitchen. Word counts work wonders. Nothing quite as encouraging as seeing your book ‘grow’ – in the word count sense at least. But as I’m a journalist, it’s hard to stop editing every word before the cursor flickers. Deadlines are imperative too. One day, a publisher or agent (I hope) will issue this directive. For now, I impose my own (three more words before a whole packet of Doritos, that kind of thing). Yet I’m as susceptible as the next person to the procrastination fairy who sprinkles ideas in my head: You know you want to find that lost Tupperware lid, or Surely you’d rather be lining up your 7-year-olds pants in rainbow colour order? When she comes a-calling, I delete her from my brain. I also, as it happens, turn off Safari, keep my mobile elsewhere and turn the answer-machine on – which means that sometimes, just sometimes, I am a teensy bit late for the school run.