The first book I ever wrote was a novelization of ET. I was five years old, had a yellow pencil, an exercise book with ET on the front and boundless enthusiasm.

After being told the devastating news that I couldnt write ET because it had already been done, I resolved to write my own stories. They were still somewhat derivative - a time-travelling detective who drives a sports car that can A) talk to him and B) needs to hit 120 mph to time-travel... I was a kid of the eighties, feel free to look for influences.

I dabbled with writing through school and university, but it wasnt until a spell of "under-employment" (the politically correct term for sitting on my arse as a receptionist whilst looking for a position more suited to my PhD) that I entered NaNoWriMo. I never hit that vaunted 50,000 words but I DID put down 30K of speculative fiction and started to take things a bit more seriously.

As always, life intervenes and that story slowly bloomed to a disorganised mess of about 70k over the next few years. Its still there, tucked away on the hard drive and Ive promised myself that one day I will come back to it.

By now though, somebody else was starting to whisper in my ear. Id always wanted to write a detective novel, but had struggled to come up with a protagonist that I really connected with - or one that didnt seem a rehash or bad pastiche of my favourite existing characters. And that was when DCI Warren Jones started to nag me. Loudly. And Insistently. I wrote that first draft in less than six months.

Im now up to novel number three. The first in the series will be published by Carina UK (Harlequin) at the beginning of 2014, with the next two coming later.

And as for the future? Well Warren has lots more stories to tell and then theres that first, aborted attempt at speculative fiction. I reread it the other day and you know what? It isnt that bad...