After the Storm is off to a flying start, and Maeve's Afternoon Delight is soaring as well.

It's interesting to see Maeve's Afternoon Delight selling well, and people asking for the follow on. This will be written next year.
I  confess that it gives me huge pleasure to see After the Storm doing well too. It was my first novel, absolutely the first thing of any length I had written.

I entered it for the Constable/North West Arts novel competition. It didn't win but it was one of the 22 best entries. This was heaven for an aspiring author and I thought I had it sorted! Well, no.

Five years later I had worked my way through the Writers and Artists Yearbook and reached H. I knew I had only a short time to get it published as my youngest child was 5 and about to start school, at which point I'd have to get a 'proper' job. Someone at Hamish Hamilton liked it, but not enough. He suggested his own agent, which was an act of huge generosity. His agent took me, and knew Heinemann had just lost Catherine Cookson and were seeking a novel set in the North East. Mine was. And so, careers are launched.

That wasn't the end of it though. I met the brilliant Sue Freestone and Amanda Conqui for lunch who suggested a few changes - publishers do. Basically I needed a sub plot, and to double it in length, and to do this in six months. Crikey. They wanted the sub-plot to be headed by Annie Manon's brother, but I could see more potential in Tom, the step-brother. Publishers aren't dragons, and if you can give a reason behind your thinking they are usually amenable. Or have mine always been lovely? And so, Only The Wind is Free was born, which is now published as After the Storm.

The reason it has an emotional hold is that the character in essence is my mother, Little Annie Newsome, as she was known in Washington Station, where she lived in a shop in Brady Square with her father and step-mother, brother and step-brother. This train would probably be the one used by the colliery to transport the coal to the mainline. But maybe it is the mainline. I just don't know, and never knew that it ran so close to my mum's shop. But which side is her shop? I don't know. So many questions.

Many of the incidents in After the Storm are those that took place in my mother's life, but I know her brother in real life was lovely, and I never knew her step-brother Rex. I'm not sure now that I'd stick so closely to actual incidents and use a brother when there is a brother, because I would hate my uncle to have thought I meant him, as I explained. Writers live and learn - to be more careful.

I am returning to Washington in September to add to my research for the new books I am doing for my publisher, Random House, set back in a mining community before, during, and after the 1WW. I will be visiting Beamish Living Museum (I've been before - fascinating) and going on up to Ashington to see the Pitmen Painters' standing Exhibition at Woodhorn Museum. If you haven't seen the play 'Pitmen Painters' you must and try and get hold of Robson Green's TV programme on them.

My real treat though will be to spend time in Washington. The weekend I am there is the heritage weekend at F Pit, (the pits were given letters of the alphabet) and I have contacted the fantastic Washington History Society who have sent me all sorts of photos of Brady Square and are trying to find out more about my mum. I didn't ask the right questions in her lifetime, and realise that I want to know all about her and her family. Dave has been amazing and has contacted the Sunderland Echo who are putting a feature into their Historical section in the hopes that there is someone who can fill me in.

I used to spend some school holidays with my Uncle Stan and Auntie Isobel and absolutely love it in the north - the people, the history, the countryside. I feel my roots are dug deep and I'm very excited at the thought of my trip.

Incidentally, Barry Unsworth, who has won the Booker twice, told me that I was 22nd in the list of 22 best entries. Thanks Barry - I think. And how we miss him and his writing. I particularly love The Quality of Mercy

I willreturn from my travels on 16th September and will  let you know how my trip goes!