After the excitement of our trip to Berlin, it was back to some serious writing this month. I’ve been working on a new children’s adventure called Collingwood Castle and it’s been going really well. Sometimes, you get a novel that just seems to write itself and – happily – this appears to be one of those novels, although I did get stuck in Chapter 7-land for a little while! I’m hoping to finish it very soon and then I’m returning to a romantic comedy called Molly's Millions – more about that next month…

If my Collingwood Castle ever finds a home, I would love to write another in the series featuring butterflies! With that in mind, I went to see Amazing Butterflies at the Natural History Museum where you can walk amongst hundreds of free-flying tropical butterflies. It was a really magical experience and here’s one that posed so beautifully for me.

* * * * * * June* * * * * *

There's a special page for this month's journal. Click here to read about our visit to the Unter deinem Stern film set. We had a fabulous time meeting the team that is turning my first novel into a film for television. I so enjoyed my first trip to Berlin, seeing everything from Checkpoint Charlie to beautiful Charlottenburg.

* * * * * * May* * * * * *

More exciting news on the film front this month - Flights of Angels (Unter deinem Stern) - started filming in Berlin and we’ve been invited to visit the set next month. This will be my first time on a film set and I can’t believe that it’s because of a story I wrote. I hope to have lots of pictures to share with you in next month’s journal!

I also have a children’s book out: Lucky Six – Breaking and Entering. Published by Egmont and written under the name, Becky Rainbird, it’s a fun adventure about six stage-school super sleuths.

This month also celebrated the publication of my friend, Giselle Green's first novel, Pandora’s Box – a moving story about family, friendship, love and loss. Here’s a pic of us enjoying a sunny launch in her lovely garden.

* * * * * * April* * * * * *

This month, I went to the Oxford Literature Festival to hear children’s author David Almond speak. He was wonderful. He’d brought in some of his notebooks to show the audience how messy the writing process is for him and explained how he loved seeing the transformation into the neat lines of a published book.

It was also the London Book Fair and I went along to Earl’s Court to meet my lovely agents from Zurich and New York for the first time.

Unfortunately, it’s been a very mixed month on the writing front because two of the projects I started earlier in the year have been axed for one reason or another. But the good news is that I’ve begun a new project and this seems to have some staying power and I’m enjoying it very much! It’s the first in a new children’s series called Collingwood Castle about a young family who inherit a medieval castle in the north of England.

And, to make sure I don’t spend too much time at my desk, I took up Kickboxing and Karate this month. So, if the heroes and heroines in my children’s adventure stories get into a scrape, they will be able to execute a few neat moves!

On the movie front, I hear that Flights of Angels, (Unter deinem Stern) is going to be filmed in Berlin. Watch this space for more news soon …

* * * * * * March* * * * * *

Well, it’s BIG news this month. My first novel, Flights of Angels, (Unter deinem Stern) is going to be made into a TV movie by Ziegler Film! As you can imagine, I'm very excited and can’t wait to find out more. I think it’s every writer’s dream to see their story adapted and to see their characters come to life. Watch this space for more in the near future…

I’ve been getting back into my romantic novel, The Curious Collection, and it seems to be going well although I’m writing it in a very odd order. At the moment, I’m rather obsessed with a subplot involving my heroine’s sister and writing all of those scenes first. Oh, well, it seems to be working so I’m not going to question it!

* * * * * * February* * * * * *

Back to work on my new romantic novel, The Curious Collection, this month which has been shamefully ignored for so long as I launched into writing all those children’s books. I first started gathering ideas for this novel in 2005 and had a fabulous research trip last May to the National Trust property, Snowshill, so I think it’s high time I got back to it.

We spent a wonderfully sunny week on the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales this month and here’s a pic of Molly by a fabulous shack on the local beach.

This was very much a working trip as my husband was out painting every day whilst I stayed at our cottage. I love getting away from home because I can really concentrate on writing with no distractions. It’s bliss not having the phone and I’m not constantly fiddling around on the internet either. I can fully immerse myself in my fiction.

* * * * * * January* * * * * *

It’s been an odd, unsettling start to the New Year. I have thrown myself into writing outlines for two new children’s series and I can’t decide which I like more. I’ve also had an idea for a teenage romance set in Venice (I can’t leave that city alone!) as well as a stand-alone novel set on Dartmoor. And that’s to say nothing of the romantic comedies that are begging to be written. I think I shall have to clone myself!

There’s one blessing, though: I have just bought Dragon Speech Recognition Software so that takes the pressure off my wrists when I find myself chained to the keyboard bashing out endless stories. I do feel odd wearing it – a bit like air traffic control or something.