There are so many good reasons not to write. There are those fun displacement activities: telly, shopping, wine. Those pesky things called jobs. Families. And, most  pernicious is that little voice in your head, saying, ‘And who do you think you are? Tolstoy? Marion Keyes?’ To write you have to ignore all these things and press one finger to the keyboard, then another, then another, until you’ve got a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a page, a chapter, a book. That’s the only way I know, I’m afraid. Yes, it takes bloody ages. But it’s totally worth it. Below are a few more tips, which, I hope you’ll find useful. Feel free to ignore all of them. 

1. Just because you’ve been wanting to write a book for years and haven’t yet done so doesn’t mean you won’t. I spent at least six years in this self flagellating state before I wrote my first bestseller, The Rise and Fall of a Yummy Mummy. It’s good to remind yourself that good ideas sometimes take years to gestate, others hatch fully formed during a five minute Tube journey.

2. Sorry, but I do find that if you take exercise it speeds up your word count. Seriously! I started running twenty minutes a day twice a week and my word count doubled. (Helps writer’s bottom too.) I also bought a pot plant – mine’s a palm - and put it next to my desk. It’s meant to help. Gullible, I know.

3. Read everything, all the time. Even if you’re reading a book entirely unrelated to the one you’re writing you’ll find something in it – a structure of a paragraph, a tone of voice – that helps you with your own work. Anyway, reading is fun, which is why you’re reading this rather than watching telly or shoe shopping or…come back!  

4. If a book’s not working try rewriting it in a different point of view, or a different tense. I’ve saved a novel by switching from the third to first person.

5. Never think of your mum or your favourite English school teacher reading your book as you write it. This will make your sex scenes really vanilla and your prose purple and self conscious.

6. By the way, accept the fact that if you have a mum character your mum will think it is her. I’ve had mums in all of my books, all totally different and my mum is absolutely convinced that each one is her.

7. You’ll probably piss someone off when you get published. Writers always piss people off. Either other people think they’re in the book when they’re not. Or they think you are going to pillage their love affairs for material – you’ll be tempted. Or they’ll wonder why you haven’t thanked them in the acknowledgements, just for being your mate. As a rule, unless you want to offend or get sued, avoid putting people you know into your fiction and if anyone asks you swear blind that it’s ‘absolutely not autobiographical!’ (Note how published writers say this all the time. Ho ho.)

8. Most published writers have a dusty drawer of heartbreak. This will contain letters from The One who dumped you before they even bloody well kissed you, i.e the ‘thanks, but no thanks’ letters from agents and publishers. You can try and learn from those letters, or sacrifice them to the recycling box. Just don’t give up. 

9.  Write stuff down. My iphone notepad is filled with jokes and observations nosily overheard during the day. To be honest most of this material never gets used. But sometimes it’s the exact thing I need.

10. Be authentic and honest. Is what you’ve just written emotionally true or are you making stuff up? Obviously you have to make stuff up – that’s the biz - but don’t make up emotions, eye them with the cold, crystal eye of a scientist, then nudge them carefully on to the page. The truth is always more compelling. In my experience that’s what publishers are looking for, especially in debut authors, new voices with an authentic energy that leaps off the page.

11.  It’s worth checking out the Bookseller every week to read about other people getting great book deals. Don’t despair. Next time it could be you! 

12. Good luck. You, like all of us, will need it.