But I meant it as a great compliment. Of all the people I see on a regular basis, she is someone whose company I particularly enjoy. She has her own way of doing things and is happy with that, but wouldn't dream of judging those who take a different approach. She's happy to talk about dogs, children and home decorating (she's perfectly normal and these things are interesting) but she's also passionate about alternative medicine, the environment and accessible arts. Conversations with her can go in any direction, but I always leave her company feeling that my mind has been stretched and I've learned something new.

Nuts, to my mind, means interesting, entertaining, unusual, maybe a bit zany, but above all different. And different is good.

I've been thinking about this a lot in the last few days. Partly because the reviews for Dead Scared have started to appear on Amazon. As a rule, reviewers are pretty kind to me but, invariably, those negative adjectives creep in: "implausible", "far-fetched", "outlandish".

I don't like it, but it's a fair cop. I am a bit outlandish. I don't write classic police-procedurals in which a killer with a predictable motive is both hunter and hunted at the same time. I don't do cosy, rural mysteries where an assembled cast of characters are judged and found guilty, or not, by the reader. I write snakes and ghosts, inanimate figures that come to life and crawl around an abandoned abbey, detectives with more to hide than the killers they're pursuing.

When I'm criticized it's invariably because, as crime writers go, I'm a bit different.

I've tried to toe the line, honest I have. Now You See Me was my attempt at the classic city-based police procedural. I planned it to be gritty, urban, with a simple plot and a believable story line. Of course, being me, it didn't quite work out that way; the outlandish ideas and Gothic influences crept in, one by one, until as Andrew Taylor wrote in The Spectator: 'You don't so much suspend disbelief as chuck it gleefully out of the window.'

I can't do it you see. I can't write mainstream crime. For better or worse, I'm different and I've come to terms with that.

What I haven't come to terms with, yet, is how different I can "allow" my ten year old son to be. He has slightly wacky genes (inevitably) but at the same time a fragile self-confidence and a child's inherent awareness of the desirability of the norm.

He wants the support and camaraderie of the team, but not at the price of spending every school break playing football. He craves the acceptance of others and popularity within the group, but not at the expense of the quiet voice inside him that speaks for his true self.

It's hard, steering a child along the steep and precarious path of discovering his place in the world. I will not tell him to always do what he wants, because there are times when going along with the crowd is the natural and right thing to do. Following the herd occasionally, to my mind, is no worse than a stubborn insistence on being different purely for the sake of it.

And left behind by the herd is a lonely place to be.

It's all about balance, judgment and, ultimately, wisdom. And here is where I find myself encouraged. Because my nuttiest friends (you know who you are) are, strangely, also my wisest, the ones on whom I can always rely for honest and considered advice. Weird people, I've noticed, are invariably inherently sensible, as though the first step to wisdom is understanding and accepting who you are, even if what you are is a little alternative.

My son played in a football match yesterday, and merited special mention in the post-match report circulated by the club manager. He is proud as punch and so am I. It's good to be different, but sometimes it's better to gain the acceptance and approbation of our peers.

The Exorcist was one of the defining films of my youth, possibly of the 20^th century. I remember to this day the buzz in the playground as those kids with siblings old enough to sneak into the back of cinemas described scenes and quotes. You all know the ones I'm thinking of: rotating head, defiled statue, antics with the crucifix. And what twelve year old could ever forget the line: "Your mother sucks xxxxx in hell." I'll wager people who have never even seen the film will know of these scenes, will have heard the more famous lines before. Which is remarkable in itself. How many films from over 30 years ago remain so entirely threaded in the public consciousness?

With this in mind, I was determined at least to try and watch it. I needed to see, with mature eyes, what the fuss was really all about. Is The Exorcist a "superb horror", as the TV guide described, and a groundbreaking piece of cinematic history. Or would it be a massive disappointment like many other so-called iconic horror films (I laughed my way through The Wicker Man), memorable only in its capacity to shock?

The other reason I wanted to see it again was that those of us who make our living from scaring others need continually to be re-honing our skills. A sort of continuous professional development for writers, if you like. If The Exorcist is one of the scariest films ever, what makes it so? What tricks does it contain that scribblers like me can learn from, adapt and use again.

Well, the first thing that struck me, watching the film with fresh eyes, is -for most of its duration - its complete ordinariness. This is a story of regular folks. OK, the main character is a famous actress but her primary role in the film is that of a perfectly ordinary mum. The film kicks off on an archealogical dig in the middle east. Some odd artefacts are found, it's a bit atmospheric, but nothing to get worked up about. Then we move to Washington and to a mother and 12 year old daughter enjoying family life. It's familiar, a little saccharine perhaps, almost verging on dull. And so it goes on.

Until that first, tiny clue that the status quo is about to swing. When Mum wakes up one night to find her daughter in the bed alongside her. 'What are you doing here?' She asks. 'Couldn't sleep, Mummy,' Regan replies. 'The bed was shaking.'

Mum dismisses this as a bad dream or an over-active imagination. But we know it's neither. We know it's the beginning.

Mr B and I made it to the flesh-slashing, vomit-hurling, head-rotating end and were in complete agreement that The Exorcist is worthy of its reputation. It is a superbly crafted film, seriously scary and genuinely groundbreaking.  And it has a huge amount to teach people like me whose job it is to scare others:

1. The power of the ordinary. If you fill your story with normal folks, giving them a life that seems entirely familiar and then shift the perspective, just a little, you've got a potentially very scary scenario, because when you take away one little foundation brick, what's to stop the whole pack of cards from tumbling down?

2. Playing to your audience's fears. Some fears are universal and for most adults, the greatest is of something terrible happening to a child we love. For all its gimics and special effects, The Exorcist is the story of a mother who faces losing her only child to a "disease" she cannot begin to understand.

3. Setting expectations. I'm convinced that one of the reasons The Exorcist scares the living daylights out of us is that we expect it to do so. I was on edge from the opening credits, knowing that some pretty heavy stuff was coming, and not being entirely sure when. The lesson for thriller writers has to be to let readers know from the outset that they are going to be scared.

4. Not overplaying your hand. Some of the scariest scenes in The Exorcist are not the famous vomit-laden ones, but the quieter moments: like when a young girl's eyes turn empty, and she laughs with a voice that is not her own.

5. Cutting off escape routes. The mother, in The Exorcist, cannot run. Her daughter is her life. She is trapped by a relationship, by the power of the mother/child bond, and as we see her options disappearing we can only share her sense of iscolation and entrapment.

6. Using shock tactics sparingly. There are some exceptionally shocking scenes in The Exorcist but, taken as a whole, they don't give the impression of a film using shock tactics gratuitously because they are balanced by the humanity of the rest of the film. The love, faith and courage shown by the mother and the two priests is enough to counter the graphic sexual violence that would otherwise drive people to turn the TV off.

I went to bed last night with a great deal to think about.

This morning, our young son joined us in our bed with the story of how something strange had happened to him in the night. His wrist-watch, that he'd been wearing when he went to sleep, fell on his face in the night and woke him up. And so it begins ...

It grows. Rather alarmingly. Yes, I understand the properties of yeast, have even been known to bake my own bread, but there remains something rather disconcerting about having something in my kitchen that is bigger every time I look at it. (Apart from my son, of course, whose astonishing ability to increase in size I'm getting used to.)

The cake also has a name - Herman. Wasn't there a Munster so called?

Anyway, back to the instructions. On the ninth day, I divide Herman into five equal portions and give four of them away to friends, along with a copy of the instructions. Selected friends then start the process anew and so on, until the whole world is growing Hermans.

And so friendship spreads, supposedly.

I mention this, because one of my (only two) New Year's Resolutions is to spend more time with friends. (Whether they'll want to spend much time with me once I've foisted a Herman on them is another matter) Friends are something I regularly feel guilty about because I never feel I put the effort into the relationship that those who are in it with me deserve.

I'm invariably reserved with friends, playing the passive role, waiting from them to contact me, responding, rather than initiating. It doesn't take a genius to work out that this isn't fair. In fact it's fundamentally selfish. Why should I piggyback on their energy?

Whether it's laziness on my part or a fundamental lack of confidence (I genuinely can't see why these entertaining and popular people would want to spend any time with me) I'm never entirely sure, but the fact remains that my friendships are rather one sided, I feel guilty about it, and it's time I did something to address it.

(It's also rather indicative of another failing of mine. It's waiting for life to happen to me, rather than making it happen for me but maybe that's a subject for another blog.)

So, New Year Resolution No. 2: invest more time and energy in my friends.

Of course, I know New Year's Resolutions are invariably forgotten about come the middle of February - how many of us leopards ever really change our spots? Someone I know declared he will make no New Year Resolutions because there's nothing about himself he wants to change. Oh, to have such glorious self-confidence, although I suspect it can't go hand in hand with an intellect of any size.

Me though? Well, there's something I find heartening about recognising a problem, working out its solution and determining to put it into place. Making New Year Resolutions shows we know we're not perfect, that we recognise both the need and the desire to improve. It shows that we value the fresh start and are grateful that, at least once a year, another one comes along.

So, when I divide my Herman into five, (8^th January if you want to be sure you're out!) I will give one portion to my friend next door, who is the big sister I never had, a brilliant surrogate granny to my son, and whose presence in my life has a way of making me feel just that little bit safer. The next will go to the lady who lost a good friend over Christmas, because I want her to know that there is a spaniel-shaped hole in my life too right now. The third is destined for the woman down the road, who is a little older than I am, (although you'd rarely know it) and who is exactly what I want to be when I grow up. The last, I'm saving for the friend who can insult me to the core and make me laugh out loud with a single (usually the same) sentence and who I know, when given Herman, will consign it straight to the bin!

Resolution No 1: to work harder and write my best book ever. On that note ...

The next time I talk to my mother on the phone I know she's going to ask me exactly that; other parents at school pick-up will start slipping it in too; passing acquaintances will accost me in the street, enquiring cheerfully as to the state of my Yuletide readiness. Round about the 15^th of the month it will get shortened to: "Are you ready yet?'

Why do they do it?

Not only is it jaw-clenchingly annoying, it's meaningless to the point of being moronic (it's OK, mum doesn't read my blog) in its assumption that there's a point to arrive at in the next couple of weeks when every preparation has been made and we can sit, in smug and expectant idleness, waiting for Christmas to happen to us.

Seriously now, when can that point possibly be reached? Once we have presents wrapped, cards posted, tree trimmed, menus planned, etc?  Or do we have to buy the food, cook the dinner, plate it up and stick it in the freezer ready to be micro-waved back to edibility? At what stage does the effort stop and the Christmas begin?

And running alongside the list of chores are the build-up events, the carol concerts, drinks parties, nativity plays that I think, way back in history, were intended to be enjoyable but have long since become a series of hurdles to leap before we can reward ourselves with Christmas. It's as though the entire month of December has become a sort of virtual advent calendar with each day bringing along a pre-Christmas trial to be endured. Just a glance at the diary right now is enough to give me the jitters:

Dec 1^st - Advent Service

Dec 2^nd - School Christmas Fair

Dec 3^rd - Wedding (Wedding? Don't they bloody well know we have Christmas to get ready for?)

In one short, annoying sentence. 'Are you ready for Christmas yet?" embodies one of the deepest problems with my life and, I suspect, with quite a few others as well because it implies that the life we are living at the moment is nothing but a series of tiresome but unavoidable chores that we have to work our way through for the promise of the distant reward. Asking people if they are ready for Christmas in the first few days of the month puts the emphasis on moving as quickly as possible to a desired end, at the expense of enjoying the process.

I've fallen into exactly the same trap with my latest book. End of December is an important deadline for me, the date by which I aim to have finished the first draft. Agent Anne Marie and Mr B give me their initial thoughts early in January (never complimentary but I'm used to it) and I can spend the following six weeks refining and polishing before it has to go to Transworld at the end of February.

I've known for several weeks now that the first draft will not be done by end of December and with that knowledge has come a gradually increasing sense of panic. My priority now is building the word count, getting closer to the desired 110,000 as quickly as I can. It is not where it should be, and that is on making each chapter or scene as impactful as possible. I'm skipping research, glossing over characterisation, leaving out atmosphere and, most importantly of all, I'm not particularly enjoying the process.

This is wrong, because there were many times in the early days of this novel when I genuinely thought it could be my best yet. I was loving what was unfolding before me. I'm not now. Now, every hour at my keyboard is a trial to get through.

How did it happen? How did a job I love to bits become a chore?

It got Christmassed, is what happened. In my desperation to get to the finish line, I lost sight of the joy of the race. Which was both stupid and unnecessary. Book six will not hit the bookshops until Spring 2013. I have plenty of time. And no one will enjoy reading a book that I haven't enjoyed writing. So, tomorrow I will turn off my word count tool and concentrate on writing a scene in which my young hero, Barney, talks to two adults whom he likes and trusts, both of whom could be cold-blooded killers. I have to make it sad, touching and bone-chillingly scary.

As for Christmas, well the advent service made me cry sweet, sentimental tears, as it always does and the Christmas Fair, as usual, is the nicest event the PTA runs all year. The wedding was delightful: cold, beautiful and glittery. We sat on a table of people who have known each other for decades and who greeted us, perfect strangers, as old friends. Yesterday I wrapped presents, which I always enjoy because I'm good at it and tomorrow I'm going out for a Christmas meal with a dozen other mums from the village. On Wednesday Mr B is going to watch Handel's Messiah at St Paul's cathedral and, God I wish I was going with him, but I'll enjoy hearing all about it all the same. On Thursday my book-club are coming here for dinner. What a fabulous month this is!

So I'm begging you now, stop worrying about Christmas and, instead, chill out and enjoy December. And, please, wish me luck with that ruddy book!

I was a special guest at the Awards Evening at my old school, invited to present an award to the most promising young writer and asked to say a few words about my own time at the school, and how my school experience had helped me in later life.

And there was the problem, because I'm not sure it did. When I went to Darwen Moorland High School at the age of 11, it was the year the town's educational system became comprehensive. It was a massive shake up. Lots of people were very unhappy and everyone: teachers, parents, pupils, were finding their way.

This was the prosperity proof north-west of England in the 1970s. We were all equal, because nobody had anything. And one thing we weren't allowed was ambition. Looking back, I think Moorland High School saw it as its business to churn out a semi-educated workforce who would neither want nor expect too much out of life. Getting above yourself was one of the worst sins you could commit back then and achievement was frowned upon. There were a couple of stellar brains in my year (not mine, I hasten to add) but whilst they'd have walked the entrance exams, Oxbridge was never mentioned. Only five of our year went to university, only three of us lasted beyond the first term. I believe to this day that that had nothing to do with the capabilities of the others in my year, and everything to do with the expectations (or lack of them) put upon us.

And yet, in this temple of the humdrum, we were continually told that these were the best days of our life. I tell you what, when you're thirty five minutes into a maths lesson, with nothing to look forward to but soggy vegetables for lunch and an hour hanging around in the cold, trying not to be hit in the face by a football, you really don't want to be told that this is as good as it gets.

I honestly couldn't tell that group of teenagers last week how school life had inspired me, but I could tell them what I wish someone had told me back then; which is that through hard work, passion and a belief in yourself, life can get better and better.

So instead, I talked about how one's teenage years are when you begin to understand who you are, what makes you tick and what it is you were put on this earth to do. I encouraged them to take every opportunity that comes along, that it doesn't matter if they fail many times over, because in the process they will find what it is that they excel at.

And then I got onto my own pet subject, which is the pursuit of excellence. I told them to work their socks off. That those who aim to be the very best that they can be, quite often find themselves the best that anyone can be. When I was their age, my English teacher introduced me to the sayings of Confucius and my favourite was always: "Aim for the moon, and you might just hit the top of a high tree." At the time I loved it, now I'm not sure it's quite good enough. Now, I think if children aim for the moon, every once in a while, they'll hit the moon.

I told them all of this but - you know what - I think they knew it already. Because Darwen Moorland High School is long gone and in its place is the Darwen Aldridge Community Academy. The Academy, in a glitzy, multi-million-pound new building in the town centre is revolutionizing the way young people are educated in my home-town. And thank God for that! Under the joint leadership of its inspirational sponsor and head-teacher, this has truly become a school that encourages and celebrates individuality, entrepreneurship and achievement. I don't remember a single award being given when I was at school, but last Thursday night I watched youngsters being rewarded for risk-taking, creativity, determination and passion. Passion! It would have been unheard of in my day. I saw children with talent, drive and self-belief, who were being encouraged by committed and motivated teachers to be the very best that they can be. Some of them, without doubt, are exceptional already. And things can only get better for this wonderful school, with which I'm proud, beyond words, to be associated.

A couple of special mentions before I close. The first to David Nairn, not just because he held us all spellbound with his beautiful voice and musicianship, but because thirty years ago, I remember his father, Peter, doing exactly the same thing. And the second to the first ever recipient of the SJ Bolton award for the most promising young writer. I'll be following this young lady's career with close interest and looking for her on the publishing lists in years to come. She certainly has the right name for it. Many congratulations, Kierney Hemingway.

There is a floor* in the Bella Sky hotel in Copenhagen where men are not allowed. It is a floor for professional women, who hate being disturbed by men banging on the door, demanding admittance, sex and access to the mini-bar. It is a floor for business women, who are tired of being kept awake by men carousing drunkenly in the corridor, singing rugby songs and arguing loudly about football. It is a floor for serious women, who are bored with men scribbling dirty jokes on postcards and pushing them under doors, leaving fart machines in the lift and vomiting down the stairwell.** Above all, according to the hotel, it is a floor for women of a certain age, for whom the attractions of peace and quiet, feminine ambience and personal safety far outweigh the potential for attracting the opposite sex.

I know this because I have been in Copenhagen this weekend for the annual BogForum (book fair) as the guest of my Danish publishers, Mrs Robinson. Now, if ever there was a publishing house for women of a certain age, it is the one called Mrs Robinson (in spite of it being owned and run by three men.)

Women of a certain age certainly featured heavily on the stand: the beautiful Zoe Ferraris; the funny, talented and hugely successful Tove Alsterdal (nine weeks on the Danish bestseller list with her debut novel) and the lovely Anne Wildfeldt, whose self-help and relaxation books I know would be of enormous help to me if only I spoke Danish.

When the crowds started to thin on Saturday evening, Tove, Anne and I shared a bottle of wine and agreed we were very lucky in our Danish publisher.

Because Mrs Robinson, we'd learned, is highly selective, choosing only writers whom it believes will deliver reliably and consistently year after year, and releasing just a limited number of titles annually. It is deeply committed to its authors, not relying upon the usual intensive but brief selling period following publication, but continuing to promote its books hard, all year round. It invests time in its relationships with booksellers, knowing that personal recommendation is the best selling tool of all.

Mrs Robinson is highly considerate of its authors, treated visiting ones like royalty, and it employs the nicest people, most of whom seemed to be at Bogforum. Like Jens, Soren and Jorgen, the three delightful owner/directors; the highly entertaining marketing manager, Jasper (whom they might want to watch with visiting authors in future, given what happened to the one that came in the spring!) the charming Anna-Lisa, who when I visit next will take me to the best and oldest coffee and cake shop in Copenhagen, and the lovely and obliging Rekke. It was an enormous pleasure to meet all of them, and I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be going back in the spring.

Late on Saturday evening, (I'm sure my inability to sleep had nothing to do with the five course banquet with seven different accompanying beers) and then on the journey home next day, I started thinking about what exactly makes a woman of a certain age, and quickly came to the conclusion that it has little to do with the year she was born and everything to do with the contents of her own head. Because women of a certain age, it seems to me ...

• Are slaves neither to the foolishness of youth, nor the trepidation of old age, but between the twin forces of time left and experience gained have reached a place at which they feel comfortable.

• Have the confidence of knowing they look good (you notice I don't use the word "still") but the wisdom to realise that looks are no longer an asset they can rely upon.

• Find no effort in being both kind and patient, but are not personally hurt by the lack of these qualities in others.

• Are happy in the vulnerability of knowing there are people whom they simply could not live without.

• Laugh frequently at themselves but never at their friends.

• Do lot lose sight of the great deal they have, amidst the tiny stresses of what they do not.

• Upon faced with seven different beers, will tuck in manfully, because they know that alcoholic beverages do not start and end with Chardonnay.

• Do not leave their coats behind in their hotel room, forcing their driver to make an illegal high speed U turn on the motorway.

• Are not scared of the self-service check in at airports.

• Do not pull out their passport at crowded check-ins, only to find it stuck to an item of intimate feminine apparel.

• Love the company of women, (especially those of a certain age,) but know they could not, nor would want to, live without men, even for a weekend.

• Upon being offered a room on a women-only floor would respond with a healthy: "what the hell for?"

Looking back through the list, with one or two exceptions, I have to admit I simply don't make the grade just yet! But while I have a life, family, friends and job that I love, and while I have publishers like Mrs Robinson, who have enough faith in my books to invite me to wonderful places like Copenhagen, I promise to keep trying.

So here's to you, Mrs Robinson, and to women of a certain age, everywhere.

* The floor in question is the 17^th, if you're interested, but frankly, if you're that much of a Nervous Nellie that you can't sleep knowing there's a strange man on the other side of the wall, you probably shouldn't be travelling on your own anyway.

** No, it never happens to me either, maybe we need to spend more time in Denmark!

In a tongue-in-cheek way, (that I'd hoped was obvious but which she either didn't or chose not to see) I'd been making a serious point. Crime writers' preparatory research is usually depressing, if not downright harrowing, because it is entirely grounded in the real world. Once the research is over and we start writing our books, the fun can begin because then we are dealing with the fictional, the unreal and, above all, we have complete control over what will happen. Any number of crime writers agree that it is possible to love the process of creating the fiction whilst hating the research that sits behind it. The control we have over events in our books is an important part of this distinction.

What this audience member chose to hear is that I enjoy the violence in my books because it makes me feel in control. She questioned, publicly, what that said about me as a person.

This sort of comment comes up with unfailing regularity at crime events when someone, (whom you might suspect of having wandered into the wrong event in the first place) jumps onto their moral high-horse of opposing "unnecessary" violence. It's a cheap point, to my mind, because whilst it's very easy to object to excessive violence, it's a whole lot harder, intellectually and succinctly, to make the case for it. But it's Sunday morning, I'm alone in the house with a couple of hours to kill, so I'm going to have a stab.

Grim, violent tales are essential to the human condition. For hundreds of thousands of years, our world has scared us and we deal with our numerous fears by experiencing them vicariously in our culture. From the time when we sat around our camp-fires telling each other stories, those stories have been about human evil and its consequences. Through scary books, films and dramas we look our demons in the face and, to the extent that it is possible, come to terms with them. The process is natural, normal and perfectly healthy.

And just as our societies become darker and more violent with time, so will the cultures that reflect them. A few years ago, the genre that is constantly changing and reinventing itself took a darker turn and books became edgier, more graphic. Violence that previously had only been hinted at suddenly took centre page. These books flew off the shelves because - reality check coming up - readers loved them, and writers like Thomas Harris, Patricia Cornwell, Tess Gerritsen, Stuart MacBride and Val McDermid became very popular and successful.

Nothing wrong with that to my mind, it's a trend, it won't last forever, the genre will move on. In the meantime, talented authors will do well and readers will enjoy their books. But there is a vocal minority out there who simply do not accept that our love of dark and violent stories is an integral and healthy part of the human psyche and who will not miss an opportunity, either publicly at events, or via the media, to distance themselves from the whole nasty business and take authors to task for the unnecessary and gratuitous violence in their books.

Now, the problem I have when I defend the right of fellow authors to be as explicit as they choose in their own work, is that I automatically give the impression my books are considerably more violent than they are. I'm sure I did that yesterday. And yet, one of the criteria for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, (that I was shortlisted for three years in a row and won for Awakening) is minimal on-page violence. Although some pretty nasty things happen in my stories, most of the violence takes place off the page and this approach feels right for me. I'm more about scaring people witless than making them chuck up their lunch.

On the other hand, never say never and I certainly stepped up the blood and gore a bit for Now You See Me. Given the nature of the story, I'd say that was unavoidable but a friend of mine, herself a highly respected crime writer, accused me of going over to the dark side! She couldn't understand why I'd chosen such subject matter (gang rape and sadistic sexual murder), thought I'd wasted my talents and accused me of wallowing in the pornography of violence. She ended with the most bizarre thing that I think can be said to a crime writer: "Sharon, there are nicer things to write about."

Can somebody out there - please - name me a "nice" crime?

So, what does it say about me that I get pleasure from writing every scene in my books, be they explicitly violent or otherwise? Well, I think it says that I understand that a culture of violence is not a worrying reflection of our society but a healthy part of it. I hope it says that I feel immense pride in, and support for, the genre that I am part of. It probably says that I can't expect readers to enjoy reading books that I don't enjoy writing and it certainly says that I love how I earn my living and that I remember, on a daily basis, how lucky I am in this regard.

Above all, it says that I will not, to anyone, apologise for the way I choose to write my books. And neither should anyone else.

Honestly, if I had a ten pound note for every time I've heard that one! The 84 year old father-in-law of a friend took me to one side last Halloween (tangent that we won't go down right now) and said although he'd enjoyed the latest book, he'd been hoping for a bit of between-the-sheets activity. It comes up often at book clubs.  Readers love the action sequences and all the rough and tumble, they just want a few more of the kind that don't normally hurt as much!

And my answer is always the same. Don't blame me, blame my editor. Because every book I've written has been packed with steamy goings-on in the early drafts, and then She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed takes it all out.

First draft of Sacrifice had some really torrid stuff. The Powerful One didn't think it quite worked. (She was quite polite back in those days, now she just laughs) Initially, Awakening was awash with it (actually, I'm lying now, Clara is a disfigured Archdeacon's daughter - she was never going to be getting a lot) Blood Harvest, though? Blimey was that kinky from the start, you would not believe what one couple got up to on a gravestone! Not for long. She-Who-Must-Be ordered several rewrites and, interestingly, the hard stuff slowly dwindled to a limp echo of its former self.

I didn't give up easily. Lacey Flint, in Now You See Me, is a 21^st century heroine, she knows what she wants out of life and men and it certainly isn't commitment. Just as I upped the violence in NYSM, so I stepped it up with the sex. It was mean, it was gritty, it was eye-wateringly graphic.

It was all taken out.

One last attempt with Dead Scared. Pretty tasteful stuff this time: gently stroking hands, probing fingers, soft kisses running the length of my spine. Nope! That's gone too.

You see my problem? I have readers desperate for a shag, I'm more than happy to oblige and She-Who-Must... keeps tightening the literary chastity belt. It's like having two mothers!

I could always introduce a special Members Only page on my website, accessible via a smutty password, in which all these previously censored scenes can finally see the light of day. Trouble is, I've lost confidence now. I'm clearly crap at sex. Now I know why Mills and Boon turned me down all those years ago.

Still, there are worse things to suck at? Aren't there?

Funny thing is, not so very long ago, I couldn't have told you what a modern Gothic novel was and other than a vague idea of Goths and Vandals rampaging around Europe in the middle ages, I didn't even know what Gothic meant. Yet somewhere along the line, I started to write Gothic novels.

How did that happen?

When I started writing, my heart was in horror. I was a passionate fan of Stephen King and that was the sort of book - goose-bumping, spine-tingling, flesh-crawling -  I wanted to write.  It was the sort of book I did write - a big dark ghost story called Cry of the Girl Child that was rejected by every agent in the directory.

Those who bothered to give reasons told me the market at the time had no interest in stories of the paranormal. What people wanted to read were down-to-earth, no-nonsense, gritty crime novels, preferably featuring an alcoholic DI in a dysfunctional relationship. And I knew I couldn't write one of those: I wouldn't be able to stop yawning for long enough!

So I figured I'd have to do something new, and got to wondering if I could write a story that was grounded in solid police procedure and forensic investigation but which at the same time, was heavy on atmosphere, creepiness and that insidious sense of dread that is the stock in trade of the horror genre.

Well, apparently I could: Sacrifice did rather well, followed by Awakening and then Blood Harvest. So there I was, several years down the line, writing Gothic novels by accident and still blissfully ignorant as to how and why they deserved the accolade. But then literary critic, Peter Miller, writing in The Times, called me the High Priestess of English Rural Gothic; I decided it had gone beyond a joke and I'd better look it up.

Well, blimey, I'm not doing anything remotely new. In fact I'm part of a literary tradition dating back to 1764 and a spooky little novelette called The Castle of Otranto, and continuing with such luminaries as Mary Shelley, The Brontes, Charles Dickens and Bram Stoker. Nor am I remotely unique. John Connolly has been writing crime crossed with horror for years. Tess Gerritsen dabbles with the Gothic, as do Mo Hayder and Simon Beckett.

If you want to learn more about the modern Gothic novel (or at any rate the sort I write) come along to Thame Library on Friday 14 October at 12.30pm. Tickets £3 to include refreshments.

Friday 14 October 2011, Thame Library, 12.30pm, £3 ticket  0871 288 3420 info@talfestival.org

Copyedits for my fifth book, Dead Scared, have just arrived by special delivery, reminding me that there comes a point in any book's gestation, when you have to let it go. And copyediting is getting very close.

Copyediting is about house style (why do Transworld spell realize with a z?) its about grammar and punctuation, matters of consistency (if his eyes are blue in chapter one, they probably shouldn't be grey by chapter ten) and picking up daft mistakes (apparently, there is no nobel prize for mathematics - thank you Nancy!) By the copyediting stage, all major changes should have been made. Of course, if anything still isn't working, you rely upon a good copyeditor to pick it up and point it out and mine has been known to do so before now. But the message is very clear. By this stage, the book is written, polishing is what we do now.

And that is scary. I write every book to be my best ever, and I know that to be the norm among crime writers. Each time I start on chapter one, I'm aiming for the Gold Dagger and all the time I'm working on a book, I tell myself I've got time, I can still improve, its getting better with every draft. I don't send it my agent until I think its perfect and publishable. She invariably sends it back with a "could do better" report. When it goes to my editor, it's a work of literary genius (in my eyes). Her editorial reports are usually longer than the books themselves.

All that's fine. (Well, now it is - in the old days the air would be blue in editing season!) The process is about getting the book better and ultimately no one benefits from that more than I do. Especially when the creative geniuses get to work, like Claire Ward of Transworld, who has designed every cover for me and who definitely gets better with every book. She surpassed herself this time, giving me not only stunning graphics but the title too. Thank you, Claire.

But there comes a point when even I have to let go, when I've simply run out of time to improve any further, when I'm forced to accept that the book cannot ever be made perfect and I just have to hope its good enough. Scary? Absolutely bloody terrifying!

What doesn't help this time is that Dead Scared is - wait for it - a sequel. Never done one of those before! Stand-alones are what come naturally to me, if characters achieve their happy(ish) ending, I like to leave them, clutching their injuries to stem the blood flow and limping into the sunset. I wish them well, my literary children, they wave goodbye and fade into memory.

But Lacey Flint and Mark Joesbury were never going to do that. At the end of Now You See Me, I had no sense that their story was over. Their journey together had just begun and, so fascinated by them was I, that I simply had to be there to record their ongoing chapters. And so they're back: tortured, troubled Lacey and the man who adores her. And since I'm now in the business of nearly-new characters, I figured I'd take the beautiful and fragile Evi Oliver off the shelf, give her a dust down and see how she shapes up in a brand new adventure.

(And yes, before my in-box gets flooded, Harry is back too!)

Dead Scared is the story of Cambridge in the dead of winter, when the nights are at their longest and coldest, and when the city's young women, away from home for the first time, find their deepest fears coming out to play.

Available to preorder on Amazon: Dead Scared - you will be.