It's a generally accepted wisdom that films based on books are never as good as the books themselves.  Well, generally accepted, maybe, but not by me.

I can think of any number of films where the production team have taken a story and improved upon the work of the original creator. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings for a start. Whilst being a massive fan of the books for decades, I'd be first to admit the films are better. Not in every respect, granted, there are still scenes where Tolkein's version has the edge, but generally, the story is tighter, more cohesive, more dramatic and more powerful in Jackson's hands.

I heard PD James talk about this a couple of years ago, shortly after the release of the film based on her fabulous book, Children of Men. The film, as often happens, left great swathes of the story behind and a question from the audience clearly expected Lady James to slate it on these grounds alone.

She did the opposite; making the eminently sensible point that given the choice between a great movie that departs from the original story and a faithful representation that is nevertheless a poor film, she would choose the former any day.

People often ask if there are going to be films made of my books. Fingers firmly crossed, I reply, but these things take time. They then ask, will it be difficult for me, seeing my story in someone else's hands? Will I want to have input? Or even control? To make sure they do justice to the book?

No. I want to stay well clear. I want to see someone else, (preferably someone very talented, naturally) take my stories and make them work in a new format.

I had a glimpse of that process this week, when the finalists for the 2010 Book Video Awards were announced. For some months now, students from the National Film and Television School, in conjunction with Random House, Foyles Bookshops and The Bookseller magazine, have been working on short promotional videos for some of this season's crime novels and, by great good fortune (for me), Blood Harvest was chosen by the immensely gifted Nele Hecht.

I met Nele a couple of months ago when her ideas for Blood Harvest had got her through to the final of the competition. I was impressed immediately by her creative thought process, by her ability to spot the ideas and themes in the written word that would make powerful visual images. Obviously, here was someone who could take the story I'd written, adapt it to a completely different medium and - crucial point here - make it better. I began to get very excited, not only about the trailer, but about a possible future film.

I saw Nele's finished trailer for the first time a few days ago and wasn't remotely disappointed. It's innovative, gripping and seriously shocking - everything I would have hoped for and more. You can see it for yourself, and the other three finalists, which are also very good, on the link below:

www.foyles.co.uk/bookvideoawards2010

Do take a look, if you're brave enough; and vote for the lovely Nele to win, if you agree with me that hers is easily the best. The winner is announced on 15 October. Fingers crossed.

It wasn't to be. Because even She-Who-Is-About-To-Embark-Upon-The-Greatest-Adventure-Known-to-Womankind has to bow before the might of the sales team. So, it's official. Book Four will be called:

NOW YOU SEE ME.

Not my first choice, or even my second, but I have to admit it's kind of creepy. And it does look good even on the very rough mock up my website designer produced. Okay, it's growing on me.

Generally speaking, things have perked up since I last blogged.  Not only has book f - oops, NOW YOU SEE ME been signed off by editors on both sides of the Atlantic, but also my ideas for Book Five have been accepted. This means that Evi Oliver (from BLOOD HARVEST) Lacey Flint and Mark Joesbury (both from NOW YOU SEE ME) will be returning. Blimey, it could be the start of a series.

Also, BLOOD HARVEST has made it through to the final shortlist of four in the CWA Gold Dagger award.  The other three are Blacklands (Belinda Bauer), The Way Home (George Pelecanos) and Shadowplay (Karen Campbell) The first two are excellent (damn it) and whilst I haven't read Shadowplay yet, I'm sure it's equally as good. I do keep having to tell myself the honour is in being on the shortlist. And the fun is in getting a new dress for the occasion. The eventual winner will be announced on ITV3 in early October.

In honour of its place in the final, Blood Harvest has been given a makeover.  Behold, stylish and rather scary new cover.

Another bit of good news is that the wonderful Buckman women have found me a Japanese publisher.  Tokyo Sogenshah, who also publish Ian Fleming, Minette Walters, Dean Koontz and Sarah Waters have bought Sacrifice, Awakening and Blood Harvest and will be publishing Sacrifice in the next eighteen months.

And finally, my pride and joy didn't need an operation to fix his broken elbow, his cast has been removed, he's been signed off fit to travel and we fly off to Italy  on Saturday.

As, I think, someone else will be doing too. If you're reading this, Powerful One, have a fabulous day, look as beautiful as only you can, and come back in top form for the autumn grind.  I can't do it without you.  Lots of love to you both from all of us here. xxx

Summer plans are now in complete disarray, with hopes of enjoying our first long haul holiday since arrival of said child in more pieces than his elbow. We won't now be spending next week on a yacht in the British Virgin Islands, instead increasingly bored child and I will be stuck here in semi-rural Bucks, trying not to drive each other nuts. Nor will we be meeting up with friends in Devon for a week pretending to be swallows and amazons, because semi-disabled children and water sports just don't mix.

Oh, I had such high hopes for this summer!

Safe to say Mr B is not at his most sanguine. Neither am I. Holiday plans aside, I had two major deadlines to meet before we flew off to Tortola but the various summer camps and activities I'd planned to entertain child while I was working have also been cancelled. Looks like the final edit of Book Four and the detailed synopsis of Book Five are going to be fleshed out between the hours of ten and midnight.

Still haven't come up with a title, by the way. And lets face it, Book Four on the cover is hardly going to fly off the shelves!

Still, every cloud as they say.  We were cheered up considerably a few days ago by a phone call from She Who Is About To Glide Gracefully Down The Aisle. The Crime Writers Association have just announced the shortlists for the 2010 Daggers (also known as The Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards) and Blood Harvest is one of eight books up for the very prestigious Gold Dagger. On 9^th August the list of eight will be whittled down to four finalists, with the eventual winner being announced at a televised ceremony in Grosvenor House in early October.

The annual daggers are a crime writing institution in the UK and the first tranche were announced a couple of days ago at the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. I'd have struggled to judge the Dagger in the Library this year, as three writers I particularly admire were all on the shortlist: Simon Beckett, Mo Hayder and Ariana Franklin. (Of course, they're all with Transworld - all the best thriller writers are!) Ariana won it, with Simon being highly commended. Mo can hardly sulk though. Her latest, Gone (my favourite Hayder book so far) has been shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, also to be announced in October.

Which makes me now a bit ashamed of myself, as though for the same number of years I've been going to parties and to friends' houses for dinner without ever bothering with a thank you note. Because lots of people write to thank me and I can't tell you how lovely it is to get these cheery little notes in my inbox.

I can't say they make it all worthwhile, because it would be more than worthwhile anyway, but they certainly are the icing on the cake.

My favourite reader of the moment, though, is without doubt Carolyn from Texas who, whilst enjoying Awakening, felt the ending didn't quite hit the note she was looking for. So, and I'm sure only an American reader would think of doing this, she tore out the last ten pages, re-wrote it and sent it back to me.

And you know what - her version wasn't bad.

Spoiler alert - don't read on if you haven't yet (and might one day) finished Awakening.

Carolyn felt the ending didn't quite hit the romantic note she'd been hoping for. Not enough for this reader that heroine Clara has battled venomous snakes, resurrected corpses and saved the man she loves from a flesh dissolving end. She needed plucky Clara to be rewarded with a snog.

So in the new version she is. And for all those of you who found the ending of Awakening just that little lacking in warmth, here is Carolyn's re-write of pg 390.

Somehow, we'd moved closer. I could smell the wool of Matt's jacket, warm in the sunshine, his skin, his hair.

'What about your girlfriend, Matt?' I asked.

'Erstwhile girlfriend,' he replied, covering my lips with his. It was a slow, deeply satisfying kiss. Too soon, he pulled back and looked at me. With the barest touch, he laid his fingertips alongside the scar on my face.

'Are you OK?,' he asked.

Actually, Carolyn isn't alone. A lot of readers expressed their disappointment that the romances in both Awakening and Blood Harvest weren't tied up a little more neatly.  With Blood Harvest, in particular, I had an alternative ending in mind, much warmer and sexier, and had even written three quarters of it in my head. But when it came to it, in both books, the events leading up to the final pages were just too grim to tie either story up with a twee happy ending.

The other problem with having your characters ride off into the sunset, is that it's then so much harder to bring them back for subsequent books. If characters achieve a happy ending, I like to leave them there. On the other hand, if the events are resolved but not the relationships, there is scope to revisit.

I've just taken Evi Oliver out of her box, dusted her off and am trying her out for a leading role in book five. I wasn't too keen on Evi, all the time I was writing Blood Harvest. I found her a bit unwieldy, less interesting that my previous two lead females. In all fairness to her, though, she's bringing book five to life. Will she have her happy ending in Book Five? I suspect not, anymore than Lacey (whom you have yet to meet) will.

Book four is still with She Who Is About To Become A Vision In White and we've just heard that James Patterson has stolen my preferred title for it: Tick Tock. Honestly, that man! So, the race is on to find a new title for a book that is a modern take on the Jack the Ripper case before the cover design has to be agreed. Usually, that's sometime in … June! Ooops, my schedule is slipping.

By the way, if anyone fancies rewriting the endings of any of my books, feel free! I'll post the best ones here on the website.

He's not fulsome in his praise, Mr B. This was the first such event he's been to and when I asked him afterwards how he thought it went, he said: 'You probably shouldn't have slagged off Stieg Larsson. He sells a lot more than you do.'

Well, I can't argue with that. But if I have to put up with people posting comments on Amazon about my "average and often clumsy novels", I don't see why I can't occasionally question another writer's phenomenal success.

And before you start muttering about sour grapes can I preface what I'm about to say by making clear that I'm a huge Dan Brown fan, consider JK Rowling to be a near genius, believe Lee Child to be almost as sexy in real life as his fictional counterpart, Jack Reacher, and if Stephen King were ever to ask, which I seriously doubt he would, the answer is a definite: yes, I will run away with you. I do not envy other writers' their massive success; as long as I believe it to be deserved.

Stieg Larsson though?

I've only read Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and I'm told the trilogy gets better as it goes along but, I'm sorry, that's like saying a book starts off weak but picks up a third of the way through. In this incredibly competitive marketplace, such a book has no business on the shelves.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo needed the attention of a thumping good editor, in my view. One like my own, for example, because there's no way a book with something like fifty pages of financial information would ever get past her red pen. Especially as it's not, ultimately, remotely necessary to the plot.

Holding, as you can see, strong views on the subject of Mr L, I'd been looking forward to meeting my fellow panelist in Thame, Barry Forshaw, author of the first biography of Stieg, called "The Man Who Left Too Soon."  Barry is a journalist, book critic and crime editor. He's also written several non-fiction books about the crime genre and has a close to encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject. If anybody would be able to tell me what the fuss was about, it was Barry. Because as far as I could see, the only thing the book has in its favour is the, admittedly fabulous, main character, Lisbeth Salander.

She's completely wonderful, I agree, and I so wish I'd invented her, but surely even a truly superb main character isn't enough, in itself, to turn an otherwise weak book into a great one?

Barry's take on the Larsson phenomenon? His success was down to two factors. The wonderful Lisbeth. And Larsson's premature death.

So there you go. That's what I have to do to hit the big time. Invent an absolutely corker of a main character. And die.

Now I'll probably spend the rest of this exceptionally beautiful late June day imagining how such a death might occur. And if you want to take issue with my Larsson comments, please, feel free. I would genuinely love to know what makes this book deserve the success it has had. Convince me and not only will I read it again, I'll even buy it again.

Well, it's payback time, because I find myself suffering a serious case of bloggers' block. I knew it would end in tears, back in January, when I allowed myself to be talked into this blog. I'm a writer, I complained to anyone who would listen. My life is exceptionally dull. I write, I wander aimlessly around the house, then I write some more. The highlight of my day is school pickup when I get to interact with real people* for about ten minutes.

Plus this is that very difficult time of year when I'm "between" books. Number four has been sent, in second-draft form, to She Who Must Be Obeyed and I have a few weeks respite to plan number five. Sheer torture. Staring at a blank screen and knowing that before the end of next February it has to contain 130,000 words.

You see, as well as bloggers' block, I've had a critical attack of planners' block. I have a basic idea for a story that I know could be brilliant. I just can't for the life of me see how to turn that idea into a fully formed plot. The planning is hard. Even harder than the editing and that usually sends me running for the gin bottle by three o'clock every afternoon. During planning season, a whole day can go by and I've produced a paragraph of text and had one idea that might comprise half a scene.  It feels very unproductive and, compared to the writing process when I might have 3000 words to show for a day's work, extremely frustrating. And there's always that nagging fear at the back of my head: what if I can't do it again?

I was talking about this on Wednesday night to the very clever and articulate Tom Cain, author of The Accident Man series, in front of an audience of several dozen people at Feltham Library. Tom doesn't plan, he says. He likes to be surprised by his stories and his characters. Good for you, buddy. If I didn't plan, the only surprise I'd get is if words actually got written.

So apologies to all the regular visitors (I know you exist, even if you never talk back to me) if I maintain radio silence for a while. I haven't gone anywhere. I'm not doing anything exciting. I'm just staring at my screen, waiting to be inspired.

Oh, and Tom made me laugh. He says all books are masquerading as something else. Mine, he thinks, are ghost stories masquerading as forensic thrillers. His, on the other hand, are romances, pretending to be action thrillers.  You have to read a Tom Cain book to appreciate just how funny that is.

* I use that term quite loosely, but after several hours with just my own company, I'm easily satisfied.

No other publisher thought of putting linen-wrapped strawberries on the front cover but I think it works brilliantly, managing to be both menacing and intriguing.

I've just come back from a PR visit to the north-west, where I made good use of linen-wrapped strawberries to demonstrate my life as a writer. It's not enough anymore, you see, that people like me write. We also have to talk. To people who've made a special effort to hear what we have to say.

I gave two such talks last week, in Blackburn and Haslingden libraries. Both very carefully scripted. About two thirds of the way through, (just after we put the snake away), I start to read from chapter 11 of Sacrifice, acting it out as I go. I take Tora down the cellar steps and crouch with her to the linen-wrapped parcel, about the size of a grapefruit, oozing scarlet liquid onto the stone cellar floor.  I unwrap the parcel, just as Tora does, to find….strawberries.

Get's em every time! Well, those who haven't yet read the book. Then, when they're all still giggling, I produce the pig's heart - virtually indistinguishable from a human one, and slap it on the table in front of them.

I blame Tess Gerritsen. When I was asked to do my first talk, I had no idea how I was going to fill the hour, but I had heard that Tess travels with a shrunken human head and uses it to liven up her presentations. Brilliant idea, I thought, what can I travel with? Awakening was just about to come out so the obvious choice was a snake and a young friend of mine just happens to have a pretty and obliging corn snake who's rather taken to his personal appearances. My local butcher supplies the pig's heart and my son the fake blood that adds the extra bit of menace to the package of strawberries.

I enjoyed talking to people in Blackburn and Haslingden, but the highlight of the trip was probably being a guest on BBC Radio Lancashire's Sally Naden show.  Fellow panelists were Carmen Parkinson of the Referral Institute and Carole Roberts, a psychosexual therapist. Well, you can imagine what set the tone of the entire two-hour conversation.

Later in the week, when I'd managed to get erectile disfunction and menopausal dryness out of my head (a couple of treats Mr B and I are really looking forward to) I popped into my old school, now the Darwen Aldridge Academy, where I met head-teacher Brendan Loughran and the lovely learning resources manager, Janet Arnott. They made a huge fuss of me and Glam One (who came along for the trip) and asked me back in September to be a role model for the students.

Friends I've mentioned this to find it hilarious. They're just jealous. It's a great honour. And one I'll be delighted to accept.

About halfway through I'm allowed a break. In a very sunny studio I'm in serious danger of falling asleep. I get up for a sneaky peak. The canvass is an impressionist-style mass of colour daubs and my hair appears in dozens of glorious copper shades. The face is in outline only but it's unmistakably mine. I'm unexpectedly impressed. And very curious.

'Now, what made you put those blue/greys in the bottom left hand corner,' I say, 'and then that patch of yellow cream above it?'

'Well, it's there,' replies Lucy, as though I'm a bit of a half-wit.  I look at the patch of white linen armchair I've been sitting in. I blink. And look again. Nope, where Lucy sees blues, greys, yellows and warm creams, I see shades of white. And not only does she see these shades and tones that I can't, she can reproduce them, in seconds, from just six basic colours. Fascinating.

'Do you think you should be able to see my earrings?' I ask. I'd worn my diamond studs specially. 'It's not painting by committee,' she replies, in a testy sort of way. I suspect she wants me to sit down again. So I do. And she goes back into painting mode. Which is intense, very focused and, actually, a bit scary.

Normal Lucy is zany, bubbly, funny and, I swear, can talk the entire rear end off a donkey in under ten minutes. Artist Lucy is silent and serious, refusing to talk, except to bite my head off if I yawn or move my hair. I start thinking about people in their natural element, how they can be quite different to the folk we thought we knew.

Which is particularly relevant at the moment because I'm racing to finish the second draft of book four: my favourite to date, but the trickiest to get right, mainly because of the dual-nature of the protagonist. Lacey Flint is a young, hard working detective constable, hiding a secret that could destroy her life. Presenting two sides of the same person, without revealing too much to the reader too early in the book, is proving something of a challenge.

I'll be forced to take a break the next couple of days. I'm off back to the frozen north on a PR tour. I'll be speaking at both Blackburn and Haslingden libraries and will be a guest on BBC Radio Lancashire's Sally Naden show.  I've also been invited to drop into my old school. Imagine, nearly thirty years on and being called back into the headmaster's office. Now that, will be an interesting experience.

4pm: Imagine, if you will, Transworld's headquarters in West London (think Bridget Jones's Diary without the glass, or the Hugh).

I glance at the time and decide to spend the last couple of hours of my working week whizzing through the Teetering Submission Pile on my desk.

4.25pm: Submission 1. A good but nothing new detective novel.

5pm: Submission 2. An epic historical with a narrative that sweeps across the centuries, and out of my head.

5.30pm: Submission 3: I pick up an enormous tome that is blocking sunlight from my window. Let's see… It's called Heart's Blood. It's by an author called 'Sharon Bolton'. It is topped with a letter from an agency called the 'Ampersand Agency', and a lady called 'Anne-Marie Doulton' who informs me it is a debut.

Ok, I think, I'll read a few chapters before I head home. Might just spin out an email to Anne-Marie explaining why, sadly, HEART'S BLOOD isn't for us.

5.35pm: Suddenly feeling quite cold. Positively chilly. Has someone opened a window?

5.37pm: What a cracking opening that was! Let's see if she can keep it up…

5.45pm: Crikey, this is good. Really good. Turn the page, turn the page….

7pm: Alone in office. Security guard just asked if he could turn lights out (this is a publishing house on a Friday, not a city law firm). Plead with security guard.

Maybe just one more chapter before I'm plunged into darkness…

7.30pm: Evicted by security guard. Now sitting on Central Line. Ignore pain as fellow passenger stands on toe with stiletto heel. Turn the page, turn the page. Will the script stay this good, or transform into space opera in second half?

8.30pm: Highbury station: nearly come a cropper reading and juggling pages as I fail to notice top of escalator.

9pm: Back home on sofa. Boyfriend asks question. Boyfriend is hungry. Boyfriend realises he needs to go to pub to find food and conversation.

9.30pm: Begin to plan Monday morning phone call to Anne-Marie Doulton.

***

So, that was just one afternoon over 3 years ago. Now let me bring us back to the present.

Heart's Blood, for those of you wondering what on earth I'm on about, was published as Sacrifice in 2008, and Sharon (or rather S. J) Bolton is now the author of not one, but three, outstanding thrillers… and one on the way. Oh, don't worry, she got her 'Blood' in the title in the end: check out her brand new novel Blood Harvest. It is sensational.

I'm certainly not alone in my praise for Sharon's writing… Since 2006, publishers around the globe have signed up S. J. Bolton. One company has optioned Sacrifice for film. In America and Europe Sharon has been nominated for major awards. The Times believe she deserves to sell copies in their millions. Bestselling author Tess Gerritsen claims her writing is 'mesmerising'.

And her editor?

Well, her editor is pretty lucky to be her editor, and each year she receives a new tome from Sharon and Anne-Marie, and it blocks out some light in her office . . . but somehow still makes it significantly brighter.

She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed

We got to talking about real-life crime, whether we'd ever been the victims of it, or indeed committed it, and how it might have affected our writing. By a strange coincidence, Belinda and I had both experienced intruders breaking into our family homes when we were teenagers. She distinctly remembers hearing the phone line being cut as her mother was trying to summon the police. She describes climbing out of the window, with her mother, to get in the car and drive to the police station as the longest few minutes of her life.

Come my turn, I decide to gloss over the time I stole a dinghy in Newton Ferrers and instead chill the audience with my own tale of terror.  At age seventeen, I'm woken by the sound of my bedroom door handle being turned. Assuming it to be my mother, I ignore it. I drift off again, only to feel something under the bedclothes touching me. It's the cat, I think. I reach down to push her out and take hold of another human hand.

I turn to see a dark, masked man standing over me. I do the only thing possible. Scream the bloody house down.

Maybe it isn't coincidence that both Belinda and I have such stories. Maybe you have to experience real-life terror for yourself to be able to inspire it in others. Christopher, on the other hand, told the story of getting to work one day following a burglary and finding the office full of pigeons. They'd come in through the broken skylight and couldn't get out again. He spent the morning trying to explain to Apple why the computers were covered in pigeon sxxx.

Christopher's most enduring memory of crime could explain why his crime novels are a little bit wackier than the norm.

It strikes me that people attend these events because they are curious to find out what makes a crime writer tick. What inspires us to write the way we do. And I can't help but wonder whether, by talking to each other, by comparing notes and sharing stories, we who write are going someway towards answering the same questions for ourselves.

Margaret from Wigan, and friend Richard, it was lovely to see you there. Believe me, we are truly and deeply flattered by the lengths people like you go to, to meet us and buy our books. Thank you.

By the way, if this is being read by any current (or former) members of the law enforcement agencies, I put the dinghy back!