Jojo Moyes

A focus.

A focus.

And I think that's the best thing you can be given in life is to know the thing that you want to do because that was it then for the next 10 years.

I...

Also at The Independent was Helen Fielding, who wrote Bridget Jones.

And I remember watching her do that column from afar and thinking, oh wow, that could have been me if I'd tried harder or been as talented.

But it was like someone accessible

was doing it right in front of me and succeeding.

And then there was a sort of huge tranche of, I think they were called chick lit novels in the 90s and lots of novels about being young and in London.

And I kept thinking, if they can do it, why can't I as that thing?

So I started to write in my spare time.

And Charles, my husband, was very understanding and used to take notes.

our daughter out when she was a toddler to the park on Saturday morning so that I could have some uninterrupted writing time and I would get back from work and I would write or I would get up early before work and write.

I ended up writing three books in my spare time and what happened was the first one got rejected but someone I knew who knew an agent

showed it to them and they said well it's not publishable but you've got a voice you should keep going and that was all the encouragement I needed and then I wrote a second one and that got me an agent even though it wasn't good enough and then the third one did go out on submission to six different publishers and I was so excited I thought that that was it and I was pregnant with my second child then very sickly I was hopeless at being pregnant and I also had this thing um

Standing on one leg is like literally stabbing you in the vagina.

I had the same thing.

So here I am.

Picture this grey blancmange, bit weepy, on crutches, really gorgeous.

Peak Jojo.