This is a difficult question! I am not at all sure that I know the answer. Certainly one effect of having a book published while still at school was to confirm me in my belief that I was AN AUTHOR - and that being an author was the only career I could possibly pursue. I don't recall anyone ever pointing out to me that being an author could hardly be classed as a career. I had to learn the hard way. It came as something of a rude shock to find myself out in the world and having to earn a living, just like any ordinary, mundane, everyday sort of person. Which I was convinced I wasn't! It still never occurred to me, however, to pursue any other course than that of writer. So I washed dishes, scrubbed floors, worked in Woolie's, did a bit of office work, a bit of nursing, a bit of translating, a bid of this, a bit of that, sold newspapers on the Champs Elysees, twiddled my thumbs at Nato, at Unesco, at the BBC -- and went on writing. And sporadically, I got published.

But this desperation to be a writer, allied to the tiresome business of having to earn money, probably taught me to tailor my creative impulses to chime with the demands of the market place - which to an extent most of us have to do, especially in these days of very hard-nosed publishing. If it doesn't fly off the shelf in the first few weeks, KILL IT! Perhaps upon reflection the secret is to learn how to bend the demands of the market to chime with one's creative impulses. In other words, make the market work for you rather than dictate to you.

It sounds very grand, but I would have to say, some unstoppable creative drive! Ideas spin off quite dizzily from other ideas ... When I visit schools, which I do a lot, I always tell the children how I am like a magpie, collecting little bright shiny bits and pieces wherever I go. I tell them how I actually have an ideas folder, and urge them to start ideas folders of their own.

I think perhaps if you are an author who writes primarily about people, then ideas will always be in plentiful supply, since the human psyche ils endlessly fascinating.

I have to confess that I went to drama school simply in order to have fun ... Also because I was tired of scrubbing floors and selling newspapers and not getting books published. (There was a gap of, I think, about four years between my first book and my second. Four years can seem very long when you are young.) So it was either drama school or university, and I decided that university might interfere with my writing ...

I actually walkod out of drama school at the start of my last term as I had been given a commission to translate a series of rather dire war books from French into English, and this at the time seemed the major imperative. In fact by then I'd married a fellow drama student and the translation work kept us going through several lean years of grossly underpaid stints in rep.

If we are to talk of foot and mouth, I feel impelled to state that I have been utterly sickened by the sheer hypocrisy of all concerned. The crocodile tears of farmers, weeping for their livestock -- the breastbeating of the press and public over "healthy animals being slaughtered" - the pious self-satisfaction of the politicans, that these animals need no longer be "culled" but can now return to the food chain ... Do not start me on this subject! The human capacity for self-delusion and sheer wanton cruelty would appear to be endless.

Turning to the PLAGUE trilogy, you ask me to explain my comment, about Miriam. She was one of my favourite editors, but I am not sure that I was ever one of her favourite authors! She is a very gentle person, and my books are somewhat rumbustious. I seem to recall that she begged me, in COME LUCKY APRIL, to moderate my views. I recall a plaintive marginal note, "Do they have to be castrated?" To which Isternly replied, "Yes, they do!" I no longer have my original MS, but I know she peppered it with editorial cotrnmentS and requests, some of which I acceded to, others not. I hasten to add that we worked tether perfectly amiably, there was no discord; but I was never convinced that they were her sort of book.

I gave up writing "serious" teenage books about "serious" issues simply because no one wanted them any more. With the exception of PLAGUE, which has always done well and continues to do so in its latest edition, books of this kind simply didn't sell in large enough quantities to make them viable. That is to say, mine didn't; possibly others did. My writing has chanced over the intervening years. Visiting as many schools as I do, I have come to realise that the PLAGUE trilogy is too densely written, and in too literary a style, to make it accessible to the majority of readers. Were I writing it today, without in any way altering the content, or the complexity of ideas, I would nonetheless "rough it up' a bit, come in at a different point in PLAGUE, try to make the whole impact more immediate. It is a challenge which I think we have to face, as children's writers: to make our books accessible to the modern reader without sacrificing depth of characterisatian, variety of language and complexity of ideas.

I am swill writing books on serious subjects. In July, Orchard are publishing GET A LIFE , a teenage book dealing with the bullying and hounding of a young boy who is gay: and I am about to start worrk on SHADOW OF THE RED QUEEN for Hodder, for slightly younger readers, which deals writh child abuse. But not the wider, more cosmic issues of the trilogy. I have floated the occasional idea, but there have been no takers!

I did ask rely husband to contribute some Disgusting Ditties, but unfortunatnely were too pornographic to be usable. So, no, I made them all up myself. And yes, it was enormous fun: Every few minutes I would run giggling into the study, where my husband was working, and say, "I've got another one!" I think we had reached M or N when he asked me how old I was . . . But as I always tell the children, you don't have to be any special age to write disgusting ditties. Ithink it is sad if people become too adult to have a bit of childish fun. An "Outraged of Somewhere or Other" (I forget now where she lived) did write to me to complain, and to inform me that her two boys, far from finding the ditties amusing, found them "simply pathetic". I also had a blistering review from someone (sex unknown) who described themselves as "a hard-bitten reporter" who had thought they were unshockable, but who wa "utterly horrified" that such a book should be aimed at children. Over the years a lot of my work has seemed to upset somebody, somewhere. Either my views are too contentious or my humour is too boisterous.

As for Sal moving on... it's an idea! I hadn't actually considered it, but it might be fun. On the other hand, I think my publishers would probably veto the suggestion. If Sal moved on, it would move the book into the teen market, but I have a lot of readers in the 9-12 age group who might pick it up, and that probably would upset parents. I have just had this discussion about another of my books which Collins are publishing, BOYS ON THE BRAIN, which is a teen book but where I have had to sanitise the language in case my younger fans get hold of it. (I look on this as justifiable caution on the part of my editor, rather than editorial interference!)

I think perhaps the main difference is that a sequence of six books (I have never written more) can have the overall shape and significance of one stand-alone. In other words, you can spread out your material - which will either add depth, if the author is inspired, or will make for pretty threadbare reading if it's simply hackwork. (Which most series are.) The advantage, from my point of view, is that you have the space to explore your characters from every angle and really get to know them.

The disadvantages are that you have to meet publishers, imperatives - aim at pretty much the lowest common denominator, get into the story quickly, more it along at a cracking pace; and also that if he series fails to take off you have six books all mercilessly junked. Every series I have attempted has been mercilessly junked, so I shan't be doing any more of them! It's a sheer waste of creative effort. Inciidentally, FAMILY FAN CLUB IS not part of a series. It's a one-off.