A day in the life of Marian Keyes

"I am a morning person. I wake at about twenty-past seven and I start working straight away. I write in bed, in my nightie. I used to think that a writer had to have a mahogany-panelled study with a big heavy desk in it, but there I am, sitting up in the bed with a cup of coffee at my elbow and my laptop in front of me. I have to con myself into working - if I start while I'm sill half-asleep, I'm into it before I know what I'm doing.

I have to be very, very disciplined with myself. I'm terrible for being distracted. I want to know if the post has come or who's on the phone. At this stage I have to be rigid with myself because it really is 90 per cent perspiration and a tiny bit of inspiration, even though I love writing novels. I got great craic out of my Watermelon family. I was absolutely blown away by the success of that. I love the book but I had no idea whether anybody else would. I think it was an honest book. I acknowledged that things do go wrong in families, it's not always the Brady Bunch and I think a lot of people took comfort out of that.

My new book, Rachel's Holiday, is about the same family, but it's one of the sister's stories. She goes to a treatment centre to be treated for addiction to drugs. It's a serious subject but it's told in the same light-hearted, entertaining way as my other books - that's my style at this stage.

I'd work all morning until about lunch time. Tony, my husband, works at home too. He's a freelance editor. It used to be very lonely when I was on my own and now it's nice to know that there's another human being around. About two or three afternoons a week we force ourselves to go around the corner to the gym. The fact that there's a pair of us makes it easier - we push each other into going. It's good to get out, because it gets my head straight and sorts out things. I write about ordinary people so it's vital that I keep re-stocking my well of inspiration.

Sometimes I'm mortified by how lucky I've been. Most writers have to go through the rejection slip route and mercifully I've been spared that and I know it's unusual. My writing career came more or less out of the blue. I had tried to get into journalism college in my early twenties and didn't. I was very disappointed by that and forgot all about that side of my life. In retrospect I wouldn't have been a good journalist. I wanted to write creatively even then. Then one day I read a short story in a magazine and I knew I could write something as good and that's how it started.

I've been writing full-time for a year now. I don't miss my days in accounts at all, or London, where I lived for 11 years. I wondered how I'd settled in when I moved back to Dublin but now when I have to go to London, it feels wrong. Everyone's walking faster than me and I'm in people's way and they're tut-tuttig behind me. I'm in Dublin time now, I'm mellow and relaxed.

I'm useless at night. While other people are out having a great old time, I want to go to bed. In the evenings, I might have a look at what I wrote that day or my sister might call in after work, or a couple of friends would call and we'd go out for a pizza or we might have something to eat in the flat. If we eat at home, it'll be something microwaved. I can't cook. I can't do everything, I've given up trying to be Superwoman - I'm embracing my limitations!"