This isn’t an easy post to write. If you’re a Frost regular, then you probably know who I am. On the other hand our readership is increasing all the time, so you could well never have heard of Jane Cable.

The first thing to say is I’ve recently been given the role of Contributing Editor at Frost and I’m feeling a bit of a fraud. If anything, having dragged my Sister Scribes on board (not that all of them were kicking and screaming) I’ll be ‘contributing’ even less this year. But it will allow me to spread my wings a little and write more about some of the other things I love… like history, travel, food and drink.

I’m also feeling a bit of a fraud about describing myself as a full time writer, because the reality is I generally spend about half the time writing (or marketing, or all the other bits and bobs associated with it) that I would do if I had a genuine full time job. But actually I want to enjoy life too.

I’m in my fifties (and proud of it… prouder than I am of the parentheses which are plaguing every paragraph) and my OH and I have worked really hard in the corporate world and in our own business since we graduated. Rather than continue at such a pace we decided to kick back and in 2017 we downsized to Cornwall and it was the best thing we ever did.

I’m a total advocate of the lifestyle down here. Not the part holidaymakers would necessarily see, but the everyday world of the everyday people. Very few live to work – most work about enough to live. Nobody’s bothered what you do or what sort of car you drive. As long as you say thank you when they give way to you. And once you sink back into the ‘manana with breaks for pasties’ timescale of anything getting done then it’s a dream.

So where am I in my writing career? I brought out two books independently with a reasonable degree of success, but after a false start with a publisher that went bust I now have a two book deal with Sapere. They are a joy to work with (saying that, I haven’t had my first edit notes yet so time will tell), collaborative and co-operative. They also do their best to bring their authors together, and I’m a great one for that.

Little did I know how influential attending the Romantic Novelists’ Association conference in 2017 would be in terms of finding writer friends. For me by far the most valuable part of the weekend was time spent with other authors and through social media we kept in touch. I was delighted to find that Kitty Wilson lived in Cornwall (although the rat bag has since moved to Bristol) and when Cassandra Grafton came here on a research trip we all met up.

From this meeting the idea of organising our own mini retreat/girls’ break was formed. We invited along Susanna Bavin and Kirsten Hesketh (who’d we also met at the RNA conference) and the rest, as they say, is history and after four days in Bath we’d become Sister Scribes.

There are probably a few other things you need to know about me that sometimes surprise people. I used to freelance as a cricket writer and I love the game. I’m Welsh by birth and fiercely proud of it. And if I couldn’t write it would feel as though my hands had been cut off. Actually, it would probably be because my hands had been cut off…

Follow Jane on Twitter @JaneCable