Fifteen years ago, at dawn, my son was born. Strangely this morning I woke at about the same time and lay there travelling through those years. It's been hot today, as it was then and if there's any certainty in this sometimes disturbing, sometimes amazing world, it's that on June 13 in Brighton it will be hot. There hasn't been a day when it wasn't.

Fifteen years ago, too, my first pamphlet was published - Black Slingbacks - by Slow Dancer Press run by John Harvey, a lovely man and the creator of Resnick. The title poem of that pamphlet was about a woman being reminded of a man cheating on her as she was going through her accounts. A cheque book stub for a taxi brings back an image of a pair of shoes just inside the door of her boyfriend's flat.

Many people I've talked to have noticed how creativity seems connected to pregnancy and birth. Oh, of course, we moan about not having enough time and there isn't, ever. But I believe your first child comes with emotions you couldn't ever have imagined, energy too, presumably that served a purpose thousands of years ago and which, in our more reliable world can be the impetus for anything you want, as well as child care.

My fourth full length book comes out in October. It's called Commandments and much of it is also about rules being broken, relationships damaged by adultery. But I think it has humour, too, more wisdom than Black Slingbacks, and a wider remit, taking in religion, too, and the mind. I'm reading the proofs now. It's a nerve wracking process. Like having a teenager, maybe. I will have faith in it. That's all I can do.

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