My name is Maria Roberts and I'm the author of Single Mother on the Verge, a book that started life as a blog and was published by Penguin in 2009. 'Hmm,' you wonder, 'so it was a blog that was turned into a book? I have a blog that'd make a great book.' Well yes, that's sort of the truth. It was a blog that became a book but prior to this I'd completed an MA in novel writing, had a few short stories published and written some sketchy plays. It wasn't as happenstance as it first appears but it was coincidental. What happened was this: Back in 2007 I was waiting in line for coffee at an art gallery in Liverpool next to Joel Rickett from the Bookseller (no, I'd never met him before) and he mentioned something about a blog that was being turned into a book. I said: 'What's a blog?', didn't quite find out, ordered some biscuits and that was it. When I went home I looked up 'blog' on the Internet. 'Ha,' I said to myself, 'I've no freaking idea what this blogging business is but I'm going to do it anyway.' Let me be honest here: I was/am freaking rubbish at this lark. People would send me badges to put on my blog and I'd reply, 'I don't know what to do, help!' But I blogged anyway and before I knew it, I had a small but appreciative audience. I even won an award at Manchester Literature Festival. In early December, I was well and truly on my arse. It was a few weeks before Christmas and I was broke, freshly dumped and about to be made redundant. So I emailed an agent with an idea, ten minutes later he called, a few days later I'd written a proposal and within a fortnight the book was sold to Penguin. It was that fast. And yes, it did change my life. I moved off the council estate, stopped having an open relationship with an eco-warrior, ditched the lovers... and took the very sensible step of moving into a quasi-single parent communal household in London. To conclude: You can do it, whatever that may be.