This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
I first started writing after I’d had my third child. I had three children under the age of three and spare time was at a premium! So I started to write in my car. When I’d dropped one child at school and the other at nursery, I would get back in the car and start to drive and very quickly the baby would fall asleep. I’d pull over wherever I was, park up and write until the baby woke again – then I’d be back into Mum mode – but for that hour, I was able to escape into the worlds I was creating in my head where there weren’t piles of nappies and washing.
The habit stuck and, when we moved to Ireland a few years ago, I would again drop the children at school, drive down the coastal road, park up and say to myself: ‘Well, are you just going to sit here staring at the sea or are you going to write something?’ I’d pull out my laptop and start to write. And it was there I wrote my debut novel, The Oyster Catcher, set amongst the oyster beds of Galway Bay.
We spent three years in Ireland and then moved back to Wales, where I finally sent The Oyster Catcher to a publisher who took it on. It was published in November 2013 and, by January 2014, had gone to number two in the Amazon Kindle charts, sitting in between 12 Years a Slave and The Book Thief! I hit the headlines with ‘housewife writes bestseller in car on the school run!’, then moved to Headline, who published the paperback edition of The Oyster Catcher in the April, while I began writing my next book, The Olive Branch. 
But old habits die hard. I couldn’t work in the house. Way too many distractions! So I was still writing in my car. Sometimes I’d even go and sit in the car on the drive, not going anywhere at all! It was my writing place, but not a very roomy office. So there was only one answer… Dorothy the camper van! A Volkswagen T5, with table, fridge, cooker, and a pop-up bedroom. Now, instead of sitting by the sea in my car, jamming the laptop between my tummy and the steering wheel, I have a table, fairy lights and fantastic views, which I can change whenever I like. And best of all, I can even make myself a cup of tea!
The Red Sky at Night by Jo Thomas is out now.