Having written novels since my early twenties, I have long considered myself a novelist – a long-form writer. But earlier this week, I was hunting through my blog posts and it struck me suddenly how many I was searching through. Writing articles for this blog and sharing them each week has become part of the rhythm of my life as a writer, but until now I have never stood back and looked at the big picture – and it is quite a big picture, in fact. Eight years of blogging!

I posted my first blog in September 2011, a very brief look at one of my favourite films, Out of Africa, tying in my debut novel, Burning Embers. My next was a photograph of Dover Castle, near my home in Kent, and then I shared a translated poem by one of my favourite French poets, Leconte de Lisle. These were the tentative foundations for the blog I now write three times a week, covering a range of themes that interest me and inspire my writing.

I write about the craft and business of writing and publishing. I’ve explored the writing spaces of famous writers, the ‘happy ever after’ in fiction, the rise and fall of print books and ebooks, the trend for ‘up-lit’ and an algorithm designed to predict bestsellers. I’ve commented on how modern publishing inspires writers, whether originality is important in fiction, whether a book should cost more than a cuppa, how romance novels are categorised and book covers of famous works of literature. I’ve shared my own inspirations and how I write my novels, covering topics like the anxiety of publication, how I choose a book’s title, writing in the third person and setting my fiction in beautiful places.

I cover all kinds of news stories of interest: on who reads romance, on how reading helps combat loneliness, on robotic bookstore assistants, on a miniature book written for the Queen’s dollhouse, on privacy and reading, on the Book Fairies and on the plight of unwanted books.

I explore art forms that inspire me. I have loved ballet since childhood, and I’ve written on The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty and Les Sylphides; and of course for my Andalucian Nights trilogy, I delved into flamenco. I’ve written about amazing architecture like open-air theatres and the Acropolis in Athens and Seville’s Plaza de España and Gaudi’s architecture in Barcelona. I’ve looked at all kinds of artworks and artists, from Francisco Goya to Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali to Van Gogh.

And of course I write about romance: love at first sight, fantasy versus reality, passion as universal humanity, courtship, fidelity, love letters, allure and mystery. I’ve retold epic love stories from history – Abelard and Héloïse, Layla and Majnun, Anthony and Cleopatra. I’ve drawn upon many myths and legends too, like Pysche and Cupid, Eurydice and Orpheus, the Lady of Arintero and Pandora’s box, and fairy tales like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast.

Eight years, and many hundreds of blog articles, covering so many diverse subjects… I have learned a great deal on my blogging journey – not least that I am not only a novelist, a weaver of romantic fictional worlds; I am a blogger, and I am grateful to every reader who reads this blog and keeps me writing each day.