More than two years after Mad About the Boy was published, the [Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries ] movie started coming together. I felt better about the material, and found myself writing a letter from Bridget to her son: explaining the original story of how he came to be, from his own Mum.

Dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second.

If you ask where a relationship is going too often the question has a habit of turning into where the relationship went. Unfortunately, however, God has given women an inbuilt irresistible urge to insist on knowing where their relationships are going, and to force their partners to discuss the matter at length whenever they are late for something.

I'm no good at anything. Not men. Not social skills. Not work. Nothing.

It seems wrong and unfair that Christmas, with its stressful and unmanageable financial and emotional challenges, should first be forced upon one wholly against one's will, then rudely snatched away just when one is starting to get into it. Was really beginning to enjoy the feeling that normal service was suspended and it was OK to lie in bed as long as you want, put anything you fancy into your mouth, and drink alcohol whenever it should chance to pass your way, even in the mornings. Now suddenly we are all supposed to snap into self-discipline like lean teenage greyhounds.

..we were always taught, instead of waiting to be swept off our feet, to 'expect little, forgive much'.

That's when the idea for Mad About the Boy arrived. It wasn't even a Bridget [Jones] story initially - then I realized I was writing in Bridget's voice and it grew from there into a Bridget novel.