The life of a journalist is deadline dominated - and Jane Moore's life is no exception.
Jane Moore would never be accused of being a shrinking violet - her outspoken comments in The Sun and its eight million readership give her an opportunity to sound off about anything from mobile phones to the injustices of society.
But Jane is so much more than just another loud-mouth - she has used her passion and opportunities to develop a broad career that puts other writers to shame.
Jane, who started her career on The Solihull News above a dry cleaners in the town's Mell Square, is philosophical.
"I love what I do - I love being a journalist. I always say to my daughters that the greatest thing in life is to be able to do something that you really care about. I was so passionate from the age of eleven that I wanted to be a journalist and if you are doing what you want to do then you can't ask for more.
"If you wake up every morning and feel miserable about what you have to do and hate your job then there must be nothing worse."
Jane clearly has no such problems.
Perfect Match, published next month, will be the fifth novel from Jane and follows on from bestsellers Fourplay, The Ex Files, Dot. Homme and The Second Wives Club that made the top ten bestseller list.
The latest plot, yet again, explores the complexities of human relationships. A family secret threatens to destroy the perfect family when the son Ben needs a bone marrow transplant to survive.
Jane says: "I was in a pub with a friend and we were just talking - as you do. There had been a story in the papers about designer babies and my friend said, "Can you imagine everyone getting tested and the father finding out that it was not his child?'."
For the vast majority of people this is where the discussion would end - in the pub - but for Jane the idea gave her the impetus to write a script for a television drama. Channel 5 took an interest but policy changes meant the work was put on hold.
"It was case of people saying we love it but we are not making any one-off dramas - really baffling but there it was. It sat in an in-tray and when I came to write my next novel I took up the script."
A deal with leading publishers Random House means Jane has to write more novels but it has taken until the latest work to get to grips with the demands of writing books.
The disciplines of journalism mean she is used to writing to restricted word counts with the emphasis on telling each story in a punchy, direct style.
She laughs: "On the Sun column the word count is 1,200 but with a novel it is 110,000 to 120,000. Some days I think I have been doing really well and then I press the word count and see I have only done 2,000 words."
After starting out on The Solihull News she moved to The Birmingham Post & Mail in the only role on offer as a down table sub, where she would work on other journalists' work rather than reporting.
"I was determined to get on a bigger paper and move to the city centre. I figured that once I was in the building I would get my face known," says Jane, who admits she was a daily visitor to the office of editor Ian Dowell, to show him unsolicited stories she had written.
"I kept saying I have just written this and just written that and I think he got sick of me and gave me a reporter's job."
A showbiz column followed which gave Jane an opportunity to meet celebrities - in the 1980s the Birmingham-produced soap Crossroads, about life in a Midlands' hotel, was still running and series like Boon, with Michael Elphick playing the maverick private investigator, were other regional creations.
The city's theatres attracted performers like Helen Mirren and Kenneth Branagh, and Jane realised she was able to use the opportunity to further her career. Her mother bought her a Morris Minor because, says Jane, 'she worried about me using the bus when I was working late at night' and she spent Saturdays trundling down to London for shifts on the Sunday newspaper, The People.
"It was very surreal but I loved it," recalls Jane, who much to her mother's chagrin would follow up leads like sitting outside trying to confirm claims that the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was given time away from the high security prison.
Now she spouts off in her weekly column in The Sun about social injustice and has even launched a website, www.youthejury.com that enables any disgruntled individuals to share their experiences about bad service.
"When you write a column you have a chance to air your views but for other people it is a lot harder and the website means they can tell other people," says Jane, who could be forgiven for claiming lack of time means more than just the unwritten novel remain in the pending tray.
She has a stepdaughter and two daughters (a 15-year-old and a four-year-old who starts school full-time in September) and has a long list of work commitments. Hours after the interview she was flying to the USA to spend a week filming for another Dispatches - this time investigating the cervical cancer vaccine that will soon be used in a screening programme to girls in England at the age of 11.
Another challenge that ensures Jane deliberately remains in the journalist category rather than acquiring celebrity status.
There have been stints on Loose Women and Grumpy Old Women, regular appearances on current affair programmes like BBC1's Question Time and even sitting in the Who Wants to be A Millionaire? chair pairing up with former Lib-Dem leader Charles Kennedy - but Jane's feet stay firmly on the ground.
She still recalls her early years in journalism - the constant round of council meetings, inquests and using typewriters 'now only found at car boot sales' and has never lost the journalist's need to find answers to the questions no-one else seems brave enough to ask.
She says: "I am a jobbing hack. I have been asked to appear twice on 'I'm a Celebrity . . .' when you get stuck in a jungle, but I have always turned it down. I am a journalist and I want to keep it that way."
* Perfect Match is published by Century in hardback on June 19 - rrp £10.99
