PJ works her magic on the publishers

AT the end of a pitted farm track stands a lone, rambling farmhouse, its front door open and wood shards spilled on the floor. To its side, geese honk insistently, shuffling their white bodies to the gate to appraise the visitor. After a few moments, a ruddy-cheeked woman in paint-spattered jeans appears from the garden. She apologises for her absence - she hadn't heard my car approach - but as she's forewarned me that I'd catch her in the thick of things, I can hardly complain.

Paula Jayne Campbell (or PJ Campbell, to use her pen name) has just had her first novel - a children's book entitled Pendant of the Dragon Phoenix - published. The first in her Charm Maker series, it charts the adventures of Abbygale Armitage, a special but disadvantaged little girl who escapes her world of misery and fear to one of magic and enchantment.

As for many authors, the quest to get something into print was long and hard for Paula. She first harboured ambitions to be a writer as a small child. "I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I always told my mother that was what I wanted to do but things got in the way. Although I think all the experiences I've had in life are showing themselves in the books I write."

Born into a farming family from Meadowfield, Durham, Paula, 38, has always been involved with agriculture and livestock. In between having her four children, she also dabbled in other jobs, including modelling and professional dancing. But following the breakdown of her relationship with her violent, unfaithful partner, she found herself at a low ebb.

"He was violent towards me, just the once, but once is always more than enough," she says. "When we split up it was quite painful. My youngest one was only a baby and my oldest would have been about 12."

After going back to live with her parents for about two years, Paula decided that she and her young family needed their own space, so she hit upon the idea of building a house. "My parents had a plot of land and I decided to build a house on it, so I put a static caravan on it for us to live in temporarily. We lived there for two very long, agonising years with no central heating, which if you think JK Rowling had a bad time in her flat, puts it into perspective. I've kept the caravan to remind me what we had to put up with," she says.

In the end, she never lived in the house. A farm in nearby Willington came onto the market and realising its potential, she put in an offer. To her surprise and delight, it was accepted, and she has lived there with her children ever since.

While free of human noise and bustle, the farm is teeming with animals. Paula explains that although nowadays, she is only a "hobby" farmer, she takes in waifs and strays, often, she says, pheasants and deer fleeing the shotguns of neighbouring landowners. Paula is also having part of the farmhouse renovated and another project is restoring an old gypsy caravan.

So when, I wonder, does she have time for writing? At this point we are interrupted by a chicken, which wanders into the living room as we chat. Paula sends it out before resuming the conversation, as if this is a perfectly normal occurrence.

Yet despite her other interests and the animals' distracting presence, Paula makes clear that she not only manages to write, but to write prolifically. Pendant of the Dragon Phoenix is one of seven novels in the Charm Maker series - the following six are already written and await publication. Her publisher, Matador, has taken on the second one and this should be out before Christmas, and Paula is hopeful for the rest. Otherwise, she has written many other books, including several in what she describes as "the Catherine Cookson style". "I would hate to count how many books I have, either in shorthand or on disc," she admits.

In keeping with the chaos of her surroundings, Paula writes erratically, snatching time early in the mornings or late at night, when the demands of the farm are least. During the day, she scribbles down ideas on scraps of paper, admitting that "my handbag is full of them". She says: "I generally write in shorthand, then I'll go back to it and brush it up. Pendant of the Dragon Phoenix was all typed out on an ancient typewriter."

Given how time consuming this must be, and her stack of rejections, it would have been easy for Paula to have given up, but she says that this was never an option. She's kept the publishers' refusals to remind her of how far she's come and even speculates that books from the first run of Pendant of the Dragon Phoenix, which contained some errors, could end up collectors' items. "I literally couldn't stop writing. Every time someone knocks you down, you keep getting back up. I've been a fighter all my life" she says. "I've kept my faith through everything that's happened and I'm a strong believer that God does answer your prayers after a while."

If the tough times she's been through seem at odds with the fantasy world occupied by Abbygayle Armitage, Paula says that creating this was simply her escapism. "To me, that's a real world I'm creating. I think everybody has to have a bit of escapism and a bit of fantasy, and I'm very childlike in a lot of ways."

She concedes that on face value, there are striking similarities between herself and JK Rowling, the undisputed queen of children's writing. Having both started out as single mothers struggling to make their names, they struck a chord with strong central characters and tales of magic. They even have the use of their first two initials, rather than their full names, in common. Yet Paula denies simply jumping on the Harry Potter bandwagon, saying: "The idea of Abbygayle Armitage just came to me. I would never compare myself with another writer because every writer is different."

While recognising that hers has been an unconventional journey, Paula hopes that this is just the beginning of her success. "If anyone doesn't believe in miracles, they should speak to me," she says.

* Pendant of the Dragon Phoenix by PJ Campbell (Matador, £6.99)