One of the best things about writing novels is giving birth to numerous characters.

These protagonists become surprisingly real over the course of developing and writing the story and there are times when the desire to meet them all in the flesh, invite them round for a cup of coffee or spot of supper becomes ridiculously acute.

Choosing characters’ names is an important and again an enjoyable task as a writer. Names undeniably have connotations, imply traits, social class, professions.

And certainly eras.

Names do come back into fashion, of course, and there’s always an exception to the rule, but personally I have never met an Ethel.

Earlier this year, I found myself searching for a pseudonym. With a writing project underway, taking as the core a dozen or so short stories originally written between 10 and 30 years ago and drastically re-drafting and editing them to produce an eBook, I needed to give the collection an author.

And the name of that author needed to capture the appropriate tone to reflect the content of the eBook.

Enter Polly Dodd!

A name that, hopefully, implies light fiction that easily entertains and fills vacant moments on a train, at an airport, or wherever else readers may find themselves with some time to spare this summer.

Polly Dodd, like Jude Hayland, has an Instagram account to her name so she’s already dipping her toe into social media. Otherwise, so far, she’s tending to rely on her more serious author cousin for coverage on Facebook and is yet to establish herself on Twitter – but it’s only a matter of time!

And she has published!

Polly Dodd writes light fiction. Easy-going, gentle, comfortable, often sentimental, sometimes humorous stories.

She has released her first eBook this week on AMAZON in the KDP Select programme. If you care to search for TESTING THE WATERS and Other Stories, you can find Polly’s eBook at www.amazon.co.uk/Testing-Waters-other-stories-collection-ebook-dpd/BOB5LCQ336 – and a whole load of other figures, but I’m sure you’ll get there with this info!

TESTING the WATERS comprises 12 light short stories with themes of family and relationships and, in the true tradition of commercial women’s magazine fiction (which I wrote and published successfully for over 25 years- as Judith Wilson) they all share positive, neat and upbeat endings.

From 12th July for 5 days, downloads are free! But otherwise downloads to your kindle/phone/iPad or whatever cost a mere £2.99 – considerably cheaper than a magazine and most weekend newspapers and certainly more diversionary!

This will not be Polly Dodd’s only work.

She already has plans for a light-hearted, humorous short novel that is in the early stages of planning and composition.

In the meantime, she is going to sit back and rest on her laurels for a while – hopefully watch for some seriously appealing sales – and allow her author cousin, Jude Hayland, free rein to focus on completing her fourth novel over the summer!

The Odyssey of Lily Page and all the other carefully named characters really need Jude’s attention!