Helen Bateman managed to write her first novel while her baby napped. MAXINE GORDON meets the busy mum-of-three to find out the secret of her success.

ABOVE Helen Bateman's front door is a wooden picture board with the words: "Tired parents and happy kids live here".

Tired is the last word I'd use to describe Helen, a petite, blonde mum of three in her mid 30s who looks years younger.

"Up until two years ago I used to get asked for ID buying a bottle of wine in the supermarket," says Helen, who lives in Tadcaster with husband Andy and Harry, 11, Lily, eight, and 20-month-old Grace.

It was when Grace was born that Helen, a former English teacher, decided to write a novel.

While Grace napped, Helen would sit at her Apple Mac in the back lounge of the family semi and begin crafting her first book, Soul To Take.

"Trying to sleep while Grace did just made me feel worse," says Helen. "I still had to do my routine of the school pick-up and making tea. Writing woke me up and made me feel refreshed. I couldn't go out or go to a yoga class, and I found writing quite therapeutic."

Helen says the novel is about reincarnation and parenthood: "two subjects which fascinate me".

The focus is on four women – Vicky, Nell, Sarah and Shannon – embarking on a journey into motherhood. Helen plays with the notion that our children choose us and in the novel there is a much-recycled soul, suspended between one life and the next, looking to select one of the women to deliver it once more.

"Once I had children, I had the idea that they choose us rather than it all just happens by chance. The novel is the result of my 'what if' moment," she says.

Helen initially wrote the novel for herself, but her husband persuaded her to publish it. She decided to do so online, an easy and inexpensive way to share your writing with the world. "We all know that JK Rowling was rejected many times before Harry Potter was published. It is a big daunting road."

Helen was able to upload her novel straight to Kindle and sell it online via Amazon.

She was heartened by positive reviews from the Good Reads website and also from Mumsnet and Amazon. She has also sold copies in the US, Canada and Italy.

"It's a bit like exposing your soul. Friends and parents are bound to say nice things, so the first few reviews by people I didn't know saying they enjoyed it was a huge relief."

Helen is so encouraged that she is already planning a second novel – but is waiting for Grace to go to playgroup so she can find time to write it. She said: "It will be about a family whose ideas of themselves are very different to the reality."