British author Jojo Moyes on her latest book The One Plus One

When writing goes well, Jojo Moyes is the first to admit it’s like nothing on earth. “You get to create whole worlds before breakfast,” she says. “But the most enjoyable part is finally having a big readership for my books – it’s what every writer dreams of.”

For someone who penned her first novel “just to see if I could do it”, writing is certainly going very well for best-selling author Moyes.

The 44-year-old’s journey into literature began while working in the UK as a journalist for The Independent. She wrote in her spare time and fitted new chapters around deadlines to occupy her time while working night shifts.

Fortunately, Moyes didn’t give up. “I love sharing stories and don’t know what I’d do if I stopped writing,” she says. “I just kept going, like they say – sometimes you just have to show up.”

The book got the greatest number of online votes ever recorded by the Richard and Judy Book Club (60 per cent in total) and shot up the New York Times Best Seller List, which saw the rest of Moyes’ books fly off the shelves.

“Judy and Richard changed my life,” she says. “My books were not selling because I was not that well known. The win was a huge boost, because people think highly about the book club and even began buying my earlier books.”

A jump in sales teamed with existing critical acclaim, Moyes was on fire, but she didn’t let the sudden fame and popularity get in the way of her work. Her twelfth novel, The One Plus One, was released in February and now the big screen beckons. MGM studios in Hollywood bought the film rights to Me Before You and asked Moyes to write the script. “The movie will go into production – hopefully – this year,” she says. “I’m also working on a new book, but it’s too early to give anything away.”

“You have to write the story that’s at the front of your head,” Moyes says. “There is no point in trying to write for the market – it won’t ring true because it’s not from your heart.”

Moyes wrote the book in third person to give each character’s point of view. “Structurally I wanted to play with the idea of having very different characters forced into close proximity,” she explains. “But it also made it easier to play for laughs.”

Moyes also refuses to promote female stereotypes. “My work might fall into ‘romantic’ and ‘comedy’ categories, but my characters do not spend time shopping and mooning after men.” Instead she creates female characters like single-mum Jess, “who are active and admirable”.

And Moyes says personal experience helped when tackling the complications of modern family life. “I have a half-brother, two half-sisters and two stepbrothers,” she says. “So we’re not that conventional. Seeing the world from that perspective made it a very easy book to write.

That said, Moyes enjoys a pretty conventional family set-up – living on a farm in Essex, England, with her three children - Saskia, 16, Harry, 13, and Lockie, nine, and journalist husband Charles Arthur.

“We also went to the Wild Wadi Water Park and Jumeirah Beach,” she says. “We had amazing food – umm ali [an Arabic bread pudding] is now my favourite dessert.”

The City of Gold made quite an impression on Moyes. “In Dubai everything is so big,” she says. “It’s pretty amazing. There’s a lot of energy in the city, it surprised me.”

So much so in fact, that she’s toying with the idea of setting a novel in Dubai.

“It is an extraordinary place,” she says. “It would be interesting to look at how I could weave Dubai into my work. I wouldn’t be surprised if other authors are doing the same thing.”

In the meantime, Moyes was taken aback by the response to her work from Dubai residents.

“I had people stop me in my hotel saying, ‘I love your books’,” she beams. “It was a very pleasant surprise.”

And she has proof that her books are being well received by people all over the world: “I receive tweets from the UAE, Germany, Turkey. For me feedback is more important than sales figures because it defines my success as a writer.”

But if that’s the only dilemma the author is facing, it’s safe to say Moyes’ career is going brilliantly.