STARING at a blank page when the words just won't come is an experience local author Polly Harris knows only too well.

In her latest novel she draws on this experience to write about a romantic novelist who suffers writers block after finding her husband in bed with another woman.

"The heroine, Annie Hartley, isn't me but in describing how a writer feels when they just can't write, I've used my own experiences," explained Polly.

Polly, who lives in Ledbury, is the author of 23 Mills and Boon romances. She experienced writers' block after being wrongly accused of plagiarism by novelist David Lodge in 1992.

The shock and three-year fight to clear her name, which ended in a High Court apology and libel damages, left her totally unable to write for a number of years.

She eventually began to write again, publishing her first full-length novel, Straws in the Wind, three years ago. It was set in her native Warwickshire.

Her new book, Writer's Block, is set in Malvern and the surrounding countryside, an area she knows and loves.

Its heroine lives in a fictitious village in the shadow of the hills and often walks up to the Beacon to look at the toposcope. There are other episodes set in Great Malvern town centre and scenes in Worcester.

Polly herself loves Malvern and the Worcestershire countryside and enjoyed writing about it in the book.

"I think all authors use their own lives and experiences in some way. I used what was a difficult time for me," said Polly, admitting that there was a lot of herself in her lady novelist heroine.

Next Polly plans to write a historical novel set in 14th Century France.

"It'll need a lot of research, which I'm looking forward to. You have to get the details right in an historical novel," she said.

Writer's Block is published by Blackie and Co and is on sale in local bookshops.