SUSIE PALMER talks to Sarah Diamond, whose school bullying ordeal in Weymouth inspired her to write her first novel, The Beach Road

BEING bullied at school can be a shattering experience that stays with the victim for life.

But 24-year-old Sarah Diamond didn't let her tormentors hold her back. Her ordeal inspired her to put pen to paper and she's just had her first novel published.

Sarah was brought up in Weymouth and her thriller The Beach Road is based in the town - although it goes by the fictional name of Underlyme. Her real name is Sarah Kona, but she adopted her mother's more striking maiden name as her pseudonym.

Sarah, who now lives in London and works as an advertising copy-writer, said: "I wanted to base it in Weymouth but I decided I'd better make it a bit more fictional so I made up the name Underlyme, although Underlyme is pretty much exactly like Weymouth."

Sarah began writing her novel after finishing her English literature degree at Reading University and starting work. "After I graduated I quickly realised that no-one was crying out for people with a 2:1 in English literature," she said.

"I worked in a call centre for a while but I was really bored, so I took a creative training course and did a work placement with an advertising agency. They offered me a job and two years later I'm still there.

"After I'd graduated and started work, writing was just something to do in the evenings. I wanted a hobby now I'd stopped going out clubbing every night.

"I just had this idea and developed it over a few months. I wrote for about two and a half hours every evening and after about two months I had the initial version. I knew how it would end but I wasn't exactly sure how it would go in the middle. It took a couple of re-writes before I was happy with it, so all in all it took about a year to finish."

Many authors face a long, tough battle to get their work published, but for Sarah it was all pretty easy.

"I just bought a copy of the Writers and Artists Yearbook which lists all the agents and chose one that represented a couple of my favourites, and it took off from there," she said.

"My agent had all the hassle of finding a publisher, and before I knew it Orion had bought it and it was really happening.

"It took a long time to finally see my book in the shops. It takes about six or seven months to get through the various drafts and proof editing before it's actually published."

The novelty of seeing her book in print still hasn't worn off for Sarah.

"It's really nice walking into a bookshop and seeing your book on the shelf," she said. "When it first came out I went into Waterstone's but I couldn't find it and I was thrown into a panic. But it took a few days to get on the shelves and then it was everywhere! Whenever I go into a bookshop I just have to go and look where my book is. It's a lovely feeling."

Sarah's novel revolves around the relationship between two very different teenage girls, Jane and Beverley, and the motivations that lie behind their affections. The tense tale builds to a terrifying conclusion as Sarah takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride into the world of teenage anxieties, insecurities and fickleness.

Much of the story is inspired by Sarah's own experiences. She was born in Edinburgh and her family moved around a lot before settling in Weymouth. She was a pupil at St Augustine's Primary School before she attended the Millfield boarding school in Somerset. Financial pressures meant she had to leave Millfield after three years and at the age of 14 she moved to Weymouth's All Saints' School.

The move proved to be far from easy for the teenage Sarah.

"When you move school at that age it's very hard because everyone has already settled into their groups of friends and it's difficult to fit in," she said. "I was bullied but it wasn't about being beaten up.

"It was more of a bitchy vibe, nastiness, and it was horrid. For me, school was nice up to the age of 12 or so but from 12 to 15 it was horrible. I can't think of any particularly dramatic incidents but at the time a lot of things which don't sound that bad - like some-one borrowing your essay and not returning it - were hurtful. I felt left out and not part of things."

So are the characters in Sarah's book based on people she knew at school? "There are quite a few people I knew that I've based characters on," she said. "But the girls in the school gang are probably recognisable to everyone.

"I think the character of Jane is pretty much autobiographical, but other people say that they can't see me in her. I think there are elements of me in both the lead characters, but I certainly have more sympathy with Jane."

Sarah is already working on her second novel. This time she has drawn on her experiences in the advertising world.

"It's another psychological thriller but it's not about teenagers this time," she said. "It's about advert-ising and it's based in London. I like writing about stuff I know about. I wouldn't want to have to do a lot of research. I'd love to write full time. Hopefully one day I'll be earning enough money from it to do just that."

*Sarah's novel The Beach Road is published by Orion and is available now, priced £9.99.