Life, they say, imitates art - and that seems to work in reverse for Sophie King, aka journalist Jane Bidder. The main character in her latest novel Second Time Lucky, newly-single Louise, is downsizing from a large family home after 20 years of marriage, and re-entering the workforce after being out of the employment market for years. During the course of the novel, she is sacked from her job, and has to feed her family on macaroni cheese.

Jane, a mother of three, forged a successful career as a freelance, including a well-paid column for a women's magazine, which she wrote for many years until she was suddenly axed. She said: "They made a lot of people redundant and completely revamped the magazine, and suddenly they didn't need me any more. It was the week my marriage broke up and I left my husband.

"I had to downsize from a big house with a lovely garden. Although I still had some freelance work, it is a very precarious life if you don't have another income.

"But looking back, I had become a journalist because I wanted to write novels - I wrote 11 novels in 11 years. I had three near-misses, and then I changed my agent and we had four publishers chasing it. I had been turned down so many times that I changed my name because I didn't want them to think: 'Oh, not her again'. Since the time I lost my job, my life has turned full circle."

Now in her late 40s, Jane has had four novels accepted for publication. She recently completed a temporary stint as a magazine features editor, which reinforced her feeling that her new career - a hotchpotch of freelance journalist, novelist and creative writing tutor - is far more fulfilling than her old one.

It's an ending that could come straight from one of her novels. They don't exactly end 'happily ever after', but when bad things happen, the characters somehow manage to struggle through their difficulties, so that, in the end, we can all see the positive side of the change.

"Even though everything has been very difficult over the last few years, I would never have found these new things otherwise. I'm a great believer in 'second time lucky'. Because my life has changed so much, I realised, through talking to people, that even if you get things wrong the first time, you can have another go."

Her latest book, set in Bridgewater House, a stately home which has been converted into flats, tells the story of its six tenants - all facing up to major changes in their lives. Jane says of her heroine: "Louise is not modelled on me, but I do know how she feels. Mollie, the widow, feels that her husband is still with her - and I still feel that about my mother sometitmes. She goes back to work, and she's in her 60s - that's something that could happen nowadays. Marcie is a US bride and I think it's very difficult for people from other countries. Roddie is a recovered alcoholic who is desperate to get in touch with his children.

"I try to raise issues that we deal with in our lives, or our friends' and neighbours' lives."

Like all her novels, it is set somewhere on the borders of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, where she lived for 20 years before her marriage broke up. "I always have an Oxford scene in my books, because it is so much a part of my life - my mother and grandmother are buried in Forest Hill. I always have a dog in the story, because I have a dog and he is always there - not only is he something physical for me, but he is wonderful for the children because they don't have to talk - he is just there.

"My characters are all ages, right up to OAPs, because we lived with my grandmother until I was 12. I think older people have a lot to teach us, and they are great fun."

Her novels, The School Run and Mums@Home, have been successful, but not so successful that she can give up her other work, which includes magazine short stories and non-fiction such as What Every Parent Should Know Before Their Child Goes to University, and a book for parents whose child is about to start school.

She teaches at Oxford University's Department of Continuing Education, at Grendon Underwood prison, and at a class for adults with learning difficulties. "I couldn't give up the other things yet, and it does give me ideas for the novels. There is usually a journalist or someone from PR in my books, because that is the world that I know. I say to my students 'Write what you know and it will flow naturally. Ignore the market and write what you feel strongly about.' "My books all deal with families and the ups and downs of family life. People come up to me at book signings because they think 'that's me'. I tell my students that if their readers say 'yes, that's me', they are halfway there."

What about the first 11 books she wrote? "I have found my voice - it took me 11 novels to find it. If I published them it would have to be under a different name, because they are so different. I don't think it was a waste of time - I think it was my apprenticeship."

Second Time Lucky by Sophie King is published by Hodder at £6.99. For details of Jane Bidder's creative writing class, see www.conted.ox.ac.uk or call 01865 270360.