Meg Cabot might be jet-lagged and exhausted, but the American author is the image of chic when you meet her in her suite at the Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore.

The 41-year-old, who easily looks 10 years younger than her age, was in town earlier this week as part of a month-long publicity tour that includes Britain, Sweden, South Africa, Hong Kong and Thailand.

She had just spent the morning at Singapore Chinese Girls' School, where she took questions and signed books.

'Every single kid there had a mobile phone and wanted to take a picture, and like five pictures, and pictures with their friends, and they all had, like, every book I ever wrote. It was fun but very exhausting,' she says with a laugh.

The slim, pixieish writer talks exactly like her teenage characters, peppering her speech with a lot of 'like's', dramatic whispers and even squeals.

For example, when you ask her about the fact that her hit series The Princess Diaries was inspired by her widowed mother dating her former high school teacher (as the title character Mia's mother does), her eyes widen and she leans forward confidingly: 'They were set up on a blind date, and this is what's really sick - are you ready?'

A theatrical pause, and then, in a stage whisper: 'He's my ex-boyfriend's godfather.' Smiling at your suitably shocked expression, she exclaims delightedly: 'I know, you almost threw up there, didn't you? You almost threw up a little bit in your mouth.'

Then, somewhat more maturely, she adds: 'But whatever, he's so nice and he's a really great guy, so it's really good for her. I'm totally happy for them.'

Besides the fact that it is 'totally gross', this bit of family history has clearly paid off for the author.

When it was first published in October 2000, The Princess Diaries spent 38 weeks on the children's books bestsellers list of The New York Times, and was sold to publishers in 37 countries. The 2001 film adaptation, starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews, also helped raise her profile. She has since sold more than 15 million copies throughout the world.

The global appeal of her books is something that still obviously amazes the author. 'It's totally bizarre and it freaks me out because I don't know what it is about the books that speaks to all of them,' she says, gesticulating animatedly.

'But I think it is basically the fact that being a teenager kind of sucks universally, so the problems are all the same.'

That said, it is somewhat ironic that she had actually written the first draft of The Princess Diaries with older characters and an older audience in mind.

'I really thought it was for adults, and I was really surprised when my agent said it was for teens,' she says, adding that she had originally envisioned it along the lines of British author Sue Townsend's satirical Adrian Mole series.

However, on the advice of her agent, she rewrote her book with a younger protagonist, though she says that her writing style did not change significantly.

'I did eventually make her 14 years old, but even then, I really wrote it for myself and my friends,' she says.

'People always ask, do you change your mindset when you are writing for teens and writing for adults, and I don't, really. But I do use dirtier words when I write for adults - more sex, obviously.'

Pansing, which distributes the British editions of her books here, says it sells more than 80,000 copies of her books here a year, putting her in the top three of their best-selling children's book authors and top 10 of authors in total. Most popular, not surprisingly, is The Princess Diaries series, which sells about 15,000 copies a year.

Says its marketing executive Minie Ng: 'The movies definitely introduced more readers to The Princess Diaries series, hence increasing book sales. But she was already very popular and her books were selling very well before the movie came along.'

Readers such as Ms Maisarah Abu Samah, 22, one of hundreds of fans who turned up at Borders on Monday evening for a book-signing session, enjoy the humour and romance in her writing.

The technical support officer first started reading Cabot's books around 2002, when she borrowed from the library a book from The Mediator series, about a 16-year-old girl who helps ghosts resolve their worldly issues so that they can move on to the next life.

'Her stuff is entertaining and fun, quite romantic, and the characters have girl power,' she says. She has read most of the author's books and managed to get three books autographed on Monday.

'It was exciting and I was somewhat nervous,' she says of the brief meeting with one of her favourite authors. 'She is funny, romantic and sometimes quite entertaining and insane.'

Beneath Cabot's light-hearted books and sunny image is a darker story. Her father, a business professor, was an alcoholic, and the author recalls that he often passed out on the floor of the living room. He also verbally abused Cabot and her two younger brothers.

'As a teen, I had a hard time finding books that were accessible for me. My father was an alcoholic, so my family life kind of sucked and I didn't want to read the books geared for teens at that time, as they were all about kids whose parents were alcoholics,' she says, grimacing.

'I was like, I already have that in my life. I wanted to escape from that. It was just really hard to find a book about a girl, a strong heroine who wasn't getting pregnant, getting molested or having something horrible happen to her.'

Thus, she started writing her own stories as a teenager, which ranged from science fiction to mysteries to fantasies.

'The reason I write the kind of books I do is because I remember what it was like to grow up in a family that was really messed up and not being able to find books that were for girls like me.

'So that's really why I am driven to write about these girls who do kind of have problems with their parents and boyfriends and best friends, but usually if anything happens to them, they turn it into something good and ultimately become empowered,' she says.

However, when she entered Indiana University, she decided to major in art instead of writing as an older friend named Benjamin Egnatz - himself a writing major who would, years later, become her husband - advised her not to study writing 'because they will make you hate it'.

He now manages the business side of her career and the couple live in Key West, Florida, with their two cats.

Same style for all genres

After graduation, she went to New York to try and get art jobs in the media, but after little success started working at New York University as the assistant manager of a dormitory.

'It was a great job as there were whole stretches of the day where there was nothing to do except be a body in a chair in case somebody got really drunk and you had to take him to the hospital. I know all the hospitals in New York City very well,' she says with a grin.

The job gave her plenty of time to write, especially during the long summer vacations. She started seriously trying to get published in 1994, when her father died from throat cancer. 'I realised that life's short and if there's something you really want to do, you have to get out there and do it.'

Her first published books were Victorian romances, a genre she had decided to focus on as she had read that romances make up more than 50 per cent of the publishing market. However, her real breakthrough came in 2000 with The Princess Diaries, though it was rejected multiple times before being picked up by HarperCollins.

'I had a really hard time getting it published because a lot of the people I sent it to were like, 'This isn't children's fiction, this isn't appropriate because there's no great big huge moral lesson',' she says, rolling her eyes.

'I even got a rejection letter from a very prominent children's book editor which said that The Princess Diaries was unfit for children, or anyone.'

She continued to work at the dormitory until 2001, when her earnings from the books and Princess Diaries movie meant she was financially secure enough to concentrate on writing full-time.

She now has 10 different series under her belt, including a new one for readers aged eight to 12, which she admits is intended to capture the younger fan base of The Princess Diaries movies. Titled Allie Finkle, it is about a nine-year-old girl who moves to a new neighbourhood.

Cabot says she enjoys the challenge of juggling several storylines at a time and adds that it is not a problem for her to pen two or three books a year.

'They're short, look at them! This one has got like really big print and it's only got, like, 100 pages,' she says, waving about an Allie Finkle book.

Meanwhile, even though the 10th and last book in The Princess Diaries series is out in January, she says it is not farewell forever to Princess Mia.

'I have met so many Princess Diaries fans who started out with the books when they were 10 or 11, and now they are going to college and they are like, 'We really want to read about Princess Mia in college'. I think that would be fun - I have lots of good ideas,' she says, though she hastens to add that there will be 'a long pause' before that happens.

As her readers grow up, does she think she will ever seek inspiration from her past to write about, well, the darker side of life?

'Someday I might do a memoir, but I don't think I could write about it from a fictional character's point of view. I've just tried tonnes of times and have never been able to finish it.

'Maybe because the first 20 years of my life sucked so badly and when you've been through that you just don't want to go back there, not even through art or craft,' she says, uncharacteristically sober.

Then, brightening up, she quips: 'But who knows, maybe next time when I come back, I'll be saying something completely different. I'll be, like, 'Here's my dark, alcoholic parent book'. We'll see.'

FOR CHILDREN	FOR YOUNG ADULTS
Allie Finkle's Rules For Girls This ongoing series chronicles the adventures of nine-year-old Allie Finkle as she moves to a new neighbourhood and a new school. It has two volumes so far - Moving Day (March 2008) and The New Girl (August 2008) - and a third, Best Friends And Drama Queens, will be published in March. Price: Available at $19.80 (with GST) each at major bookstores.	The Princess Diaries The popular series, which started in 2000, will end in January with its 10th volume. It is written in the form of diary entries by Mia Thermopolis, a teenage New Yorker who discovers at age 14 that she is the only child of the prince of the European principality of Genovia. Price: Available at $10.17 each (with GST) at major bookstores.	The Mediator The completed six-volume series (2000 to 2004) is about 16-year-old Suze Simon, who helps ghosts resolve unfinished business on earth so that they can move on to the next world. Her love interest is Jesse, a handsome young man who died in the 19th century. Price: Available at $17.07 each (with GST) at major bookstores.
FOR ADULTS
Heather Wells The ongoing mystery series has three books so far: Size 12 Is Not Fat (2005), Size 14 Is Not Fat Either (2006) and Size Doesn't Matter (2007), with at least another two books to come. The protagonist is Heather Wells, a former pop star turned residence house coordinator at New York College, who solves the murders happening on campus in her spare time. Price: Available at $19.21 each (with GST) at major bookstores.	Queen Of Babble The trilogy - Queen Of Babble (2006), Queen Of Babble In The Big City (2007) and Queen Of Babble Gets Hitched (2008) - chronicles the romantic misadventures of Lizzie Nichols, a vintage-gown lover whose big mouth tends to get the better of her. Price: Available at $19.21 each (with GST) at major bookstores.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Oct 11, 2008.