IN the quiet study of a country cottage near Oxford celebrated author Philip Pullman continues to pen the ethereal adventures of Lyra Belacqua. The writer of the acclaimed His Dark Materials trilogy likes nothing better than creating his latest chapter, first written out in longhand before it is revised and polished for the eyes of his friend and publisher David Fickling. "The re-working is the process I enjoy most," the author confided. "It's like woodwork - you cut the wood, shape it and plane it and the final stages are the longest, working on the surface." This painstaking process will be interrupted next month when La Belle Sauvage, the first instalment of The Book of Dust, is published.