'Ihave been asked several times if I have an obsession with death,'' says Glasgow-born film director Lynne Ramsay, ''but it's not an obsession with death, it's an obsession with life and life after those kinds of events. It's not like I've got some dark past. I want to know how people cope after these events and move on.'' Hence her rush to buy the film rights on Alice Sebold's book, The Lovely Bones, which has been on US best-seller lists for months, and whose author has been hailed as a publishing phenomenon. The novel centres on

14-year-old Susie Salmon who thrives in suburban bliss with her middle-class family. But the calm of their lives is shattered unalterably by her disappearance and apparent murder. The reader knows Susie has been kidnapped, raped, and killed by a neighbour because, as the narrator, she tells her own story.

Everybody is raving about the book in America and Hollywood has not been slow to spot the financial potential of putting a blockbuster like this on the big screen.

The problem for the many movie moguls who want to get their hands on this prize is that a girl from Glasgow has beaten them to it. The fact that some of the greatest directors in the world, including Steven Spielberg, have been sniffing after it does not scare the feisty Ramsay.

''I just hope no-one nicks it,'' jokes a confident Ramsay when we meet at the Mill Valley Film Festival in California. ''I hear Spielberg's been after it, but he can forget it because he's not getting it.'' There's a steeliness in her voice that brooks no argument.

Besides, there's no doubting that Ramsay feels this is her baby and all the ''Johnny-come-latelys'' can get back in line because she was given a transcript of the book before it was even finished. Susie's story is one Ramsay was immediately drawn to.

''Thematically, my work has been about rites of passage, which is what it is for Susie, even in limbo land. She has to accept she is dead before she can move on, and so does her family. So I guess that's why I was sent the transcript in the first place. And I'd worked with children, too.''

Ramsay's most acclaimed work, Ratcatcher, involves a death, and so does her latest film, Morvern Callar, but she wants to make it clear she is not fixated on the subject.

While her previous films have been described as unconventional and artsy, The Lovely Bones represents the chance to move into the mainstream. Hitting the big time and seeing her name in lights isn't what interests Ramsay, who is down to earth and pragmatic about her craft. ''I'm interested in interesting work. I'm not in it for the money. Sometimes I'm skint because when you make a movie it takes maybe two or three years to get it off the ground. Meanwhile, your directing fee has to get you through.''

That said, Ramsay agrees her life is pretty rich. She is doing a job she loves, she manages to retain creative control in everything she does, and she recently married her boyfriend, Rory Kinnear.

When it comes to questions about her private life, however, the shutters go up and Ramsay acts like a Rottweiler guarding the gates to that inner sanctum. She admits she hated the fact that their wedding, which took place on a boat near Cannes during the festival, became tabloid fodder. ''It was a private thing and it ended up in the media because someone at the wedding spoke about it. It doesn't happen every day that you get married and it was the best thing that happened to me this year.''

She is also angry at the way such a personal occasion was painted to sound like it was a showbiz event. Both Ramsay and Kinnear underline that their marriage was spontaneous and the boat they got married on wasn't some magnificent gin palace but was a fairly simple vessel that cost a couple of hundred pounds to hire.

Kinnear gives her an affectionate squeeze and says: ''It was the best moment of my life.''

The couple certainly delight in one another's company. That's probably because they haven't had the time for a honeymoon. Ramsay has been on a merry-go-round of festivals promoting Morvern Callar, which is based on the book by fellow Scot Alan Warner.

She's already done Cannes, Edinburgh, Toronto, and Colorado, before ending up at the 25th Mill Valley festival.

Ramsay has just finished a two-hour session talking about the art of scriptwriting and film-making. She is generous with her advice to the wannabe writers and directors who have turned up at the Oddfellows Hall to hear her pearls of wisdom.

Ramsay is tight-lipped about who will play Susie in her version of The Lovely Bones. She eschews the star machine that drives her business, preferring to cast unknown actors, or even her own family. Samantha Morton played the part of Morvern Callar, for example, before she did Minority Report with Tom Cruise.

Half of The Lovely Bones script is written and Ramsay has done quite a bit of research to try to understand the world of suburban America that Susie comes from. But this workaholic is itching to get off the ''promotion circuit'' and get back to finishing the script. Ramsay and Kinnear are also scouting locations where she can immerse herself in the job without too many distractions. With so many people eager to see what kind of job she does, Ramsay refuses to become a hostage to anyone else's vision. ''A film is different from a book. You can take a great novel and you can make a terrible film, or you can take an okay novel and make a great film.''

She explains: ''I don't think I can imprison myself in what people think about the book. I can try to be true to what I think is fantastic about the book, but let's get a script out there and wait to see what the response is.''

Ramsay adds: ''I think if you are going to take risks in anything you have to be prepared for failure, and failure can be a good thing. Mainly, I set myself a challenge in a film and I feel a lot happier if I've fulfilled at least the challenge I have set for myself. Even if the film goes out badly, then at least what I have tried to achieve I have done to the best of my abilities.''

Tonight the promo tour is done for the day and Ramsay and Kinnear have a night off. He wants to listen to some live music so I suggest they head to San Francisco and the Edinburgh Castle, which is a home away from home for many Scots. It's also where Irvine Welsh is making an appearance. Ramsay and Kinnear think the idea of travelling 6000 miles to see another Scot is crazy until I tell them the flier for Irvine's ''reading'' promises a dj and ''generalised mayhem''. I get the impression it's what both of them need.