Extract from Chapter 7: How to find the time to write

The problem with trying to schedule your writing after a day’s work, of course, is that if you have a reasonably high level of education, and if you hold any but the most basic of jobs, you are likely to get caught up in this modern nonsense of staying late at the office.

In some companies, particularly big ones, this is a sort of madness. There is a macho creed in some organisations which holds that the first one to leave is a wimp. If you work in that kind of environment, and a lot of young people do, I feel sorry for you.

If you are a very strong personality, you may be able to resist the pressure to devote every waking hour to the company. But all too easily you can damage your career prospects if you insist on working the official hours and no more. In such a situation you may find that for you the only option for finding time to write is the weekend. Of which more in a minute.

I do have to remind you, however, of something I mentioned earlier, namely that at least one high-powered advertising executive has had a successful writing career. He is James Patterson. In 1996, when his ninth novel, Jack and Jill, was published, Patterson was still Chairman of the advertising powerhouse J. Walter Thompson in New York.

It is also worth mentioning that James Herriot, who had a string of bestsellers about twenty-five years ago, did all his writing at the end of a long day’s work as a veterinary surgeon. As a vet he could never predict what time his day would finish, and he used to come home at some very odd hours. He would then sit down in front of the TV with his family. His wife would bring him his meal on a tray; he would eat it, have a chat and a rest, and then get out his pad and begin to write. With his family beside him. With the TV on.


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