I’m not entirely sure if writing counts as “work,” but if it does I work a lot. But it’s not a be-seen-in-your-seat-at-7am kind of work; it’s a background process. Probably 10% of my topic and conclusion sentences are things I type up wearing only a towel because I wrote them in the shower. If your work is not something you find deeply engaging and interesting, this is a nightmare. But if you like what you’re doing, it’s great.

“Everyone assumes I’m a systematic and nose-to-the-grindstone kind of person,” he said. “But to me it seems like a part-time job, really, in that writing from eleven to one continuously is a very good day’s work. Then you can read or play tennis or snooker. Two hours. I think most writers would be very happy with two hours of concentrated work.”

Full-time authors, for example, don’t actually type for 40 hours per week because they’d have little to say if they did. Instead, they spend most of their time collecting experiences. By the time they sit down to write, they’ve already experienced what they plan to write about, even if they aren’t entirely sure about what they’re going to say. By s