Written

We wrote this book with the sole purpose of helping you to keep going as a writer. But the ideas in it can guide your life. After all, our whole lives are trial and error strewn with highs and lows, ups and downs, breakthroughs and blocks. The more mindful you become about what you believe and how you live, the better you’ll be able to weather the

Shonda Rhimes.20 She says that a lot of people dream and ‘while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, powerful, engaged people? Are busy doing.’

Neuroscientists tell us that our brains are hard-wired to crave certainty and avoid risk, but the creative process is the polar opposite of this.

that dream must be accompanied with a sound understanding of what might stop you from getting there and a knowledge of what to do when you do hit a bump in the road – which you inevitably will.

The thing they don’t do is to ‘try harder’. And by this we mean they don’t rely on willpower alone to sit grim-faced at their desk attempting to grind out some more words. And they don’t carry on using the same approach that isn’t working for them – instead, they change and adapt.

Positive thinking is great for exploring possibilities about the future. It’s also good for your mood. But when it comes to attaining your desired future – then it’s a real detriment. What we really need is action – so that people can change their lives. Positive fantasies about the future are not the answer to how people are resilient. Positive da

according to researchers Albert Bandura and Dale H. Schunk: ‘When people aim for, and master, desired levels of performance, they experience a sense of satisfaction. The satisfaction derived from subgoal attainments can build intrinsic interest.’20

We found that the writers who were the most productive and fulfilled, least stressed out and better able to cope with the pressures of writing had all built a combination of support structures around themselves – just like I had done in London. These tactics, routines and rituals formed a system that supported them to get started with their writing

we’re going to tell you about the last and final myth of the book – it’s what we call the ‘quantity myth’ – and we’re going to turn to Adam Grant, one of the most prolific and high-profile academics in his field to explain. ‘It’s widely assumed there’s a trade-off between quantity and quality,’ he writes, ‘that if you want to do better work you hav