We All Suffer From Dreams

I'm Fortunate That The Books Sell, But Even More Fortunate To Live In Chatham, To Be Very Happily Married And To Have, On The Whole, A Fairly Clear Conscience.

Then You Start Another Book And Suddenly The Galley Proofs Of The Last One Come In And You Have To Wrench Your Attention Away From What You're Writing And Try To Remember What You Were Thinking When You Wrote The Previous One.

I Sometimes Wonder What Would Have Happened If The First Book Had Not Sold... Doesn't Bear Thinking About, But I Suppose We'd Have Made It Work Somehow.

Research Is A Lifelong Occupation So It's Hard To Factor It In, But I Reckon Most Books Take 5 Months From Start To Finish.

And Yes, There's A Simplicity To Writing Books Because You're Not A Member Of A Team, So You Make All The Decisions Yourself Instead Of Deferring To A Committee.