Would I be a better novelist if I found my inner Trollope?

Some of you are going to be appalled that it has taken me till now to read Trollope’s Autobiography. And quite right too. If I’d read it in my mid-twenties instead of my mid-forties, I would have had two dozen novels under my belt by now instead of a measly five-and-a-half. And you would never have had to read a single column of mine complaining about how poor and underrated I am, because I wouldn’t be. By the time he was my age, Trollope was a household name and bringing in £4,500 a year. This is the rough equivalent of £675,000 today.

How did he do it? By treating the business of writing not as an ‘art’ to get precious about but just another journeyman craft to be laboured at nine-to-five. Or, in Trollope’s case, 5.30 a.m. (when his groom would arrive with a cup of strong coffee) to 8.30 a.m.