ABSTRACT
The writing of this book was not at all straightforward, quite the opposite in fact, since chapters were written in reverse order, and I did get stuck on occasions. I wondered at times what authority I had to write a book on ‘successful writing’. But then I persuaded myself that these were not uncommon experiences among writers. What mattered was not whether they suffered writer’s block or tackled several chapters at once in reverse order, but whether and how they got going again, how they put the final product together, and whether they managed to finish it.
