Part II of this book concentrated on the central aspect of the authorship, the writing itself. It focused closely on the generation and manipulation of text. Yet writing does not exist in a vacuum. Usually there are other people involved. And there are of course other things in our lives going on around our writing. Part III of this book, therefore, broadens the focus to take in some of these wider issues. This chapter focuses particularly on how to manage time as an author.

What principles can you use to allocate time to writing? You could rely on inspiration. You could just write when the mood takes you. Some books do get written like that. But it is a high-risk strategy – one most likely to result in you failing to write your book.

Alternatively, you could devise a schedule. Here it is helpful to draw on the advice provided by Eviatar Zerubavel in The Clockwork Muse: A Practical Guide to Writing Theses, Dissertations, and Books. Zerubavel (himself an academic author) recommends devising a schedule by dividing your week into various types of time. The key, he suggests is to begin by identifying those times of the week that, because of other claims on your time, you will not be able to devote to writing – and then to block off these times altogether. This seems to me a valuable suggestion. It establishes the need for realism from the start.