Last week, as I sat in a cafe, completing a deadline, I heard someone say, “Hey are you a writer?” The guy sitting next to me had spotted my copy of On Writing Well. When I said yes, he asked if he could pick my brain about writing as a profession and I said, “Actually, I can’t, I have an urgent deadline.” He didn’t mind. But I did. What followed was an hour-long conversation (only 5 minutes were about writing). That night, I stayed up working late, knowing that I should’ve stood by that “no”...