Ken Follett On the Writing Life

Posted on February 10, 2005

Bestselling novelist Ken Follett, the Welsh author of 16 international bestsellers which have sold 90 million copies to date talked to The Comet about how why he started writing in the 1970s.

Follett said, "My car broke down and I needed £200 to get it repaired. I didn't have the money and the bank refused to lend it to me."

He says a colleague, a writer for the London Evening News, had just published a thriller and received an advance of £200. This encouraged him to start writing. Once he got started writing he says he "loved it."

Follett also says, "Writing is the most interesting thing I've ever done, and when I wake up in the morning it's what I want to do right away. There are moments when I've got a knotty problem and I'm racking my brains for a way through it, but it's never a burden."

Update: Follett also told the broken down car story to the New York Times. In an interview, Follett was asked about his start in fiction. He mentions the broken down car and his journalist friend who just got an advance for a thriller. Follett also says, "I did not figure that out until life began to show me I was a so-so newspaper reporter, and as a novelist I might have something special."

We have seen many occasions when a journalist goes on to become a novelist. They tend to have little trouble with deadlines given the hectic pace of the journalism world.