Writing books is a pretty solitary endeavour. In that sense, the life of an author is very different from other professions. We have no team briefings or ideas workshops and the closest we get to an HR strategy meeting is texting our other halves to ask them to pick up some loo roll. While publishers do let us out for good behaviour and the odd awards soirée, you basically have to get used to your own company.  In the olden days (what my kids call anything pre-2005), an author might have fou...