 Finding that commuting to work did not leave him time to write, Ballard decided he had to make a break and become a full-time writer.He wrote his first novel, "The Wind from Nowhere", over a two-week holiday simply to gain a foothold as a professional writer, not intending it as a "serious novel"; in books published later, it is omitted from the list of his works.When it was successfully published in January 1962, he resigned from his job at "Chemistry and Industry", and from then on supported himself and his family as a writer.