Time to write a novel?

Redundancies are getting bigger by the day. Is this summer the time to think about dusting off that novel idea?

City Boy is nothing new. thelondonpaper's bitchy banker has emerged as Dresdner's Geraint Anderson and now looks to expose the greed, egotism and boozing in banking through his new book, Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile. Get to the back of the line.

Back in the 1980s, when the market crash exposed just how irresponsible, self-serving and gluttonous the world's financial fraternity was, a series of bankers-turned-scribe scrambled to document it - either through fiction or fact.

Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker and the 'big swinging dicks' of the trading floor have become synonymous with that era.

But a fair few bankers made the switch to novelist, and most stick to what they know - finance. Po Bronson's Bombardiers and Linda Davies' Nest of Vipers keep it fairly straight, fictionalising bond traders and insider trading respectively.

Perhaps more ambitious are the likes of ex-JPMorgan M&A banker Stephen Frey, and former Merrill Lynch VP Paul Kilduff, who embroil their bankers in plots involving blackmail, terrorism and serial killers - not at the same time, obviously.

This is starting to look like Stephen King, who largely features writers as his main characters.

Still more impressive is Elizabeth Corley - current chief exec of Allianz Global Investors - who has still found time to write four best-selling detective novels.

So, with the P45 possibly looming, is now the time to break out the typewriter? Or does your diary already resemble a grisly horror? Your thoughts please...