As a full-time St. Louis lawyer, husband and father of five, Michael Kahn is often asked how he finds time to write novels. He's published five.

But the answer poses no mystery for Kahn. "You really have to want to do it," he said. The same advice holds true for any goal.

However, Kahn said, achieving a goal will require lots of hard work and some practical attitudes about getting things done.

Kahn shared his experience Saturday afternoon before adding his sleuthing expertise to a Friends of the Cape Girardeau Public Library Foundation fund raiser.

He was the featured guest during Saturday's murder mystery train ride aboard the St. Louis Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad.

As a young lawyer, Kahn often complained to his wife about the best-selling novels he read. Kahn thought he could write something better. Finally, his wife issued a challenge to write something or stop complaining.

Kahn decided to write.

"Think small," he advised hopeful authors. "Rome was not built in a day."

"I don't have time to write a book, but I do have time to write a page a day," he said. "At the end of a year, I have a novel."

He looked for 30 minutes a day to call his own and decided if he read the newspaper in the morning, he didn't need to watch the 10 o'clock television news at night.

Those 30 minutes a day add up to 23 days a year of time he can devote to writing.

However, Kahn said, writers give up romantic notions about the art of writing.

Most successful writers devote a specific amount of time each day to writing and set goals for getting pages written. "It's a job, and it's hard work," Kahn said, and it's not glamorous.

"The artist is at the bottom of the totem pole," he said.

To illustrate, Kahn explained how his first book was changed because of a book-cover design decision.

The book, called "Grave Designs," involves a mysterious grave at a pet cemetery. In the second chapter, Kahn described the cemetery with concrete bulldogs standing guard at the entrance.

However, when the book cover showed the entrance with tranquil, nondescript hunting dogs lying atop stone pillars, Kahn changed the description.

A second book-cover design for the same book showed the mysterious gravestone. In the text, the stone was marked with only the words "Caanan." The book cover had a carved dog's head added to the stone. Kahn left the story unchanged, and readers had to wonder about the meaning of the cover.

However, he said, writing can be great fun for the writer, especially as characters take shape and plots unfold.

"You have to do it for yourself," he said. "It's never too late to start."

He said, "In every field, particularly every art field, there are wonderful stories of people who didn't get started until well into their 60s or later."