Novelist comfortable after spine drained (6)

'novelist' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?

'comfortable after spine drained' is the wordplay.
'comfortable' becomes 'well' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'after' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'drained' suggests removing the centre.
'spine' with its middle removed is 'se'.
'well' after 'se' is 'SEWELL'.

Can you help me to learn more?