Way in which author gets wasted (5)
I believe the answer is:
spent
'wasted' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'way in which author' is the wordplay.
'way' becomes 'st' (abbreviation for street).
'in which' is an insertion indicator.
'author' becomes 'pen' (to pen something is to author it).
'st' placed around 'pen' is 'SPENT'.
'gets' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for spent that I've seen before include "Exhausted, having paid money?" , "Completely exhausted" , "Worn out, having laid out money" , "(Of resources) exhausted" , "Paid out - finished" .)