Today’s obituary in the Times of Richard Gordon, the author of the comic Doctor novels, records his writing routine thus: in the morning he would write; a tin of soup would be his lunch; in the afternoon he’d walk the dog, dictating as he went any ideas that came to him; he’d then put in another couple of hours writing (except during the cricket season).
He’d given up his job as an anaesthetist (which he said he chose as he didn’t like patients, so here was a medical job where they were all asleep) when his writing started to progress. His wife (also an anaesthetist) supported him until the Doctor books became so successful. I hadn’t realised how much else he wrote, novels and non-fiction.
He said, “I have had a jolly easy life doing nothing, because writing is nothing, really, it’s dead easy.” Well, he was a writer of fiction …
He made a lot of people laugh. RIP.
ninevoices 