Richard Gordon

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Anaesthetists, Doctors, Hospitals, Richard Gordon, Soup, Walking the dog

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.

‘Catching the Wind’

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espionage, Kent, Melanie Dobson, Secrets, World War Two, Writing discipline

Delighted to have my copy of Catching the Wind, the latest novel by Melanie Dobson, the author who impressed me so much last year with her discipline of 2,000 words a day (see https://ninevoices.wordpress.com/2016/04/12/2000-words-a-day/). Much looking forward to reading it – it’s in split time: it’s partly in WW2, partly now, partly in between; there’s espionage, secrets deep in the past, betrayal, a man’s search for the Brigitte from whom he was separated over 70 years before – and locations round here where I live in Kent. Thanks, Melanie.

(https://ninevoices.wordpress.com/2016/08/15/shadows-of-ladenbrooke-manor/ described my enjoyment of another of her novels with a British setting. Catching the Wind looks as good …)

You’ve got to put in the hours

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hard work, pub raconteurs, Val McDermid

In her gripping psychological thriller Trick of the Dark Val McDermid puts the following into the mouth of one of the main characters, a most successful businesswoman:

“It always amazes me that so many people think it’s just enough to have an idea, without doing any work to underpin it. …  It’s the difference between being a good pub raconteur and a bestselling novelist. That difference is hard work.”

So says Val McDermid, author of over 30 books which have sold over 10 million copies (see http://www.valmcdermid.com/).  She should know!

Procrastination

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oven cleaning, Procrastination

Running out of things to do rather actually starting that chapter? Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty more ideas if you play Procrastination Bingo – on Jennifer Moore’s site at https://jennifermoore.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/procrastination-bingo/

I’ve already ticked off the Spider Solitaire one (in fact I do every day).

Would one way out of this problem be to reverse the situation? Perhaps you could set yourself the task of cleaning the oven, and then beginning your new chapter could be one of the things you just have to get out of the way before you start? Just a thought.

Thanks, Jennifer.

The Joy of Stationery

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British Museum, David Lodge, stationery

Know that Stationery Shop feeling? That all your authorial ambitions will be fulfilled, once you’ve bought lots of that lovely, pristine stuff?

Here it is, summed up in David Lodge’s The British Museum is Falling Down (1965).   Our hero, Adam Appleby, knows he ought to return to the BM’s Reading Room to write his dissertation, but he can’t get down to it.

“In Great Russell Street he lingered outside the windows of bookshops, stationers and small publishers. The stationers particularly fascinated him. He coveted the files, punches, staplers, erasers, coloured inks and gadgets whose functions remained a teasing mystery, thinking that if only he could afford to equip himself with all this apparatus his thesis would write itself: he would be automated.”

Exactly!