How could you possibly carve out that time? I assume your days are jam-packed. Do you work full time?
I do. Actually, I'm working a little less right now. Not because of writing, but because I have a son. While I was writing the book, I was working a full-time emergency medicine schedule. But, emergency medicine is very focused. The way the work is structured, you go there and you work very hard. And you're very busy. But once you're done, you leave, and your responsibility has ended. So you can customize the time a bit more. It's possible to work one day less per month or three more days this week and not work the next week. That's not really possible in most types of medicine, where there is an ongoing suite of responsibilities that you must attend to every day, regardless of whether or not you see a patient. In other medicine, the absolute maximum you can work is basically 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Certainly, as a resident, I was putting in 150-hour weeks. That was just what you did. But not every hour was intense. I would be sitting there, waiting for tests to come back, or staring at an X-ray box, under incredible stress, but ultimately not doing anything. I'd be miserable and exhausted, but I wasn't doing anything. So the limitation was just the amount of hours that exist. In emergency medicine, frankly, the limitation is your psychological exhaustion. That limit kicks in quicker.
What's the average limit?
Most of the people who have a sustained career in emergency medicine work 15 to 16 shifts a month, a shift being anywhere from six to 12 hours. Hospitals where it's very intense will have shorter shifts. Places where the pace is a bit slower can have 12 hour shifts. The hours don't tell the whole story. I've worked in places that have 12 hour shifts, and I would finish work feeling refreshed, relaxed, as though I'd had a walk in the park. At my place, Toronto East General, I finish an eight-hour shift and I'm completely exhausted. I just have to lie down.
I can't imagine you run home and crack open the laptop.
I usually write before I go to the hospital. My routine, before I had a son, was to write and then go to the hospital. Now, my routine is to stumble from one thing to the next and try to get something done.
How long did you work on Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures?
Two years.
And during that time, what was a typical day like for you?
The ideal day was to wake up around 8 a.m. and write from breakfast until two or three in the afternoon. Then, I'd either go the hospital or, if I didn't have a shift, do other things.