Why I Write

        Lately a number of people have asked me why I write.

        We ran into Cory and Lorene at a festival, and Lorene told my wife, “When a man is compelled to write like that there is often a reason.”  I find Lorene, like my wife and daughter, to be astute.  (Woman are often quite intuitive)  She is right.  There is a reason.

        For one, it is creative, and I want to leave some creative work behind before I am outta here.   I created a medical practice for similar reasons.  In my own house I am gonna be second fiddle, though.  My wife gave me two children.  No matter how good I write, I ain’t that creative.

        Music is creative too, but when you perform folks often want the same tunes every time out.  They ain’t that way with books.  Every page better be fresh or it’ll never see print, and if it did no one would read it.  I feel sorry for comedians.  They go from town to town, and whether you see them in Nashville or L.A. the act, with very minor variations, is the same. Once they find the formula for a laugh, they don’t stray far.  They can’t if they want to stay in business. 

        Of course they come up with new material, but as for a musician, there is serious time in the woodshed before it is ever unveiled.  Then it is the same thing over and over.  It is even worse with golf.  The path to the top is a repetitive pounding of eight million practice balls.  I was way too ADHD for that routine. 

        With a book, every page is new, and every book better be different.  As soon as a post goes up on the blog, in a day it is history.  I like that.  You have to keep on the move.  For the same reasons, I enjoyed life as a general Doc.  There was a new experience behind every door.

         As a doctor, I saw some injustice in my time.  Part of my compulsion to write is from the desire to show the story.  Because of the nature of our work it has to be fiction though.  We are sworn to secrecy, and I view my patient’s right to privacy as inalienable.  I can never use real names of patients, and when referring to medical events I am obligated by ethics to change minor clinical details to make the situations non-identifiable.  But as we have said before, “for it to be good fiction, it need not necessarily have happened, but it must be true.”

        Still, the main reason is to try and be anywhere on the planet with my wife as to creativity. She can weave and sew, and does pottery, beads and all sorts of cool things, but most of all she gave me those two kids.  I can’t compete with that, so I’ll have to write and do the best I can.

        Gotta study some doctor stuff today, and I’m gonna work on my book.  It is coming along.  See you early next week.

Dr. B

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