A Conversation With Alexia Gordon on Making Time to Write in Unconventional Ways (Killer Writers)

Dr. Alexia Gordon is the multiple award-winning and nominated author of the Gethsemane Brown mystery series, starting with the first book Murder in G Major. She goes by the phrase, Physician by Day, Crime Novelist by Night. I spoke with her while she was in the middle of a house move, which is always a tumultuous and nerve-wracking time. “I’m in Virginia now and I have furniture in Chicago that got picked up last week. They’re delivering it Monday, so I have to move boxes out of the way so they can bring stuff in.”

“Did you change practices? You’re still in Family Practice, right?”

“I actually work for the government now.”

“What are you doing for the government?”

“I work in biodefense.”

Well, that gives me pause.

“It’s more exciting than Family Medicine.”

“And what exactly do you do now that you’re no longer examining Covid swabs?”

“We try to keep crazy dictators from unleashing germ warfare, so they don’t kill anybody.”

I couldn’t imagine anyone more suited for it. “Sounds like a perfect job for a crime novelist.”

“And more relevant than anybody would imagine it would be five years ago.”

And on that ominous note…

“Are you able to keep up with your writing?”

“It’s less a matter of finding the time than making the time.”

“Explain.”

“One thing I learned in medical school is: If you want one thing, you’re probably going to have to give up something else. I’ll look at my schedule sometimes, and a lot of it is spent on doing things that I don’t absolutely have to do, and so those things may have to go by the wayside. You know the popular series people are watching on HBO Max? Those things must go to the wayside.”

“It’s a matter of prioritizing. Giving up things."

(Find more Killer Writers conversations here.)

“Other stuff may have to be deferred. Delayed gratification is the name of the game. And if it is meaningful enough, you’ll make the time for it.”

“So, no excuses,” I say. “Your writing is like your life: calculated.”

“I am an outliner and I take a lot of notes. I don’t stick to an outline one hundred percent, but it does give me a framework of where to go to help keep me on track. I’m not the most organized person on the planet. I have learned over the years to make it look good through the nurturing part of medical school, but my outline just gives me a general structure for where my story is going so, I don’t start out with unicorns and end up with zebras. And I definitely couldn’t have gotten through a thousand years of human medicine crammed into four years without taking notes. Medical school and notetaking have helped me approach things logically.”

“Even writing.”

“You really can’t dive into medicine. You have to have a plan to figure out where you’re going to go. I don’t know if that’s my natural tendency that drew me to both medicine and crime writing, or if medical school developed that and I used it in crime writing, but I do find that if I don’t have some idea of where I want to go with something, it doesn’t really get off the ground.”

“Which falls under time management: working for something with a payoff. You were talking about notetaking. Is this like waking up at two in the morning…?”

“Not necessarily. I usually think of things when I’m doing something else, so I’ve got little notepads all over the house. When I’m fixing dinner, getting dressed, anything. I think, ‘Oh, this would be a good idea or an interesting plot line.’ I scribble it down. And then research, I take notes on the things that I research.”

“All these notes, how do you keep everything organized? Or is your desk stacked with little notes or reams of legal pads? Or do you immediately transfer them over to your outline in your computer?”

“I have binders, like notebooks.”

“Like physical notebooks?”

“Yes.”

“So, you have a series of notebooks, like the college-ruled, spiral-bound notebooks?”

“Mostly looseleaf. The notes tend to get jotted down on whatever notepad I have handy. I have a hole-punch and a three-ring binder that I can punch holes and stuff it in.”

“That’s fast. No typing?”

“I use paper and pencil. I obviously have to type manuscripts on the computer because you can’t submit a handwritten manuscript, but with paper and pencil, I can literally write anywhere.”

“Which fits more into your time management?”

“I don’t have to worry about electricity or finding the right files.”

“Just start writing when the muse hits you.”

“Actually, there’s more to it than that. Writing it out on a page helps cement it in my brain. I’m kind of old school that way. I use a computer when I have to, but the paper and pencil way still works for me.”

“Wait. You even write your novels by pencil and paper?”

“Mostly.”

“Then you type it into the computer?”

“Transcribing from what I’ve written by hand helps me realize where the problems are, like that’s really clunky dialogue, or that really wouldn’t work, so writing it out by hand, and then typing it is a way of editing it.”

“Editing it before you get to the point of editing it. So, do you have a set writing time? I see you writing early in the morning with a cup of coffee beside you, pen and pad in hand, watching the sun rise.”

“No, I don’t. When I first started out, I tried sitting down at the screen at a certain time with the goal of a certain number of words or hours. It was more frustrating than anything. I found myself sitting there staring at the paper, staring at the screen, staring at whatever. It wasn’t working.”

“You don’t subscribe, then, to an assigned writing time?”

“It’s much better when I have paper and pen and ideas happen. When I have an idea and time, I can write something. Then I’ll write some later. It’s easier for me to make time versus forcing myself to sit down and bang out X number of words.”

“So, your time management doesn’t follow a set routine, but rather taking advantage of time as it is offered to you? That’s a different view of time management.”

“Forcing myself to sit down is forced structure. I find it more frustrating than anything else.”

“But it works for you. You’ve got five books out now.”

“If I must take a subway somewhere, I can write on the subway. Or driving somewhere, I stop for lunch, and if I have a pad, I can scribble down things. That’s another thing from medical school, you learn to eat with one hand and write with the other. So, the little sprints throughout the day work better for me than a prescribed time to sit down and be stuck in a seat for X number of hours.”

(5 Ways to Keep Focused When Burned Out and Brain-Fried.)

“I think that’s good for readers to hear because I think most of the advice is to set aside an hour or two hours, be diligent every day. Yours is organic based upon what the day throws at you. If you were going to give some advice to up-and-coming writers, what would it be?”

“Make the time for it. It’s easier to make excuses than to make time. I come at it by first-hand experience. You have to realize that the book is not going to write itself, so you’re going to have to figure out what you can defer and make the writing a top priority.”

“No matter how you have to fit it in? By schedule or on the run, whatever works for you and your lifestyle.”

“We live in a world where we’re kind of encouraged to do everything all at once, being super people, but that’s not possible. So just realize that once you make your priority list, things further down on the list may have to wait. If writing is your top priority, it needs to be on the top of your priority list.”

“In 2013, you started writing. In 2015, your first book came out. How long does it take you to write a novel now?”

“By the second novel, it was about a year: six months to write it, four months to get it edited. I do three rounds of edits. It comes down to one book a year.”

“And then publishing…”

“It takes a lot longer than you think to get a book on the shelf.”

“Is there anything else that you would like to add before we close and you go back to saving the world from miniscule weapons of war?”

“Just keep writing. Somebody out there wants to read your story, but they can’t read it unless you write it.”

“And that means keeping paper and pen ready and writing whenever you have the time. Good advice.”

“Don’t forget to make your writing a priority.”

“Even better,” I laugh, and wonder where she’s going to put all the boxes so they can get the furniture in. Knowing Alexia, though, she has a plan and she’ll juggle and make it work as opportunity presents keeping the goal in mind.

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Alexia Gordon is the award-winning author of the Gethsemane Brown mysteries, a physician, a blogger, and host of The Cozy Corner with Alexia Gordon podcast. https://alexiagordon.net/