“If I wrote another book, who would read it?” I lamented.

“I would!” enthused my brother, perhaps echoing Kurt Vonnegut’s remark, “Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”

Over the years, commercial publishers had reliably dampened my enthusiasm by teaching me to ask two questions as soon as even the idea of another book crossed my mind. Who will sell my book? Who will read my book?

But my brother’s fireproof confidence in me fuelled me to pen a proposal that successfully wound its way through acquisitions until a contract landed in my inbox.

Overnight, the dream of writing another book was replaced with the dread of producing said book – a guide to writing engaging opinion and advocacy columns mixed with a personal account of being a physician exposed to a great variety of experiences.

Being a columnist had made me more observant, deepened my appreciation of medicine and honed my understanding of why every word we say (or write) matters. When I began to teach writing classes, I wanted to democratise what I knew.

Then, George Orwell made me quail. In his famous essay, he accused writers of being motivated by “sheer egoism”, calling them “more vain and self-centred than journalists, although less interested in money”.

Ouch. At least the last bit was true, although........

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