Author - Physician - Mom
WHY WRITE?
Being a doctor, a single mother of twins, a parent to a special needs child, an occasional e-Harmony user and the only living child of aging parents wasn’t doing it for me. Something was missing.
Right now, you’re thinking the answer is:
A. a tribe of helpful minions
B. a soulfully handsome, witty dude
C. a little hubba-hubba
D. sleep.
(If you said D - sleep, you’re the mom of young children. I feel you.) (If you said C you’re male, but not wrong. Just sayin.)
Every year for a decade, a brochure came across my desk for a conference on fiction writing for physicians. Every year I sighed, wishing I had time to go. The pamphlet went into the trash (again) and I went back to my patients, my children, my parents, my charts - my life.
Four years ago it finally occurred to me that someday wasn’t coming. (Hey now, C people. That’s a comment on seizing the day - nothing else.) I would never have the time - I’d have to make it.
I’ve been a lover of words since I could speak them. Reading the words of Jane Eyre as a child, opened a secret passage directly from the window seat in my bedroom to her locked red room, where I almost fainted with her.
Writing let me graduate from the transported to the transporter. Moving words around on a page feels like trying a key in a lock, that won’t quite work. When I get the words to fall into place, just right, there’s a deeply fulfilling thud. (No double meaning there - really. Alright, maybe C is the right answer.)
I love that a string of letters can cause a physical reaction - an explosive chortle, a leaking of tears, a warming of the loins. (And what are loins exactly? I'm an OB/GYN and I still think it’s pretty ambiguous.) So I became a writer, which is completely satisfying.
Well, almost.