Specific Gravity Once my heart was ballast in my chest, so sinkingly heavy I couldn’t stand. I slept for as many hours as there were memories. I couldn’t bear to look at myself, at my bloated face, my dull eyes. As time went on, I learned to throw everything, even my marrow, overboard. Now, […]
A newsletter I follow, 33 Charts, a blog on Medicine and Technology by Bryan Vartabedian, MD, came back online with an apology for “going dark” after nothing was posted for several weeks. Metaphors matter. I prefer Jocelyn Glei’s language for gaps in creativity, lying fallow. When I say I’ve been lying fallow, I like the
Not Posting Because I’m Writing Read More »
This year, 2020, feels different to me. Last year, I was organized and disciplined about the way I approached my annual goals. I planned in December 2018, and I hit the ground running. I had two goals for each quarter of the year, and I made significant progress on almost all of them. This year,
Resolutions: A Kinder Approach Read More »
This week, I was asked to speak at the AtlantiCare World AIDS Day Remembrance Ceremony. I’ve written about World AIDS Day before, as an illustration of teamwork in healthcare and as an example of attending to grief. I think what I like best about World AIDS Day is that it acknowledges that professional caregivers are
World AIDS Day 2019: Grief and Remembrance Read More »
The feeling of connection with my readers is what keeps me writing week after week. Today, I rediscovered the website of another woman physician, Dr. Catherine Cheng, whose blog is titled Healing Through Connection. She is an internist from Chicago, and she participated in National Blog Post Month (NaBloPoMo) for the fourth time this year.
Thank You for Connecting with Me Read More »
I’ve been a productive writer recently, even if I haven’t been able to keep up the pace for NaNoWriMo. After five months of working with my book coach, the structure of my memoir is beginning to take shape. In my naivete, I’d hoped to have the first draft done at the end of the six
Lifelong Learning: The Pull of Curiosity Read More »
As I write into it, my memoir keeps shapeshifting. In the latest iteration, it’s about the transformation from doctor to writer. The truth is that I’m both. I’ve moved from being a doctor who writes to being a writer who works part-time as a doctor. Sometimes, it’s not easy to put myself into compartments. Yesterday
Life in Mid-Transformation Read More »
For many writers, November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo. The goal is to finish a 50,000 word first draft of a novel by the end of the month. I am not writing a novel, but I am taking advantage of the collective energy to do a modified NaNoWriMo for my memoir. I don’t
Write Fast, Write Slow Read More »
I had a busy, fun- and food-filled weekend visiting family in New England. Being away from my regular schedule and environment had a detrimental effect on my discipline. The habits I had cultivated over the past year were becoming unsteady even before this trip, but last weekend, the scales tipped far over toward disorder. This
Don’t Depend on Willpower Read More »
In my last phone call with my book coach, she was giving me suggestions for getting more of my inner landscape on the page. She said, “Readers don’t want to read about when things are going well for you. They want to read about pain, about how you overcame it to move forward.” I had
Put Non-Doing on Your To-Do List Read More »
