I started writing a fictional book in 2003 based on autobiographical and biographical events. I wrote about six chapters and then put it away. I went back to it several months later and didn’t like what I wrote. I didn’t know which way I wanted the book to go, but I knew that it wasn’t going in the right direction at that time. Just recently, I was inspired to start writing it again. All the original characters in my book were scrapped. I am starting from the very beginning.

I have always known that I will someday be a published author. Actually, I am already a published medical author. But long before I ever entered medical school, I had the energy of a writer in my soul. I wrote short stories when I was in grammar school, most of them were really sad. When I was in high school I wrote poems, continued writing short stories and also enjoyed writing pieces for the high school newspaper. Some of the themes I remember writing about for the paper were implementing a traffic light in front of the high school to avoid traffic accidents. I also wrote about implementing a prom king in addition to a prom queen so that the “traditional” high school prom event wasn’t so sexist. It was implemented!

I know the title of the book that I am writing. I even know what the cover will look like. Those are the two staples right now. My head is so full of ideas and notions and different concepts that I only write when I am feeling that creative energy. Recently, due to personal events, that creative energy has been depleted, but I am confident that I will regain it.

If someone were to ask me why I am writing this book, I would say, ‘It is in me. I am part of this universe. Therefore I want to write it and give it back to the universe.” I am not writing it for fame or money. My decision to go into medicine was very similar. I didn’t do it for money, I felt I had something in me that I had to give back to the universe.

Med school zapped me of much of my creative force. The whole process of medical school and residency was methodical, hierarchical and very much an apprenticeship. I completed that apprenticeship and now I am able to practice my trade skillfully, but there was a heavy price to pay. That price was giving up reading books for pleasure, sketching, giving up my skills as a trained classical pianist. When I was finished with my training, it took another five years to get through the emotional turmoil and find my creative soul again. It had never left, it was buried deep within. I found it again when I started my own practice and had to create my own website. As a solo-solo-practitioner, I didn’t have the funds to shell out how ever many hundreds of dollars to have someone else create my website. It took about a month to get my website to be exactly what I wanted, but when it was done I felt that feeling that I used to feel when I was younger. It was the same feeling when I had finished writing a poem or perfecting a piece for the chamber orchestra. I WAS BACK!

 I think when I had first started writing the book in 2003, I was still in midst of that emotional turmoil. I was too depleted, that’s why I had to let it go. Now I know that it is within me, the energy necessary to channel it through the universe has been revitalized. It will get done.