I’m doing what I said I would never do. Rewrite my book. I completed my manuscript late last year, sent it out to 20 small presses and one agent. While I have been waiting for the results to trickle in—those returned so far have been rejections—I’ve been troubled by a lingering discomfort that I have…… Continue reading Rewriting the Book
Category: Writing the Book
I’M ON VACATION
I am at the beach with my family—our annual get-together. We found a new rental house, one with enough space for the grandkids to enjoy time away from the adults. Need I mention the adults enjoy this situation, too? We are thinking about renting this house next year. As I type, the sound of the…… Continue reading I’M ON VACATION
Florence Nightingale: The Crucial Skill We Forget to Mention
Read this wonderful post about all the compelling reasons nurses need to write.
CANDICE BERGEN, MURPHY BROWN AND ME
On the front of The Arts section of the New York Times this past week was a picture of Candice Bergen. Older (aren’t we all?) but still lovely even carrying thirty extra pounds. Making no excuses for the weight gain, she says, “I live to eat.” (I can relate to that.) She had written a…… Continue reading CANDICE BERGEN, MURPHY BROWN AND ME
PERSISTENCE
In 2014, I finished my memoir. In spite of myself, I persisted and finished. Ten years ago, I left a full time nurse practitioner job and began to write in earnest. The book I just birthed is not the one I started then. It has been configured many times: moving chapters, changing tenses from past…… Continue reading PERSISTENCE
A NEW BEGINNING
I sit in a one-bedroom furnished unit on the 2nd floor of an immense apartment complex nestled in a shopping mall in northern Raleigh while writing this post. Two weeks ago we moved out of our house in Chapel Hill after 14 years. A cold heavy rain began to fall as we pulled the door…… Continue reading A NEW BEGINNING
PREPARING FOR REJECTION: TAKE TWO
Writers in the Storm SEPTEMBER 22ND, 2014 When Rejection is Necessary, or I Reject All the Fear By Guest Blogger Heather Webb The most detested word in the publishing industry, perhaps even in the English language (we writers might argue) is rejection. Even saying it aloud gives you a nasty swirling in your stomach. Whether…… Continue reading PREPARING FOR REJECTION: TAKE TWO
WHAT I LEARNED
I am writing my memoir because of what I learned when I ran a clinic on the tenth floor of a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) high-rise twenty years ago. All my patients were over sixty years of age. I was an inexperienced nurse practitioner and new to working with older people. I learned that…… Continue reading WHAT I LEARNED
WHAT JOURNALING WILL DO
It’s a coincidence that I wrote the last entry in my journal on February 28 at the same time I finished my book. Well, my book is not finished-finished but it’s getting its final editing—by a professional content editor—as I compose this post. I have been using a 5-subject wide-rule notebook every morning to put…… Continue reading WHAT JOURNALING WILL DO
FMM 1 17 14 Self-Efficacy
“Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.”~ Viktor E. Frankl Studies show that you can predict a person’s ability to change a habit by the degree to which they believe in their ability to change. Self-efficacy is the term given to that belief…
Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted 