Who Am I Writing For?

I’ve let go of many bad habits over the last 5 years, but there’s one that I’ll never drop.  Books.  Yes, I’m addicted to books, and not the books themselves, but the magic inside the covers.  The worlds created, the carefully chosen words that pull me into another dimension, the emotions the characters stir inside me, all of it, I insanely love.  My favorite part of the day is not when I make a healthy breakfast, or listen to an inspiring podcast, or channel love while I take care of my patients or meditate right before bed.  Nope, my favorite time of day is after dinner and right before meditation, when I crack open a tome and dive in.  Bookstores are dangerous places for me as I am unable to go in without coming out with at least one book, with every intention to read it of course.  When I get home, I add it to my already overflowing bookcase, one of many, and wonder when I can retire so I can read all these books before I die.

But what about writing?  I have not had as intense a love affair of writing as I have of reading.  I started journalling at a very young age, I think around ten or so, with a little gold locked diary filled with my secret crushes and sister rants.  I continued to write off and on as I grew, through high school and college, the words getting darker as I struggled to find my path.  I used to have boxes of these journals, carried them from place to place as I moved around, until one day, at the nadir of a post-partum depression, I decided to cleanse myself of my past, and dumped those boxes into the trash.

I sometimes regret that decision, yet again, why am I attached to words of my past?  Why am I not spending more time writing, rather than reading?  Why do I have at least 5 books I’m currently reading, and not have at least 5 pieces of writing I’m working on?

I have Elizabeth Gilbert to thank for answering those questions.  Her book, Creative Living Beyond Fear, has given me the answer.

I have been afraid to write what I really want to write.  To tell the truth about my experiences being a physician, as a past middle-aged woman, an introvert, and a highly sensitive soul.  Gilbert expertly describes in her book all the reasons I have held back, but the main one is fear of what others will think or say about my writing.

But who am I writing for?

When I was in medical school, which I crazily began at the age of 35, I started a blog to communicate to my friends and family what the arduous training was like.  It saved me from having to answer a million questions from the ones I loved, as there was little time for anything outside of studying.  I continued writing that blog (now archived) until the middle of residency, when my words trickled off, the inspiration drowned out by the demands of being a doctor in training.

Back in 2018, once I had been practicing medicine for a few years, my feet a bit wet, my confidence that I knew what I was doing—most of the time—fueling my days, I dusted off that six years of writing and decided to publish it as a book.  I got a book coach/editor and got to work.  It took me over a year to compile those writings down to about 100,000 words.  My coach at the time, concerned that anything included with the potential to upset my authority as a physician would lose my audience, counseled me to remove some of the dark parts of the story.  The whiffs of depression, the growing use of wine to manage my stress, the inner struggles I had with this choice I made to become a doctor.  So, I removed those parts, cleaned up my act per se, and in so doing, the manuscript became flat.

In 2019, after much research on which independent publishers might be interested in my story, I sent off query letters, those introductions to books that must grab the attention of an editor within a sentence of two, before it got put in the “thank you for your submission, but we are not interested, good luck”, pile.  I got several of those, which was less painful than the silence from the others.

I wasn’t sure what the next step was, and then COVID hit.  My life was consumed with my work as a physician and stayed that way for over a year.  And what did I do to manage my stress?  I did not turn to binge TV, books, or alcohol.  I started another blog, to describe what it was like to work in a pandemic.

That was in 2020, and here I am, five years later, ready to have another love affair with writing, to find my voice and move beyond my fear.  Fear that what I write about will cause others to think that I am not fit to practice medicine.  Fear that I will offend someone, usually a male authority figure.  Fear that no one will read my words.  Fear that I am the only one having these experiences—sometimes struggling as an empath and sensitive soul working in the money mill of modern medicine.

Gilbert’s words in her book Big Magic have rekindled my desire to authentically write.  And to write not for my audience, where I may edit things out, but to write for myself.  Because that’s what I did when I started writing my medical school blog.  That’s what I did when I started journalling as a young girl.  That’s what I did in all the letters I wrote back and forth to my closest friends over many years.  They were all places where I told the truth.  Where I was my authentic self.

So, my dear reader, I’m inviting you along for a ride, into my heart, into the practice of medicine as I experience it.  You can take it, or you can leave it.  It won’t matter.  Because I am writing for myself, and I am no longer afraid.

PS. starting in the new year 2025 I will be switching over my blog to the Substack platform.  If you have never heard of it, here’s a link.  It’s a fantastic place for writers and readers alike!