Just Do It!

Humph. Not Dead Dino stated in front of God and everyone that I don’t post as often as most.

WELL.

In my feeble defense, I didn’t think many read my blog. It’s one of those cases of, if no one reads the words do they really exist?

I’m not one to wander too deeply into the whole tree-falling-makes-a-noise existentialism bit. Truth be known, I’ve been trying to work on Book 2, and this is made difficult with my day job as an editorial director. What’s even more frustrating is that my beloved med blogs are filled to the gills with fabulous information that feeds right into Book 2.

I really should stop calling it Book 2. It’s so blue label. The title is Donovan’s Impasse and picks up where Donovan’s Paradigm left off. Like this entire series, it carries the same theme of a surgeon’s fight for alternative healing within mainstream medicine.

I worked my butt off on researching this book, as I did on the first one. I spent seventeen chigger and mosquito-filled days in the Peruvian Amazon with a medical team, and I owe it to myself to finish – especially since I have Book 3 semi-mapped out. Donovan’s Impasse is about having the guts to stick to your beliefs in the midst of facing personal demons.

It’s an intriguing idea. We all have demons, don’t we? Some fear losing their home, or their health. Others fear losing their kids or spouse. Or, like Kim, they come face to face with losing their career. How we tackle our fears says a great deal about us and what we truly believe. It’s easy to espouse all sorts of enigmatic and Delphian ideals when life’s going great. But what happens when the shit hits the fan and our personal demons rear their ugly heads?

I’m a “heady” kind of writer, meaning that I love to get into the full development of my characters and figure out what makes them tick. Kim Donovan has my utmost admiration. She’s brutally independent, gutsy, and fights for what she believes in, often with humor, sometimes with a lot of spit and vinegar. She refuses to compromise, yet has an uncanny ability to view adversity as being a portal to something better. Or does she? When faced with the possibility that she may never lift a scalpel again after a river accident, do her firmly held beliefs pull her through, or does she accept help from an unlikely source?

This all ties into the alternative healing theme because it deals with issues that can’t be stuffed under a microscope and analyzed. Sometimes all you have are the results, be they good or bad. My medblog buds have been a wealth of information to me. Some are passionately against alternative medicine, and I use them as a reality check to insure I’ve written Erik Behler (who shares the same opinion) realistically. I can confess with no small amount of pride that I nailed it.

So, thank you, Dino, you’ve given me ample motivation to post more often. Who knew anyone was looking?