I am a sixty-eight-year-old retired physician. I practiced Gastroenterology for thirty-six years and retired in two thousand and twenty-one. Unfortunately, I developed bladder cancer ten years ago. This penetrated the wall of the bladder requiring chemotherapy and aggressive surgery. After I recovered from that I also developed kidney cancer three years later and required additional surgery. I am currently cancer free doing well, but have limitations related to the surgery. The last several years before I retired I worked part time. It was during this time, that my dream to become a writer appeared. I enjoyed medicine and taking care of my patients, but after forty years I decided it was time for change. Each person's experience with cancer is different, but for me it changed my perspective and added urgency to what I was doing.

Cancer was a nagging fear reminding you that life is fragile and precious. That fear urged me to follow my passions while I could. So for two years before retirement, I read books on writing, learned new software, and developed ideas.

I confined my previous experience with writing to bowel prep instructions for colonoscopy. That would sound simple, but it is amazing how many times what you think is clear to others is confusing. I must have rewritten my instructions 10 to 20 times to clarify points that confused my patients. I also wrote brief handouts for the patients as well.

Of course, none of that really prepared me to be a writer.

I grew up in Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia. I loved watching and playing sports. I was a street hockey goalie as a teenager, lugging my own handmade net of pipe and chicken-wire to the nearby tennis courts to play. Medicine intervened till I took up roller hockey in my early forties becoming a goalie once more. Both of my children were goalies in high school lacrosse.

I spent summers growing up at the Jersey shore. The experience is quite different from the MTV television series. That is where I met my wife of forty-one years. She puts up with the time I have dedicated to my attempt to become a writer.

I am now at the point where I have written three science fiction books forming a trilogy called the Cost of Acquisition. At this point, I realize that writing a book may be much easier than marketing. So join me while I try to find my way and I will share what I learn. If you have helpful ideas or advice, please let me know. If you have constructive criticism, I welcome that.

The other thing I think I just have to accept is that some people will hate what you do, no matter what. The act of stepping onto the world wide web by itself invites this.

I will just have to remember to put on my armor every day.