Paging Doctor Shakespeare

For as long as I have known him, my husband  – a physician – has been talking about the book inside of him, just waiting to be written. He has not yet penned a single word or determined what the subject matter of his masterpiece will be. But he is confident that, once unveiled, his tome will quickly propel him to celebrity and millionaire status.

Often, as we’re browsing the stacks at Barnes and Noble, he’ll casually flip through the latest self-help bestseller, put it down and say, “I could have written this.”

One evening at home, he went so far as to clasp his hands behind his head, put his feet up on the ottoman, turn to me and announce, “Rima, get ready to type. I’m about to start dictating my novel.”

Whenever he starts this up, I count to ten in my head, roll my eyes heavenward, and re-state my indignant claim:

“You cannot just sit down and write a novel.  There is planning! Research! Blood! Sweat! Tears!  There are first, second, third, and fourth draft revisions! Writing has to keep you up at night, send you from euphoria to the depths of despair, and kill your houseplants. Not to mention, you have to know what a run-on sentence is. It’s hard work, writing. If it were easy, everyone would do it. I, for one, have been polishing up my short story for going on ten years!”

“Anyone can write a book,” my husband insisted. “You just have to come up with the right idea and apply yourself.”

A few weeks after this conversation took place, I was poring over the syntax of the closing paragraph in my Christmas newsletter when my beloved came home and announced that he would be writing a regular medical advice column for a local paper.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“When did you apply for this?”

“No application, Rimster. Just a phone call from the paper requesting my services.”

“They just called you up and asked you to write a column for them?” My blood went from a simmer to a rolling boil.

“Bingo.”

“Wow!” I exclaimed.  A few puffs of steam escaped from my ears, and then my head exploded. “That’s . . . awesome!  I published a small piece about Magic Erasers on my blog today.”

A week went by and my husband did not give his writing career another thought. But while rounding at the hospital on Monday morning, he received a phone call from his office manager.

“Dr. T., the paper called. Your first column is due this afternoon.”

Without missing a beat, our budding journalist located the nearest computer terminal, fabricated a “reader question” about carpal tunnel syndrome, plunked out a high-falootin’ answer replete with gobbledygook medical speak, and sent it off ten minutes later.  The next week, his byline and photo appeared in the local newspaper.

Meanwhile, I have begun work on a book that will surely catapult me to the very pinnacle of literary fame.  It’s called, Performing Brain Surgery in Ten Easy Steps.