Any Edith Wharton friend is a friend of mine!

:-)

Hi back at you! I don't often check SheWrites, but I ought to more. Hope you are well. Happy lunar new year!

You're so welcome!

Farzana, I just read your piece in Literary Mama.  You definitely GET IT!  Your family is lucky to have such an open-minded Mama.  And such a good writer to get across difficult concepts in such a wonderful engaging way.  Write On! 

I love your piece on Literary Mama!

I've not seen LM before. Thanks for introducing it to me, and you sound like a wonderful Mama. 

Hi Farzana! 

Thanks for checking out my blog-- I'm so glad you like it-- I feel like it's such a quiet labor of love and I've stubbornly held on to the eclectic nature of it-- of not committing to one subject over another. I love writing about art and culture as much as parenting. 

I'm envious of your science gifts and want to check out your work. I don't write fiction, but that sounds like a nice group. I've just joined an Essay group, which is probably more aligned with what I'm doing. 

Take care, and thanks for the Friending!

R

As I said, urgent care is shift work. I work 8-4 three days and 4-11 two evenings. In private practice, a 12 hour day was all-too-common. If anything is beyond my comfort zone, in urgent care I have the option of calling 911 and sending the patient to the nearest ER. I make enough that my best friend, an OB-GYN who went through medical school, has just signed a contract in the Carolinas and FINALLY makes more money than I do.

My son is now old enough that most days after school he is in marching band practice, comes home and does homework. He doesn't require the minute-to-minute care he used to. Although with his ADHD, he still needs it, I am trying to back off the mothering and let him muddle through a few crises on his own.

I started life as a travel photographer, then became a medical photographer. Twenty years ago, at age 39 I went to medical school. I started writing about a year ago. I consider myself a married single parent with a 16 year old son. I have a multitude of supportive friends, but little support from the spouse. My son is mortified that I am writing romances (he stands over my shoulder and reads the romantic scenes and grosses out). I haven't cleaned my bathroom since NaNoWriMo started, but am doing quite well in word count. Having gotten used to a six figure income, I can't afford to quit my day job, but writing in my spare time is fun. Just got accepted to Stanford University's on-line Creative Writing program, so looking forward to improving my writing techniques. I started writing in September 2010 and have written the 130,000 word saga, most of my 50,000 word NaNoWriMo novel, 10,000 words into a third novel, a 12,000 word novelette, a young adult short story romance, two short-short stories submitted to contests, and two dozen erotic haiku. I just rotate between them as the urge strikes. Sometimes two or more are open on the computer at the same time.

Farzana, I am a family practice doc working in urgent care. Started in it aout 10 years ago when had a 3 year old and no childcare backup. It was easy predictable shift work. Now not sure I could go back to private practice. I have written 1 tome, a 130,000 word saga of an anthropologist's life from age 14 to 64. It started out as a simple romance, but as I am a pantser, the book turned on me, and the heroine fell in lower with the love interest's father. The current book is a little romance for NaNoWriMo. I submitted the first 5 pages to a literary agent who told me to clean it up and resubmit it. I start trying to write "traditional" romances, but they always get twisted up and weird. I am now writing erotic haiku -- a little sidetrip from NaNoWriMo -- as my male main character is writing love poems to my female character. I wasn't up to writing Shakespearean sonnets, but the little  haiku are a ton of fun to write.