Medical romance novel update!

​Update:
 
Finally have my head above water in the writing world, enough to write a quick blog post. Hi >waves at everyone<, hope all is well. I haven’t chatted a ton lately. Actually, if you get my newsletter, you’re getting more frequent updates and news.
 
I just finished a top secret medical romance manuscript. You all will be the first to know if anything comes of it in the publishing world, but it’s what you’ve come to expect in terms of pulse-pounding (yes, with a pulse requiring epi and a defibrillator) as well as hot and steamy scenes. The logline of this book is “Gray’s Anatomy meets Northern Exposure” or “General Hospital meets Life Below Zero.” (take your pick)  I can’t wait to show it to you!

(photo credit: BLM Winter Bucket List #11: White Mountains National Recreation Area, Alaska, for Trails Surrounded by Rugged Beauty and Northern Lightshow" by mypubliclands is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

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This medical romance book was shockingly difficult for me to write. Which is funny, if you consider my Day Job as a rural family doctor! If I examine the hesitation honestly, I’ve put off writing a medical romance for many years, even though that was my area of expertise. I think it was because the subject matter would have hit too close to home if I did it accurately. And if I turned it into something like New Amsterdam (blarf) or Gray’s Anatomy (seriously, who does stuff like that?), which is what audiences are used to seeing as “normal,” then it would have felt super weird.
 
To be clear: Treating a massive fluid-flinging trauma or doing a sweaty 6-hour surgery, then going back to the call room, ripping off scrubs, and having wild monkey sex? Gross and double gross. Anyone with rudimentary knowledge of germ theory and a working nose can understand why those post-crisis call room sex scenes just skeeve me the heck out.
 
The other thing I know is that this project is the most personal to me to date – more than any other book I’ve written, this one pulled in a ton of lived experience. I came out of the writing cave feeling emotionally exposed in ways that surprised me. It's fiction, but it didn't feel that way when I was writing it.
 
Which parts are real and which parts are fiction? I’ll never tell …!
 
(I mean, you can rule out the call room sex right off the bat. Seriously, just look at all the sweat and germs in that scene below!)

photo credit: U.S. Army medical surgeons and by U.S. Department of Defense is marked with CC0 1.0._ (public domain photo)