I Gave Up A Lucrative Medical Career To Become A Writer

Tips For A Better Dining Experience - Pepper • In The Silence, I Hear Best

Mark Starlin

Dec 19, 2022

One Minute Wit

Tips For A Better Dining Experience • Pepper

If you try using the pepper shaker and nothing comes out,

it is not a good idea to hold it upside down over your eye to see if the holes are plugged.

Poem

In The Silence, I Hear Best

In the silence, I hear best
the pain of life
the truth of love
the longing

In the silence, I hear best
the cost of dreams
accomplished
let go

In the silence, I hear best
mysteries unsolved
unwelcome reality
empty striving

In the silence, I hear best
the reach of intimacy
simmering joy
heartbeats

In the silence, I hear best
frailty
the unrepentant shortness of a lifetime
the inevitable

In the silence, I hear best
a quiet voice
the breath of hope
peace

In the silence, I hear best

Humor

I Gave Up A Lucrative Medical Career To Become A Writer

Here is the incredible story of how it turned out

Most of us get stuck in our chosen career paths — like them or not — because it is simply too hard to start over in another profession. Or we are not willing to accept the loss of income starting over usually requires. Or we spent so much money on education, it seems crazy to not do what we spent a crazy amount of money on to do.

I was walking that same soul-crushing career path. Why don’t counselors tell you that making life-affecting decisions as a teenager is STUPID? People change. Desires change. A boring career that pays well is still a boring career year after year. In fact, it just gets more boring with time. And what sounded cool as a kid is often not cool at all in reality.

After college, medical school, and a medical internship, I set myself up in a cushy nose hair surgeon practice. Instead of spending endless hours with a pair of tweezers, I developed a procedure to surgically remove the nose hair follicles that make life as a movie star or social media influencer so tricky.

Sure, you could “let the forest grow” like Grandpa and gross everyone out. But you aren’t going to go viral or get sponsors with Tarzan swinging on those vines hanging out of your nose cave.

But as lucrative as cleaning up celebrity nose canals proved to be, it left me empty inside. After staring down 50 noses that first month, I had no pride left in my work. I was famous among the much-photographed, but I was just a means to an end for them. No one wanted to hang out with me. I wasn’t cool like a rock star. I was the “Let me give you my nose hair doctor’s number” guy. I cleaned out their schnozzes and bank accounts, and that was the end of it.

So I decided to chuck it all and do something I had always wanted to do. Become a writer — actually, a novelist. After a bit of research, I discovered that some writers don’t even write novels. Imagine! Some write advertisements, or website copy, or news, or opinions on current events. Stuff that earns them money.

Well, I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. I wasn’t going to chase money as a writer. I was going to write novels.

All I needed was a good story idea. Then it hit me. I would write a novel about a nose hair surgeon who gets mixed up in some crazy scheme with a movie star. People love movie stars. And I know all about nose hair surgeons. It can’t miss, I thought.

Nine months later, it missed. I released my novel to underwhelming success. I thought my friends or family, at least, would buy a copy. Ha! It sold two copies.

So I went online, where unknown writers dole out writing advice, and learned that I needed to promote my book and build a following. Okey-dokey. I went on Twitter and swapped follows with thousands of other unknown writers who had no intention of buying my novel. Then I posted ads on Facebook.

I sold two more novels.

Then I smacked myself upside the head with another great idea. I know a bunch of celebrities and movie stars from my nose hair practice. I can get them to endorse my novel.

I contacted Bethany Bigstar and asked her if I could meet with her about a business proposal. She agreed. I grabbed a copy of my novel and visited her at her mansion. I sat by the pool until she finished her workout with her trainer. Then she went for a swim. Then she put on a big hat and sunglasses and answered several phone calls. Finally, Bethany grabbed a fruity drink, came over, and sat next to me.

I presented my case and asked Bethany if she would read my book and promote it on her social media feeds.

She took the novel, looked at the cover, and said, “Mark, darling. I would love to, but I will need at least 100 grand. After all, I have to pay someone to read it and write the endorsement text. And I am a big star.”

I briefly considered doing another nose job to pay for it. But I had already sold all my surgery equipment to my arch nose hair surgeon enemy, Stanley Plucker.

I tried several other stars and celebrities with similar results. Discouraged and out of ideas, I decided to start on my second novel.

Since my first novel didn’t sell, I decided to try a more commercial approach. I began writing a romance novel about a werewolf doctor in love with a vampire doctor set in an alternate universe with dragons who hunt werewolves and vampires using their supernatural powers. So the two doctors escape using time-travel stones and end up in the past where there are even more dragons. Except these dragons don’t have supernatural powers — just normal fire-breathing — and they only like burning up warriors engaged in battle. Unfortunately, the people in that timeline liked to hunt werewolves and vampires, so it was not much better. And the food was worse.

Who could resist this one? I thought. As I toiled away, I discovered that writing a commercial-plotted novel was boring. I didn’t even like my characters. I mean, one killed or maimed people and turned them into werewolves, and the other bit people and turned them into eternal creatures of the night. Why would anyone want to read about their romance? Then I remembered sex.

Yeah! People love sex. So I added lots of sex. Murder, sex, biting necks and turning people into vampires, sex, attacking people and ripping them to shreds with werewolf jaws, sex, hiding from dragons, sex, hiding from people, sex. I was making progress, but I wasn’t enjoying it. I really wanted to write a sequel to my first novel. If only it had sold.

Then a professional writer I met at the unemployment office told me that you have to crank out a series of novels and give the first one away to get readers. Perfect! I abandoned my commercial second novel and started writing the sequel to my first. This time, the nose hair doctor would be recruited by the CIA as a spy.

Nine months later, my second masterpiece was finished. I published it, and nothing. Then I remembered I was supposed to give away my first book. So I did. No one cared. A handful of people downloaded it, but it didn’t get any reviews.

I have to admit; I was getting a little depressed. Is this why people get boring, good-paying jobs like nose hair surgeons? Should I have kept my day job and written at night when I wasn’t invited to any of the parties my celebrity clients were throwing? Did I even have what it took to be a best-selling novel writer?

My life was about to turn into one of those depressing novels about alcoholics that ends badly when the phone rang. It was Bethany Bigstar.

“Mark, darling. You know my personal assistant, Viv Doesitall? Well, I broke down and gave her a week off. It had only been five years since her last week off, but I’m such a softy. You know that. Anywho, she went to the beach and started reading a romance novel about a vampire doctor and a werewolf doctor, but she got bored. Then she realized that she had the copy of your novel that you left for me. Believe it or not, she read it. For free. Can you imagine? But wait, it gets better. She loved it!”

“Does this mean you will do an endorsement?” I replied.

“Sorry, love, that ship has sailed. My manager says I am over my quota for book reviews. I need to back off for a while. But I have an idea. I want you to ghostwrite a novel for me.”

“Can it be about a nose hair surgeon who travels through time?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It will be about a movie star who gets mixed up in some crazy scheme with an internet influencer, and they have a lot of sex. What do you think?”

“I think I need to eat. I’ll do it.”

Thus began my lucrative career as a celebrity ghostwriter. Word got out, and I got several celebrity novel contracts. In my spare time, I am working on the third novel in my nose hair surgeon series. It should be out next year.