STORY STARTERS

        People sometimes ask me where I get the ideas for my stories. Some authors plot a story and then find the character while other authors start with a character and sort of let the character write the story. With the exception of three of my short stories, I usually rely on my imagination, often playing the “what if” game. For example, I’m in a market and bump into a woman causing her to drop her purchases. As we both bend down to pick them up, I notice that she has an unusual tattoo on her wrist. What if she is a…?
        The three exceptions referred to above were actual events I experienced and used in short stories. One of these was my adventures in a large New York City department store. The second was what happened to me riding a New York City police horse, and the third was when I was mistakenly censured for flying over the White House. In one of my novels, Incident in Geneva, I patterned the protagonist after myself in describing what I thought life might be five hundred years from now.
I was not always old and blind. Except for the last fifteen years, my vision was 20/20. It was only when my copilot in the Civil Air Patrol mentioned that my landings were getting bumpy and tactfully suggested I see an ophthalmologist who told me my flying days were over.
As a medical school professor I wrote a number of medical and scientific books and many articles in scientific journals. I never learned touch-typing, but I could “hunt and peck” at a pretty good rate. My non-scientific writings began with poetry, which came easy to me. I wrote a book of poems, which I never published. Nobody buys poetry, but people like my poems, and now I post them on Facebook.
After I retired from Columbia, I found a second career as an expert witness, continuing to type my opinions until my vision failed. My last two nonfiction books where Understanding Infectious Disease (Mosby 1992) and The Biomedical Scientist as Expert Witness (ASM Press 2005). This last book continues to sell a few copies. My first attempt at fiction was Stranger in Time, which I self-published in 2010. It took me less than a year to write, but when I became blind I was obliged to utilize professional typists. This turned out to be a pleasant experience as I enjoy interacting with them.
Books have always played an important part of my life. Most authors are enthusiastic readers. As a kid, I read under the covers with a flashlight and continue to be an ardent reader. I read two or three books a week. After losing my vision, I’m able to continue with audio books.