Sunday, October 28, 2007

Manifesto

Heya, Nurse K, new contributor to this blog, is ALLLLL up in the house. I killed my blog at least temporarily, and I have decided to use this time productively to write and finish my first novel.

I think my writing talent is (1) finding humor in mundane things (2) witty repartee (3) sarcasm/cynicism (4) dark humor and (5) political and societal commentary, so I hope there will be an interesting mix of all of these and a little touch of human emotion to go with it. Note how my writing talents do not include "plot development".

I am planning a book that uses some of the stuff from my blog and other life experiences. Chapter 1 takes place at the main character's redundant HIPAA training in the hospital, and the reader is regaled with the intrigue of the main character going through astounding and complicated lengths to smoke a cigarette in the face of the hospital's campus-wide smoking ban (the rules of which are the same rules found at my hospital). A little interesting dialogue occurs between the main character (Martha), the smokers, and her friend from the ER (Fawn) once they reach the smoking area.

Martha will go on to get involved personally with an unsavory, frequent-flyer patient (not sexually, but as a "friend") and try to do some behind-the-scenes work to help him repair his life [think Amelie] without disclosing information about another patient who she thinks would be the primo solution to his problems with drugs and alcohol. When she finally decides to be borderline unethical and hook these two patients up, major problems ensue. Meanwhile, throughout the story, Martha's dad is lonely, apathetic, and dying of liver and kidney problems [but still funny]. In the end, all of the characters who are good at heart are happy and at peace.

I think that's what will happen anyway.

9 comments:

Dreaming again said...

Oh! I love it!!!!

I have a friend who has recently lost her daughter to brain cancer. Granted, I don't think smoking IN the hospital is a good idea. Smoking area's are one thing, but this children's hospital did not allow smoking ON CAMPUS! PERIOD END OF DISCUSSION ... not even in the parking lot ...

So, we'd go stand out in the MIDDLE OF THE STREET on the median, for her to smoke ... as she took a few minutes to breathe and absorb whatever news she'd just gotten from the doctors.

We had to look quite ..um ..interesting ..standing in the middle of the street with her smoking. It must have looked really really interesting when she'd go out at nighttime ...*blink*

It was one of the things we found to laugh at (and still do) through the tragedy that was brain cancer.

Nurse K said...

My hospital forbids you from smoking even across the street if you're in clothes readily identifiable as hospital attire (eg. scrubs or anything with a hospital namebadge on), so when Martha comes out of her HIPAA training in jeans and a sweatshirt and goes to the secret smoking location, much jealousy is expressed because she can simply "cross the street to smoke" because she's in jeans and a sweatshirt.

Brain cancer sucks. I used to be a neuro nurse. We'd pretty much get to see our patients from diagnosis to death in some cases, all the while getting worse and worse.

Dreaming again said...

they had that policy too

Some of the nurses would 'hide' in this underpass thing.

You know, I get anti smoking laws ... I really do ..but ..don't they go just a bit ...too far?

Nurse K said...

Certainly. It seems silly to regulate what employees do across the street or in their cars (no smoking in your car once you enter a hospital-owned parking ramp). That's why I'm poking fun at the idea. Even though I'm not a smoker, the hospital smoking culture is pretty funny because it's like a secret society with secret lingo and secret meeting places.

Dreaming again said...

I agree. I agree that there needs to be incentives to quit, but regulating like this, to people like me (although, I'm a non smoker) would just have me digging in my heels just to show you that I CAN AND WILL FIND A WAY AROUND YOUR STUPID RULES!!!!

I also found it offensive that my friend, with her horrible sick kid, being put in such a humiliation ... in the midst of the worst time of her life.

MaryK said...

I used to walk past Peter Mac (a huge hospital here in Melbourne devoted just to cancer patients) and some of the patients would congregate outside with their drip trolley things for a cigarette.

Life is full of choices. They made them. None of my business.

Nurse K said...

"Drip trolley." I like that. Never heard an IV pole called that.

We are supposed to discharge patients who leave the hospital to have a smoke. If you leave the premises to smoke (and are not confused and, like wandering), you are discharged from the hospital.

#1 Dinosaur said...

Note how my writing talents do not include "plot development".

Then you're perfect for NaNo, and vice versa. Plots are decidedly optional.

Have you read "No Plot? No Problem." It's great.

Nurse K said...

No plot no problem? Eh, to me, if there is no plot, there is a problem. I should be past the "writing for its own sake" thing by now. That's what a blog is for. I'll need there to be some semblance of plot...