Deep into research

I am deep into research for a novel I am writing now--while waiting for second round of revisions on Breathe--and I have been talking to this brilliant neurologist and it is so much fun, I can barely contain myself. There is the thrill of learning something fascinating, of course, but there is also the deeper thrill of being able to use all this information to make my characters and my novel start to breathe on their own and come alive.  (Ah, more medical talk.)

I love medicine. Every time I visit my doctors, I grab for the JAMA (journal of american medicine) rather than the other magazines and pour over it.  I wish I had had the chemistry grades and the ability to be two things--a doctor and a writer.  I would have been a neurologist, or an obstetrician or a hematologist, or maybe I would have done research.  Of course, I also love science and sometimes I wish I had become an astronomer or a physicist, too.  I suppose you could say I get to dip into all of those subjects being a writer, but really, you know it isn't the same. 

I read recently about the wife of an old friend who, in her 40s, was going to med school to be a nurse.  It's a great career, and there is constant work, and I wonder if that is something I would like, which is why one of my main characters is a neonatal nurse. 

But right now, with all this neurological information, I am so excited, I am setting off sparks. And of course, the thing I really want to continue to be is a novelist.