Novelist Michael McLaughlin trained as a doctor for more than a decade before deciding that medicine wasn’t where he wanted to be after all. He moved back into his first love—fiction writing—in stages, moving to medical communications before deciding it was time to write full-time. Michael tells me how and why he made that shift, including how he wrote his first book, on career change, before jumping into the world of long fiction. We also talk about how he draws on his medical background and combines plotting and writing by the seat of his pants to get the best results in his work.
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Transcript: Michael McLaughlin
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Novelist Michael McLaughlin trained as a doctor for more than a decade before deciding that medicine wasn’t where he wanted to be after all. He moved back into his first love, fiction writing, in stages. First, doing medical communications before deciding it was time to write fiction full time.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:37]:
Michael tells me how and why he made that shift, including how he wrote his first book on career change before jumping into the world of long fiction. We also talk about how he draws on his medical background and combines plotting and writing by the seat of his pants to get the best results in his work. Here’s my conversation with Michael McLaughlin. Michael, welcome to Follow Your Curiosity.
Michael McLaughlin [00:01:01]:
Thank you. It’s good to be here.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:03]:
So I start everybody out with the same question, which is, were you a creative kid or did you discover your creative side later on in life?
Michael McLaughlin [00:01:13]:
I think I was a pretty creative kid. When, I actually started writing when I was a little kid. I I was I was probably, like, 10 years old when I wrote my first book. Somewhere in that 10 to 12 range or so. And, I’ve always liked stories and I’ve always liked, doing art projects when I was a little kid. I I think I, I, kind of, channel that in different ways now. But, yeah, I I think as a kid, I I was always interested in artistic things.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:44]:
So were you encouraged to pursue that kind of thing? Or was did you have the kind of family that was like, oh, that’s a waste of time. You shouldn’t do that.
Michael McLaughlin [00:01:52]:
I you know what? I I think we’re encouraged in general. I I think on my own, I kind of figured out that I wanted to go gradually figured out I wanna do something scientific and go into medicine, which on the surface kinda seems like the antithesis of doing something artistic. So I never really tested my parents, I think, to see exactly how they would have reacted. But, you know, I think they’re they’re realists, so I I think they probably would have had something to say about some of the financial challenges. And I’ve definitely felt that along the way as we as we talk a little bit more about my career choices along the way. Some of those were, financially restricted to some extent.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:32]:
Sure. So when did you start to think science was more your thing?
Michael McLaughlin [00:02:38]:
Probably in my early teens. I got into high school, I guess. I I really started to like science courses. I I liked English too. I I’ve always liked the 2. I’ve I’ve liked, reading and writing and science since probably my mid teens. And then by the time I was about 17 or so, I decided I wanted to be a doctor. And then from that point on for a while, I really heavily focused on on the science.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:06]:
Yeah. So it’s an interesting thing because but as you mentioned, you know, people tend to think that science and the arts are antithetical to each other, and I don’t really think that that is true at all. I think there’s a lot of creativity in science and math and things that we tend to shove into the left brain noncreative part. And I’m wondering what that was like for you. Did did you keep writing when you, you know, were in high school even though you were in a more science direction? Did you balance it, or did you kind of switch over? Or
Michael McLaughlin [00:03:43]:
Yeah. That’s a great question. I I really, I really balanced it, I think. When when I was in college, my favorite courses were my Shakespeare courses and my creative writing courses. So I took a I took a poetry writing course and really kind of figured out that I wasn’t a poetry person, I guess. I I really I I think I don’t understand poetry well enough, and I I certainly wasn’t writing it well enough for my own taste. But I took a short story writing course in college, and that was definitely my favorite course despite all these biology, chemistry, physics, everything else that I was taking. You know, most of which I really enjoyed too.
Michael McLaughlin [00:04:22]:
I really liked the creative writing course. It was, the the short fiction course was only about 12 people. It was really interactive, and everybody gave each other feedback each week on the writing. And I I just enjoyed, I think, not just the writing, and the creative part, but also that interaction with people. And I learned a lot from seeing other people’s writing and really starting to critique it and think about it, in that way, and just interacting and and needing to express, outwardly what I what I thought about the writing and and why. And that that’s very difficult, but still, I think, difficult for me and for a lot of people. You read things and you you know what you like sometimes and but it’s hard to express exactly why you liked it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:05:08]:
Right. Right. And and it’s kind of interesting to me too because I’m not always sure that quantifying those things is helpful. You know, I think that that we get caught up in the whole, we must measure everything kind of mentality. I’m like, why?
Michael McLaughlin [00:05:26]:
Right. Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:05:26]:
You know?
Michael McLaughlin [00:05:27]:
Yeah. So I did I I I did couple creative writing courses in college. I I wrote short stories when I was in college. And then in medical school, I continued to write short stories. And, and then as we had kids and when I say short stories, at that point, most of those were, kind of funny anecdotes, especially as we started to have kids and and raise kids. There are just so many kind of, mind opening strange occurrences that take place. And, you know, so I I wrote a lot of those. I I wrote a good number of, just these funny anecdotes that I shared with family.
Michael McLaughlin [00:06:03]:
And, you know, most of which I never even tried to get published in any way. They’re just kind of in the back drawer. And every now and then, I pull them out and I share them with my kids as they get older to entertain them or I don’t know. Sometimes they’re sometimes they’re more annoyed than entertain. I’m not really sure. But, but it entertains me. So maybe that’s, that’s that’s almost as important, I suppose.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:24]:
Well, I mean, that’s that’s kind of the whole point of of doing something creative, you know. And I think there are people who would object to the word entertain, but I think if you’re not having fun, why are you doing it?
Michael McLaughlin [00:06:37]:
Right. Right. Yeah. I agree.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:39]:
Yeah. So you went to med school. You went through I mean, how how long were you in med school and residency and all of that?
Michael McLaughlin [00:06:53]:
A long time. So I was in med school for 4 years, and then I did 6 years of residency after that. Med school I did at Columbia, and then I stayed on there. And I did, 3 years of general surgery residency, 2 years of plastic surgery and reconstructive surgery, and then I did 1 year of hand surgery and microsurgery after that. So, yeah, a long time a whole decade of my life, not to mention the time spent before that and some time after that once I got into practice.
Nancy Norbeck [00:07:22]:
Yeah. So, obviously, there was an appeal there. So what what was it that got you there and kept you there aside from just I like science?
Michael McLaughlin [00:07:34]:
Oh, I, you know, I I wanted to be a surgeon from an early age. I I knew that, I wanted to do that specifically, And I kind of changed a little bit as far as what type of surgery I like doing, but, you know, I I like, I guess I I like seeing problems and fixing them. And I I think that’s, you know, in surgery, that’s what you do, and you do it in a really meaning meaningful way for people. You can really have an impact on people’s lives. And and, so you get kind of a combination of a problem to fix, a challenge for yourself, and then also the outcome of being able to do something good for people. So that that really drew me to going into medicine and going into surgery specifically.
Nancy Norbeck [00:08:19]:
Well, and it’s it’s interesting that, you know, when you say that it gives you the opportunity to help people, I find it kind of fascinating that you’ve gone from hand surgery to writing. As someone who has had carpal tunnel surgery on both wrists, it seems kind of fitting and slightly ironic.
Michael McLaughlin [00:08:34]:
I fixed many hundreds of those.
Nancy Norbeck [00:08:36]:
I bet you did. I am deeply grateful to the person who fixed mine.
Michael McLaughlin [00:08:41]:
Sure. Sure.
Nancy Norbeck [00:08:43]:
So when did you start to think maybe this wasn’t what you wanted to do?
Michael McLaughlin [00:08:48]:
I was probably, I was probably about, I don’t know, halfway into my residency, I started to wonder a little bit. I had a couple of friends who were in the program with me who went on to do other things who left the program that I was in. And, you know, I just I was so on on a track and it’s, you know, you I was so busy. I was working so many hours that it was hard to even think outside of the box that I was driving further in into during the residency program. But I I also, I I really enjoyed the individual things that I was doing. But, you know, I really started, you know, I got married. We started to have kids. I started to wonder whether from a, you know, work life balance standpoint, there there might be something better for me.
Michael McLaughlin [00:09:35]:
And then as I got into practice, I I remember thinking, oh, boy. Let’s, let’s see how this goes. I remember signing the contract, you know, and and starting working. And and, you know, I had great experiences with the patients that I worked with and really enjoyed the the, you know, being able to help people and doing doing the surgery and and all that. But, a lot of what I was doing was outside of what I thought a doctor would be doing. There’s a lot of extra, just just paperwork and just non patient time, non surgery operating room time that really starts to consume you. And so but with that and with, you know, with really at times feeling like I was working around the clock and having trouble again balancing, work life, I I decided I I really started to second guess things and and wonder whether I should do something else. And after about 2 years in the practice, I decided to change gears and to think about, either an alternative practice type or, an alternative career.
Michael McLaughlin [00:10:41]:
And I spent about 2 years, took a long time to try and figure out what else I could do. And, you know, it’s funny. At at that time, I was about so I was about 2 years into what ended up being 4 years in practice. And I thought, well, what do I really wanna do? And what I really wanna do was be a novelist at that time. That’s that that was my dream job. But that was the point. I mentioned some financial considerations. At that point, you know, I I had a family.
Michael McLaughlin [00:11:09]:
I had a wife and 2 kids. And by the time I left practice, she was pregnant with my wife was pregnant with our 3rd daughter. And so financial considerations were real at that point. So even though I never went into surgery with financial considerations in mind at all, when I was looking to change careers, I really had to consider whether I could, you know, have a salary on a regular basis consistent and to the amount that we were looking for. So, you know, even though I kind of kept the novelist idea on the back burner as I looked at other types of careers. And at that point, I found out that I could combine my scientific and medical interests and passion with a passion for writing and go into medical writing. And so that’s what I did. Once I found out that I could combine those and basically write for an industry called medical communications, which, in our case, supported pharmaceutical companies in their writing needs, I I had an epiphany.
Michael McLaughlin [00:12:12]:
I couldn’t believe that I could combine those two sides of my brain like you like you were saying and and, and combine really my two passions to find something that I think was really a a, you know, a second true calling for me after going into medicine.
Nancy Norbeck [00:12:28]:
And I’m sure that a lot of people said, oh, this is the absolutely perfect thing for you because because it combines those two things. I mean, when I finished undergrad, I had done a lot of, you know, student employment in the computer center, you know, doing tech support and things like that. And that’s exactly what people said. Like, oh, you should be a technical writer because it combines your technical writing is not that interesting.
Michael McLaughlin [00:12:52]:
Right. Right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:12:53]:
Discovered. You know? It’s like, yeah, it sounds good on paper. And and it did give me a passion for writing very clear documentation for things, but, ultimately, it was just not something that I was gonna wanna do forever. And I’m I’m guessing that you may have experienced the same thing.
Michael McLaughlin [00:13:12]:
Yeah. Well, you know, there are even within when I did, there are a lot of different types of medical writing, and some are more dry to from my perspective, from, you know, in my opinion, more dry than others. And when I started, I actually did, it was kind of a mix. It was fair it was very scientific, but it was also initially working with marketing teams, so it’s a little bit more creative. I was working with artists. I was working with, copywriters in addition to the scientific writers that I was working with. So it was kind of a kind of a blend. But, but, you know, but but then as time went on, I got further and further into more, pure scientific writing in in, within this career.
Michael McLaughlin [00:13:55]:
And as I was doing that, I I would come home and late at night after the kids were in bed or whatever, I I would start to you know, I’d try and write some short stories. I even wrote a couple of books over those years, a couple of novels and and actually a book about changing careers. And, you know, I just squeezed in that time because I I just had this need to get these additional creative thoughts out of my head.
Nancy Norbeck [00:14:22]:
It’s funny how that works. And I I feel like I should issue a caveat about my statement about technical writing. It was not that interesting to me. There were plenty of people who do it and love it, and that’s awesome, and we’re very glad that they exist. But but, yeah, it’s it’s really interesting to me, you know, that so many people do manage to do creative work in the little nooks and crannies of time that they can find. And yet so many other people say, oh, I’d really like to be an artist, but I don’t have the time. You know? And and I’m not saying that to judge anybody, but there there does seem to be, you know, certain people are just pulled strongly enough by it that it’s like, I don’t really have time, but I’m gonna find some even if it’s 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there. And it’s it’s always interesting to me to hear how that works out for folks.
Nancy Norbeck [00:15:16]:
It clearly seems to have worked for you ultimately.
Michael McLaughlin [00:15:19]:
Yeah. It’s, I I just needed to do it. And and and I knew that I had to carve out the time somehow. And no matter how I did that, it’s exercise. You know, everybody’s kinda wants to exercise and either you figure out a a way you’re gonna get it done or or you don’t. And I think writing’s a lot like that. And just to give you a sense, the the first book I wrote was about changing careers. The way I wrote that book was I, I had an hour and a half commute each way to work for many years actually.
Michael McLaughlin [00:15:49]:
And I dictated that book while driving. And, and then originally, I did it on a dictaphone that I just had next to me sitting on the, on the passenger seat. And then after I dictated it, I brought it to a transcriptionist that I had worked with previously. She transcribed it. This was back in the old days with little tapes. You know, she had these little little, like a cassette tape. And so she transcribed it, and then I edited it further. But that that’s how I squeezed it in.
Michael McLaughlin [00:16:23]:
I I found and I and I I did this a lot, and I continue to do this. If I have downtime that’s not enjoyable for some reason, I try and somehow convert it to to something positive. And so in those drives, it was you you know, you could it could just be completely mind numbing, and sometimes it is. But if you’ve in this case, I figured out a way to actually read a book while I was stuck in traffic. And, that was that was easier to do with that particular book because it was I set it up as more of a q and a, and it was it was all in my head. And I just needed to get it out of my head. It’s very different than a novel. I think I tried to do that a little bit with creative writing for non for fiction, and it was just completely impossible.
Michael McLaughlin [00:17:10]:
I just couldn’t do it. So it’s very, very different. You know?
Nancy Norbeck [00:17:13]:
I was wondering how you managed to focus on driving and dictate something like that.
Michael McLaughlin [00:17:18]:
Yeah. I just pretended I was talking to somebody. I I just pretended I was talking to somebody on the phone. Basically, it’s all these questions people would ask me about changing careers. So I just kind of, in my head, decided, alright. Well, I’m speaking to somebody on the phone, and I I just dictated it. And, and I got it done. It was pretty amazing, actually, that that I was able to to do that.
Michael McLaughlin [00:17:37]:
I was so pleased that I was able to do it that way. But but, yeah, with fiction, yeah, it yeah. I can’t imagine somebody could get away with that. I when when I’m writing fiction, I’m just so absorbed. I I think I wouldn’t have stayed on the road for very long, I think, if I was if I was Yeah. Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:17:53]:
I mean, I’m sure that there’s someone who has done it. But I don’t think I would recommend it.
Michael McLaughlin [00:17:59]:
No. Actually, those those really exciting scenes. Right? You get right to the climax of the book, and and, it’s gotta be hard to pay attention to everything else you’re doing.
Nancy Norbeck [00:18:10]:
Or if you really get into the flow and then somebody cuts you off in traffic and completely throws you out, that would just absolutely break me.
Michael McLaughlin [00:18:20]:
Exactly.
Nancy Norbeck [00:18:20]:
But and and it’s also, you know, I know transcription is not cheap.
Michael McLaughlin [00:18:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I yeah. I I definitely, I I spent some money on that. So
Nancy Norbeck [00:18:31]:
Yeah.
Michael McLaughlin [00:18:32]:
Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:18:34]:
But if it works and you can afford to do it, more power to you.
Michael McLaughlin [00:18:39]:
Yeah. That was a one time deal for me. So
Nancy Norbeck [00:18:42]:
Do you still dictate your writing?
Michael McLaughlin [00:18:45]:
No. I don’t. I don’t. I I I think I should, and and I keep telling myself that, but I I don’t. I I mostly sit down at the computer and and type.
Nancy Norbeck [00:18:57]:
I just wondered because I’ve I’ve noticed when I was dealing with the wrist issues, you know, people were saying, oh, you should dictate, you know, especially because it was the last year of my MFA program. And so, you know, I had to be able to keep typing and working on my book and everything. And I found the process so different, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. You know, I think when you’re used to doing something on the keyboard, I think the the process is different somehow as it goes through your neural circuitry.
Michael McLaughlin [00:19:27]:
And I think so.
Nancy Norbeck [00:19:28]:
And I just never never became a fan, which is why I was especially thrilled that someone could fix my wrist and I didn’t have to force myself to become a fan. So you’ve noticed the same thing?
Michael McLaughlin [00:19:41]:
Yeah. Definitely. I’m you know, I don’t know why, but I think I think maybe because I’m so visual that I think it helps to see the words on the page as I’m coming up with the next words. I I I think somehow that’s that’s part of it. A lot of it’s just habit too, you know. I I think I think, yeah, if, if someone took my computer and said you can’t use it anymore, I’d find another way.
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:04]:
That’s a good point. Yeah. And we we do tend to be very adaptable creatures, human beings. So we probably would adapt if we had to. But I’m hoping I don’t ever have to.
Michael McLaughlin [00:20:16]:
Right. Exactly. That’s right. Nobody nobody ever wants to adapt, I think. No. Maybe in theory, they do, but I think in in your health.
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:25]:
Change is evil and hard.
Michael McLaughlin [00:20:26]:
I don’t wanna do that. Change is scary. Change is scary. That’s right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:30]:
So how did you make the transition from medical communication into writing actual novels and doing that as a bigger chunk of your time?
Michael McLaughlin [00:20:43]:
Well, basically, I was I was fortunate. I was able to, to sell the company that I had started over the last few years. So that happened in 2 stages, 2018 and then this past summer in 2022. But in the middle of that, I I was able to phase out of the company. And then so, believe it or not, on March 13, 2020, right, as the world was caving in on us, that was my last day at the office. Oh. And and my plans were to, to write and to become a full time novelist at that point. Also, to travel a little bit, to go to some concerts and go to some sporting events, and everything else went away.
Michael McLaughlin [00:21:27]:
And so I started writing up a storm. I became extremely productive during that difficult time for all of us. You know? They’re they’re just, we all had to adapt. There wasn’t too much to to do. We had to find those things we could do, and writing was definitely one of them for me.
Nancy Norbeck [00:21:44]:
It’s so interesting because I I’m wondering now how many how many pandemic writers there are, you know, writers who were born of the pandemic. I talked to a girl a couple months ago who is probably 15 by now. I think she was 14 then. And she started writing novels during the pandemic because she had nothing else to do. Told her parents she was playing video games,
Michael McLaughlin [00:22:09]:
And
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:09]:
then, you know, emerges with this finished novel. Hey, mom and dad. I wrote a book when I told you I was playing video games.
Michael McLaughlin [00:22:16]:
Aren’t you supposed to do the complete opposite? Aren’t you supposed to say I’m working, writing a book, and then you you play the video games on the side? That’s pretty admirable. That’s that’s impressive.
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:26]:
Yeah. She’s written a pile of books and published them and the whole the whole deal. And
Michael McLaughlin [00:22:31]:
That’s great.
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:32]:
You know, I you you the 2 of you can’t be the only 2. There must be only
Michael McLaughlin [00:22:36]:
Oh, yes.
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:37]:
A whole unknown club of people who turned into full fledged novelists during the pandemic.
Michael McLaughlin [00:22:43]:
No doubt about it. I’m sure there are a lot.
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:47]:
So, you know, we talked a little bit about whether or not your parents encouraged you as a kid. But since you made this massive change a whole lot later, did you get a lot of pushback from people? Or were they, at that point, kinda like, well, if you can afford to do it, knock yourself out?
Michael McLaughlin [00:23:05]:
When I wanted to write full time, you mean? Mhmm. No. No. No pushback at that point. In fact, I was surprised at how many people knew that that’s exactly what I wanted to do, you know. Because I it’s not like I was running around the whole time complaining about what what I was doing at the time. I I’ve enjoyed really the different aspects of my career along the way, but multiple people said, oh, you’ve wanted to do that since you were young, you know, since you were in college or high school or when you were a little kid depending on how long they knew me. And, and that, I guess, validated it a little bit further for me that, that I’ve always wanted to do this.
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:48]:
That’s great.
Michael McLaughlin [00:23:50]:
It has been Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:50]:
Thinking about how we treat these kind of aspirations differently depending on the age of the person expressing them. You know, when you’re a kid, it’s like, it’s fine when you’re, you know, in grade school, maybe when you’re in high school, but then you have to grow up and get serious and do something that makes money. And, you know, and even even in in college. But, you know, when you’re older and somebody can say, yeah, you’ve wanted to do this forever. Suddenly, it becomes, this is totally what Michael needs to do because he’s wanted to do it forever.
Michael McLaughlin [00:24:21]:
Yeah. It
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:21]:
seems a little a little odd to me that we differentiate that way.
Michael McLaughlin [00:24:27]:
I think you’re right. I definitely agree with you. At the same time, though, I I look back and I now that I’m doing this full time, I I’ve kind of wondered, wow. Could I have done this at different other time points in my life? And I don’t know. I I you know, I think to be successful as a novelist takes a while. Mhmm. And so I think there are different sacrifices that people make along the way to to make that dream happen, and and some of them get going on it right out of the gate. Some are really fortunate, and maybe they are they’re a big success right away.
Michael McLaughlin [00:24:59]:
But I think more often, there there are probably more people out there that kind of struggle through it or or need to go through the learning curve or or just the, you know, put in the whatever those 10000 hours or whatever you need to to be able to be good and then hopefully successful in various ways and earn an income, I guess, to to make it work. And so when I look back at the different, key milestones in my career, I’m not so sure I would have gotten away with this because I I I I need the time. I’m getting better with every book that I write. And, so I don’t know if I would have been a success out of the gate when I was in my twenties or when I changed careers in my thirties.
Nancy Norbeck [00:25:41]:
That’s an interesting point, not least because probably what you would have written then is very different than what you would write now just because life experience makes a huge difference.
Michael McLaughlin [00:25:50]:
And that’s also definitely true. Yeah. It’s also funny, I you know, I’ve written a couple of short stories recently and and it’s hard for me to remember some of those experiences now that I was trying to trying to write about. So but, you know, there it’s, yeah. I think there are certain hot topics at at different points in your life and and things that get you excited to write about at different points in your life. And sometimes when you try and force fit them at a different time in your life, it is more it is more difficult at times.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:25]:
Definitely. So take us through the process of, you know, what you decided to write when to end up where you are now, because I know you’re writing you have a whole range of different areas and genres that you’ve written in.
Michael McLaughlin [00:26:42]:
Sure. Yeah. I I mentioned the short stories, so that’s been kind of an ongoing thing throughout my life. As far as the novels, I wrote, I wrote, you know, as a physician, I guess it’s probably not a surprise. I started with a medical thriller. And, so I wrote this book called Extinction that’s about it takes place in the arctic at a wooly mammoth research station, and and the researchers there start to die, quickly from a mysterious disease. And so this doctor gets sent from the United States to go up to the research station and try and figure out what’s going on. And within a short amount of time, he’s in just as much, if not more trouble than everybody there.
Michael McLaughlin [00:27:24]:
And so they’re kind of racing against the clock to figure out what’s going on while all these various, awful, forces are converging on them. So that was the first one. And that, I might have I think I finished that one in 2010. I think the Amazon date on that is, like, 2012 or 13 because that’s when maybe I launched it or something, but but it was around that time. But that one took a while. You know, I was writing these on the side, so that one took years to write. And I probably had the idea many years before that and kind of slowly chipped away at it. And then and then finally put it into book format.
Nancy Norbeck [00:28:04]:
Are you a real stickler for making it all medically accurate? Or do you take liberties in the name of writing fiction?
Michael McLaughlin [00:28:10]:
No. I’m a stickler for making it medically accurate. And I I, you know, the amount of research I do for every single little thing that I put in, I I I on any book, it doesn’t have to be Michael. I I just wanna get it exactly right. I, you know, it it’s it gets frustrating for people if they’re reading something. They they start to question other things in the book, I think. If they see some things in there that that don’t make sense or or that maybe they’re more of an expert on and and they’re inaccurate. It’s it’s hard though to nail all these things down.
Michael McLaughlin [00:28:43]:
It’s it could be just about anything in a book that can burn you if, you know, if you get it wrong. So yeah. No. I’m I’m pretty careful with the medical information. And even the books I’ve written that aren’t, medical thrillers have had fairly, reasonably involved medical aspects to them. There’s something medical going on with with some of the characters and that type of thing. And, you know, I I think for me, it’s easy to kind of throw in something like like that, some kind of medical condition or something that makes it, you know, that poses an additional challenge for a, a character as as they’re going through.
Nancy Norbeck [00:29:23]:
And that gives you you know, your background gives you a lot of of stuff to draw on for ideas for things like that, which is really cool.
Michael McLaughlin [00:29:29]:
Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. There’s there’s a lot to draw on. I did, so I did after that. A few years later, I, you know, I I had this idea. Well, I was I’ve I’ve always been really interested in in the power of the media, both, you know, positive and some of the pitfalls of the power of the media. And so and I I always find it interesting to watch how media coverage works around a really big event or or, you know, some kind of issue that’s going on.
Michael McLaughlin [00:30:00]:
And so I wrote this book called, The Satin Strangler Blogs. And, actually, I I wrote it online on in blog format on websites, on blog sites originally. And eventually, I made a I took that and, published it as a book as well. But basically, it’s the story of a female serial killer, told from the perspectives of 12 different bloggers. And you never really you’re you’re you’re never really in the mind of that accused person. You’re just seeing everyone out there, most some of whom are close to her, but many of whom are so far removed that they couldn’t possibly know what they’re really talking about. And so I tell this story and you follow what happens with this character from the perspectives of these 12 bloggers. And I actually, I created these 12 full blown blog sites that have far more blogs on them than my story.
Michael McLaughlin [00:31:03]:
And, but I I then mapped it out, so that you could follow the story blog post by blog post. And at the end of each blog post, there’s a link that takes you to a completely different blog site. And you gradually leapfrog through the Internet universe and read the 105 blog posts that make up the chapters of the book. And, so, I did that and and then I, you know, people said, well, can I read it as a book? So I, you know, so I I took what I thought was this really cool, creative thing that I you know, I created this whole universe of, on the Internet. And, and I took all those posts and I put them in order and I I put them into a book. And, so I I really love that story. But now that it’s in a book, when people read the book, the the way I’ve written it kind of throws them off a little bit. So I, you know, I don’t I usually don’t recommend to people that that be the first book of mine that they read because they’ll they’ll wonder if I write all my books like that.
Michael McLaughlin [00:32:08]:
You know? But but the other the other 3 are traditional novels with traditional perspectives and that kind of thing. But this one was kind of a more of a, really a full blown creative process to pull this thing together.
Nancy Norbeck [00:32:22]:
Yeah. I mean, that that’s quite an undertaking and a really cool idea, and there must have been people who, you know, were perfectly happy to read it there.
Michael McLaughlin [00:32:32]:
Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s set up pretty well to to do that. I think one of the things that can happen to people is, you know, they can’t read the whole thing in a sitting. So you unless you somehow log where you are when when you stop reading, it can be hard to get back in. So that was a logistical challenge with doing that. And I I also have it online though where you can just keep clicking and the screen changes and you kind of feel a little bit like you’re on a different blog site, but not exactly. So there’s that version too. But, you know, sometimes too, I think I I created this because I I I really just needed to do it this way and I I really thought it would be really cool and I’m very proud of what I did.
Michael McLaughlin [00:33:18]:
At the same time, I I can see why it’s not everybody’s favorite thing to read or everybody’s favorite way to read either. So after that, I went back to writing more traditional novels.
Nancy Norbeck [00:33:30]:
Sure.
Michael McLaughlin [00:33:30]:
So that’s that’s what I’ve written. I’ve written the career change book and those two novels, before 2020. And then I’ve written 2 novels since then, and I have a third that’s complete now that I’m about to query out to to agents. But the so after after leaving my job, basically, my my day job, I, I had a whole bunch of book ideas and I still have a whole bunch of book ideas that I scribbled down over the years and kept in a file. And so I wrote a book first called, Woods, which is, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with geocaching, but it’s basically yeah. You, there there’s an app to help you out. But basically, everywhere around us, just about everywhere, people have hidden these little these little treasures, these little, canisters of different kinds with with different items in them. And so the idea is that you use this GPS tracker system.
Michael McLaughlin [00:34:30]:
You go in many cases, you’re on a hike, but it’s even in cities. You can find them on a corner underneath a pipe or something. Someone’s hidden these little canisters. And, and so you you go, you find it, you can swap out the item for something of greater value and put something else in there, or just log in on a little piece of paper when you found it. And then you you’re supposed to go back and confirm for other people that it was still there and and it’s intact and that kind of thing. So, so, of course, enjoying thrillers, I took this wonderful family activity, and, I thought how cool would it be if I took some, kind of, city flicker kind of kids from New York City sent them up to the the Northwoods of Maine to go geocaching to find the latest novel actually, the last novel of their, favorite horror fiction writer. And so this fictitious character has hidden the novel in multiple geocaches over the course of, set like, 30 to 40 miles up in the Northwoods. And so you can go up there and theoretically, fictitiously, and and hike through and find the different chapters of the book.
Michael McLaughlin [00:35:50]:
And that’s how you read this person’s book. And, of course, I send these characters up there. They have enough money. These kids have enough money. They kind of, you know, all lie to their parents saying where they are and nobody’s parents are paying attention. And and they take a a flight in a helicopter up to this remote place where they’re the only way out is to hike these 30 to 40 miles out through completely desolate, forest. And so, of course, while they’re geocaching to find these things, the geocaches start to be kind of bizarre, and then they realize someone’s following them. And and then the book goes forward from there.
Michael McLaughlin [00:36:31]:
And and when I wrote this one, all I knew is that I wanted to send these kids into the woods in the middle of nowhere, have them only have one way out, and bring in the geocache thing because I thought that was really cool. And, and then sic this, like, you know, this horrible person on them in the the middle of the woods. And I had no idea whether they were gonna get out, who was gonna get out, how they were gonna get out. And, I I actually just wrote it without an outline and figured out where they were going and how they got out. And it was one of the more fun writing experiences in my life to to try and work that out. And I actually did that with the last two books that I wrote. Where I knew the first chapter, I kind of knew where I was headed and and then I started to write. And I know there, you know, there are the the writers out there are, either, outliners or pantsers.
Michael McLaughlin [00:37:24]:
Right? So, so this was a couple of pantser projects that I did. The other ones I really had to kind of figure out in advance. And, but these 2, I I went by the seat of my pants, and I I really enjoyed that these last 2.
Nancy Norbeck [00:37:39]:
It’s really interesting that you’ve done some of each because most people seem to land fairly firmly on one side or the other. Though it makes sense that certain projects for you would would require more outlining than others.
Michael McLaughlin [00:37:50]:
Definitely. Definitely. And, you know, the, yeah, the next book I did was like that too. I I just decide, alright, the so that book was woods, is what it’s called. And then the my 4th book, it the latest about a year ago, I released it is, Fugue, f u g u e, which some people have never heard the word, other people have. But, I, for that one, I knew I wanted to have a and a bunch of these are young female protagonists that are really like these dynamic strong female protagonists, which is really cool because I have 3 daughters. And, you know, so it’s, somehow, this is where I’ve fallen into as far as some of my characters. But, so this character though in fugue is, an older teenager and, like 18, 19.
Michael McLaughlin [00:38:41]:
And she wakes up in a foreign country in a hospital. She’s had some kind of brain surgery, has no idea what’s happened to her, where she is, why she’s there, or who she is, and is very, you know, frightened about what’s going on around her and decides in the first couple of scenes to escape through the window of the hospital. And so she goes out into what it very quickly ends up being La Paz, Bolivia, where I’ve actually spent some time. And, and she tries to figure out who she is and where she came from and where she what she wants to be in life essentially as she moves moves forward and gradually kind of sorts out the puzzle. And so with that one, I just knew that I wanted this person to wake up and have no idea who they were or why they were there and take it from there. And it it with the with both those with Woods and with Fugue, I I got to a point I get to a point where I’m, like, probably, like, a 120 pages in, and I really feel like for each book, I felt like I I had something really special going on. But then I needed to stop and sit down and go, alright. Where am I going with this? Because I wasn’t just gonna continue to free form it all the way to the finish line.
Michael McLaughlin [00:40:03]:
I I think that’s extremely difficult. So I think it’s gotta happen to most pantsers even that they they reach a point where they say, alright. Where where am I heading? I need a sense of where I’m heading with this. And so I at least figured out those few, few aspects of where each of those books needed to go. And then I went back and and wrote them. And I might have done just top line outlines on those, just some bullet points to to make sure I was staying on track. But then this latest book, the the the one that I’m I’m about to query out is a, it’s a fantasy novel, which is a real, different type of novel for me, totally different genre. And for this, I tried to write it as the pantser ran into a lot of issues, had to back up, tried to write it again, had to back up.
Michael McLaughlin [00:40:57]:
And, and then it it ended up being an outline from scratch. And, I mean, you know, redoing the outline and rewriting from scratch. And and so there are definitely time and I have a feeling that moving forward, I’ll probably outline. So I think that was an interesting lesson. You you know, you don’t wanna be 6 months into a project or so, or probably even more in this case. This is another idea I worked on off and on for years. And, and then to get to the point where I was thinking, oh, boy. I’ve really gotta kind of re outline this and and move forward is is a challenge.
Nancy Norbeck [00:41:34]:
It’s really interesting to me because I am definitely a pantser. And most of the pantsers that I know, it’s more like you’re outlining after the fact.
Michael McLaughlin [00:41:43]:
Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:41:43]:
You know, you have the manuscript and you’re going, okay. I’m gonna sit down. I’m gonna reread this and start asking questions and see, oh, look. Here on page 20, you know, this thing happens that I completely forgot about by page 250 and wrote something totally different, and now I have to decide which one stays, which one goes, and make it all work. So so, yeah, I mean, I I will sometimes have, like, I know I have to get to x. Right. Other than that, you know, that that’s the closest I’ve ever come to outlining anything. So it’s very interesting to me to to hear the way that you kind of mix the 2 up.
Michael McLaughlin [00:42:25]:
Well, I definitely I found that do as a pantser, I’ve had to go back and heavily rewrite, very heavily rewrite. And that’s okay. I, you know, I I actually this may sound weird. I I love coming up with ideas, but I almost like the rewriting process even better than than the initial draft process, because I feel like that’s where the magic starts to work its way into the story. I think, you know, I I write this I write the first draft knowing I’ve got something that’s worthwhile, that’s worth me spending a ton of time with, you know, and spending a lot of time with those characters. But then it’s not until the rewrite where I can tell how how special the project is. And, and so that’s I I really love the rewriting. And and in my and in my career as a within medical writing and as as I’m, you know, advanced through different positions and eventually as the owner of the company, I was doing more review, strategic input, revision, that kind of thing, than the actual initial draft.
Michael McLaughlin [00:43:31]:
So I think I got really good at that even though it’s a different type of writing.
Nancy Norbeck [00:43:35]:
Sure. Yeah. And, you know, good editing skills are good editing skills no matter where you’re where you’re putting them to use. But, yeah, I I always enjoy the process of of going through the draft, and I I always feel like it’s like solving a a puzzle or a mystery. You know, it’s like, which pieces go together?
Michael McLaughlin [00:43:53]:
It’s you know what? Having done it
Nancy Norbeck [00:43:55]:
do I have now?
Michael McLaughlin [00:43:57]:
I I really think it’s so much fun to be a pantser. Yeah. Because you’re because you just you discover it the same way the reader discovers it almost as as you’re going through. And well, I’ll tell you when I mentioned those times where I was about, you know, halfway into the book thinking where does this go? Wow. When when and you know this. When you figure out where you wanna end up, it’s so exciting. It’s it’s just, it’s I get goosebumps Yeah. Just talking about it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:44:27]:
Yeah. Especially when you’re like, oh, look. It’s all starting to come together in my head, and I know exactly what’s happening now.
Michael McLaughlin [00:44:33]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:44:34]:
Yeah. Yeah. It it I I do not have the patience or the level of interest to be able to write from an outline for that reason, because if I knew what was gonna happen, you know, why? And yet, you know, some people have to do that because that’s the way they work, and that’s fine.
Michael McLaughlin [00:44:54]:
Yeah. I mean, I’ve listened to so many, podcasts with, with writers and watched so many interviews, and it’s amazing how different everybody approaches are, you know. And and some people do evolve over time. I with with the book that I I am wrapping up now, I’m not sure if I’m really wrapping it up because other people hopefully are about to see it, and comment on it. But, but I I I hired a book coach to work with. And so she’s been great at adding you know, I consider myself to be ultra organized and and really meticulous with things. But to have somebody who can add an extra layer of that and and someone who can really dig into the book and and, you know, from through each of the, the steps in the process, outline and and early drafts or whatever, and have really valuable input on it. It has really been a game changer.
Michael McLaughlin [00:45:50]:
I I think that my my writing is getting better from from that relationship and from that interaction.
Nancy Norbeck [00:45:56]:
Oh, I’m sure.
Michael McLaughlin [00:45:57]:
Yeah. I mean,
Nancy Norbeck [00:45:57]:
and it there’s a world of difference between that and handing it to your best friend no matter how well intentioned they are who doesn’t do any kind of writing because they just don’t see the same kinds of things, though there’s merit in both of them. You know, your best friend may say, this part doesn’t make any sense and because they know something about it and the book coach may not. So yeah.
Michael McLaughlin [00:46:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. Most of the people I have review things, you know, the friends and family, you know, they don’t wanna criticize too much, which unfortunately is, you know, can make it tough. They’re they’re good at, at proofing, and then they all have some comments along the way. So I’ve actually, I changed the character’s name recently, because multiple people said, I really don’t like that character’s name. And then my my daughters are really good. They my daughters read so much and, they’ve really had some valuable input on a couple of the recent books. And, and very, you know, opinionated input as well.
Michael McLaughlin [00:46:58]:
And so, you know, sometimes I’ll I’ll and, you know, you have to decide as the creator what input you’re going to take and incorporate. And when my kids are pretty emphatic, I know they’re probably right. So, because it just leads so much.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:13]:
It’s interesting. You’re reminding me of a Neil Gaiman quote that I just came across again lately, and I don’t have the exact wording, but basically is saying, you know, remember that almost everything that that a reader tells you needs to be fixed in your book needs to be fixed. But that almost every way that they’ll tell you to fix it will be wrong.
Michael McLaughlin [00:47:37]:
I yes. I I’ve, I’ve I’ve heard yeah. You need to figure out what it is that’s bothering them because some sometimes people can’t express it exactly right. And that’s where that’s where the book coach is just spot on. She’ll say, here’s the problem, and I’ll go, oh my god. That’s exactly what the problem is. You know? And and, so that’s really helpful. But, yeah, that that’s why but when people hone in on, you know, a certain, a certain scene or a certain chapter and go, you know, having some problems with that, you know, something’s gotta be fixed and you need to figure out with something’s a lot of fun.
Nancy Norbeck [00:48:12]:
And I, you know, always have to laugh at myself in those moments where, you know, there’s something that I’ve written and I re really did it deliberately in a certain way to try to emphasize a certain thing or create a certain feeling or whatever I was trying to do. And somebody will say, what is this about? You know? Like, I don’t know what you’re trying to do here and whatever. And it’s it’s that kill your darlings moment. You know? It’s like, but I really like that, and I worked really hard on that. And yet, there’s always that voice in the back of my head going, and you know they’re right because they wouldn’t have said something if they understood what you were trying to do.
Michael McLaughlin [00:48:51]:
Oh, yeah. Well, this this current draft that I’ve got, it’s, you know, it’s been through a few iterations. And the earlier a couple of the earlier iterations had multiple perspectives, multiple characters, multiple perspectives. And then I I just I I decided I really wanted to write it from a single perspective. And so, you know, when you do that, you’ve got there are there are entire chapters, entire characters, entire everythings that either had to go away, or I needed to figure out how that character could realistically find out that information. And it’s still a total rewrite on on, you know, what ends up ends up happening to to, to allow them to do that. But, yeah, that that’s, that’s a tough one. When you change the perspective, that’s that that caused some dramatic changes.
Michael McLaughlin [00:49:36]:
That’s great.
Nancy Norbeck [00:49:37]:
But it
Michael McLaughlin [00:49:37]:
was the right thing to do. It’s so the draft I’m working with is just infinitely better than, you know, each one each draft has been so much better than the previous one because of the flexibility to to just accept that something has to change and, you know, killing your darling is very difficult.
Nancy Norbeck [00:49:56]:
Yeah. And you’re also reminding me of how many things I have written both fiction, nonfiction, you know, I mean, even just like a a report for work or something like that, where it just doesn’t seem to work and you pound your head against it, and then you suddenly realize it’s because I structured it wrong. You know? I tried to set it up as this thing, and it doesn’t wanna be that thing, and it needs to change the point of view. It needs to, you know, be ordered differently, whatever it is. And you and yet it’s amazing once you figure out what that missing thing is, how much quickly it comes together because now it’s being what it wants to be for one of a better way to put it.
Michael McLaughlin [00:50:42]:
Sure. Yep. You should see how many times I rewrite long emails.
Nancy Norbeck [00:50:49]:
Guilty as charged.
Michael McLaughlin [00:50:50]:
That’s where sometimes I need to cut myself off. Oh, you know, only 2 revisions allowed on per email. But, one of the one of the other things we were talking about was that I do wanna mention that that’s helped tremendously is, I I I used to get so hung up as I was drafting on what the exact right words were. And, and and I would start to write and, I don’t know. I would be talking about a certain car, and I would look it up online. Mid sentence, I’d go, oh, well, that’s a Corvette, but, oh, wait. What year do I want? And I would start researching, and I I stopped doing that. I I heard so many writers talking about separating their writer brain from their editorial brain.
Michael McLaughlin [00:51:37]:
And to be able to create, I found that I I can’t be critiquing myself at the same time. And that’s been a total game changer. I’m now willing to put down on a 1st draft any slot that I wanna get onto the page to get myself going and and to keep moving. And knock on wood, that’s helped tremendously with any prior writer block type problems. And and then I I know I can revise it. I know I can fix anything I put down on the page. And then when I go through it again, yeah, I spend a lot of time trying sometimes trying to figure out exactly the right word. Or, like I said, I I research a ton to make sure I get the the information right, but I I don’t allow myself to leave that that page to go do those things while I’m drafting.
Michael McLaughlin [00:52:29]:
So I I keep the editor away.
Nancy Norbeck [00:52:32]:
There there’s magic in giving yourself permission to be imperfect.
Michael McLaughlin [00:52:35]:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Nancy Norbeck [00:52:37]:
Tons of it, which of course can be very difficult to convince people of. But but, yeah, you let that go and you just say, I’m gonna write a crappy first draft. You know, I mean, I’m sure you’re familiar with Anne Lamott’s essay on shitty first drafts, which when I first encountered that about 25 years ago, it was almost like, you know, the cliched ray of sunshine from the heavens. Yeah.
Michael McLaughlin [00:53:01]:
Yeah. It’s
Nancy Norbeck [00:53:01]:
like, wow. That is brilliant and perfect and absolutely wonderful and thoroughly correct.
Michael McLaughlin [00:53:08]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you you you I think all writers feel like everything they put down has to you know, it’s gotta be moving in a great direction and and they interfere with themselves. I I I certainly do that with Michael. And I’ve gotten I really, I think, so far successfully gotten away from doing that. And, and and that’s been a game changer. Total game changer.
Nancy Norbeck [00:53:34]:
Yeah. I’m sure. So I wanted to give you a couple minutes to talk about the career change book because I’m sure that there are people who are asking themselves the very question that you tackled in it.
Michael McLaughlin [00:53:50]:
Sure. Yeah. The, so the career change book, like I said, that was the first one I wrote. I think that was early 2000, maybe 2004, 2007, somewhere in that period. I think I I worked on that. And, it’s called, do you feel like you wasted all that training? And even though that’s grammatically, technically not exactly 100% correct, which I’ve been told many times over the years, it’s that is the question that I heard from everyone when I was changing careers. And so the, I I, you know, for a while, I tried to figure out how to write the book, how to format it, and all that. But then, finally, I decided, you know what? I’m just gonna write this as answers to the questions I get asked by physicians who are considering alternative careers.
Michael McLaughlin [00:54:43]:
And so forget how many questions that are in there, maybe 60 or so questions. But basically, the book ends up following my career change process, kind of from start to finish in in in ordered questions along the way. And what ended up coming out of that was, again, through the help of a a family, family member mentor, a physician who went into business, who spent a lot of time with me, we kind of gradually worked toward, 5 stages to to go through. And, you know, so I know if I remember them all quickly, but, introspection, exploration of what’s out there, preparation to prepare yourself for what you might want, and then, acquisition, you know, applying for jobs, interviewing for jobs, that kind of thing, and then the actual transition at the end. And so I kind of walk through that. And I’ve also, I’ve, I have a website, PRN resource. It’s a physician renaissance network, and there’s a lot of information on there for doctors interested in changing careers. And through that and through the book and through a lot of connections, I’ve done a lot of speaking on that subject.
Michael McLaughlin [00:56:06]:
And so I speak every year at a conference out in Chicago by a company run by a company called SEEK, s e a k. They do a non clinical careers course. So I I spend a day on the panel out there each year. And then I’ve done speaking engagements at some pretty interesting places, where doctors wanted to hear about alternative careers. And so, I’ve gotten to travel a little bit and I’ve gotten to do some speaking on that, which has been a lot of fun and and really rewarding because I I feel like I’ve been able to really inform a lot of physicians about what their options are. And and hopefully, I try not to be the pied piper and convince everyone to leave practice because I need medical care as much as anybody else, especially as time goes on. But, you know, the the first set of conversations, though, is about looking at what you’re doing today and how you can make that situation better. And I think even that part of the conversation helps out a lot of doctors who don’t necessarily wanna do something different.
Michael McLaughlin [00:57:06]:
So that’s that that’s a lot of what I discussed with them as well. So that’s been that’s been a side interest for many years, basically, since I changed careers. There there was nothing online. There were no organizations. There was almost really no source of information on this subject. So I saw a real need. So I I’ve written a lot and spoken a bunch on on this topic.
Nancy Norbeck [00:57:25]:
Well, you don’t really hear you know, I think people assume that if you’ve gone and done all those years of med school and residency and everything else, that you’re gonna stick with it forever because you did invest all that that time. And I also have to imagine and, you know, I you may have gone through this, you know, that when you have invested all of that, that you, you know, really kinda wonder, you know, what did I do all of this for? And, you know, do I really wanna chuck it all in, or is it just a phase? Or, you know, it has to be an interesting situation to be in because you have that whole sunk cost of all of that time and money and training. And then to think about doing something different must seem kind of alien.
Michael McLaughlin [00:58:15]:
That’s all absolutely correct. I think there’s a a huge psychological hurdle for doctors and and thinking about doing something else for for that reason. And then, you know, and then there are all the all the people around you saying, oh, that’s my friend, the doctor. Oh, that’s my son, the doctor. You know? So, so that that makes it hard too. And then and then, there were there were numerous people, and I write about this in the book, numerous people who just thought I was nuts or they were wondered what was wrong with me or various things like that. I mean, relatives who who thought that, who were wondering, why it was. What was the real reason I was thinking about doing it? So so that’s all difficult.
Michael McLaughlin [00:59:00]:
And I I think for doctors too, the other thing is that, doctors go through a really linear path in in preparing for their careers. In many ways, it’s a difficult path, but in a lot of other ways, it’s a really simple path because there aren’t a lot of branches in the path. You go to medical school, you do a residency, you get a job, and most people try and decide if they wanna go into academics or private practice and then they apply for jobs. And, you know, while other people haven’t figured out they wanna be a doctor, maybe they wanna do something else, have to go through a lot of branches in their thought process to figure out what that could be. But doctors then go through this whole linear process, and then they get however far into their careers or into medical school or residency and say, gee, I think you wanna do something else. And then suddenly, they have to completely change how they assess their career and and try and figure out what what the options are. And, really, I I think a lot of doctors, including myself, when I was looking at at making career change, I was looking for a book to tell me how to do it because everything else I knew was in the textbook somewhere, and that’s how I learned everything up until that point. It’s all in the textbook.
Michael McLaughlin [01:00:16]:
And when you change careers, usually it’s networking, it’s exploration through different ways. There’s not a book that says, hey, here’s here’s how you go from point a to point b. It doesn’t really exist.
Nancy Norbeck [01:00:27]:
Yeah. You know,
Michael McLaughlin [01:00:28]:
there are a lot of books like my book that that can help people a little bit, but they’re they’re not gonna tell them exactly how to do it. So it it can really be difficult for doctors. But the interesting thing is that, really, when you think about most people, most types of careers, I bet I bet the vast majority of people change industries at one point or another. And it doesn’t seem like it’s a dramatic life altering type of event that everybody would question and seems seems like you’re doing something really off the wall. But for some reason with physicians, there there is that feeling and it’s no different for them. They they’re in a job and they’re thinking, well, geez, maybe I maybe I wanna do a different job. Maybe I wanna work for a different type of company or in a different area. But for them, it’s a dramatic deviation.
Michael McLaughlin [01:01:20]:
And and I think it it definitely feels like that to doctors. So it can be tough.
Nancy Norbeck [01:01:26]:
Well, it sounds like in your case, you didn’t waste any of it because you keep using it in multiple different ways, whether it’s informing the novels that you’re writing or just helping to educate other doctors. So, you know, it sounds like it’s all come together nicely for you.
Michael McLaughlin [01:01:41]:
Yeah. So far so good. I’m enjoying it. And I’m, I’m really enjoying writing. It’s it’s really been great. And it’s it was great when it was a hobby and and it’s even better now that I’m doing more of it. And, yeah, I’m I’m I’m incorporating really a little bit of everything. And I’m sure every the same way anybody else does when they write.
Michael McLaughlin [01:02:01]:
You know, I there’s definitely some of the medicine in there. There is definitely some of my business knowledge and experience as a business owner because every writer is essentially a business owner if they’re treating it like a career if it if it’s a job for them. And so that that’s been helpful too.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:19]:
Well, I’m glad that it’s working out, and we’ll be keeping an eye to see how it goes.
Michael McLaughlin [01:02:24]:
Thank you very much.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:25]:
Well, thanks for coming and talking with us.
Michael McLaughlin [01:02:28]:
Thank you. It’s been great talking to you.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:31]:
That’s this week’s episode. Thanks so much to Michael McLaughlin and to you for listening. Please leave a review for this episode. There’s a link right in your podcast app, and in it, tell us about a time when you made a big shift in your life. If you enjoyed our conversation, I hope you’ll share it with a friend. Thank you so much. If this episode resonated with you, don’t forget to get in touch on any of my social platforms or even via email at nancy@fycuriosity.com. Tell me what you loved.
Nancy Norbeck [01:03:02]:
And if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, and you haven’t yet signed up for my free email series on 6 of the most common creative beliefs that are messing you up, Please check it out. It’ll untangle those myths and help you get rolling again. You can find it at fycuriosity.com, and there’s also a link right in your podcast app. See you there, and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.
Nancy Norbeck [01:03:44]:
Thanks.