Scott D. McLean, MD

Twenty-six weeks down, 26 more to go. This gap-year blog documents my transition from the word of medicine to the world of writing.

At one point I saw this enterprise as a swap of one for another. However, my persona and point of view and even mission as a geneticist are not going away. I’m just piling on another layer.

To maintain my board certification in Clinical Genetics, I am answering another 30 questions for the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics about regions of homozygosity, hearing loss, homocystinuria, und so weiter. Now, that’s fun! Especially when I get a few right. This morning I attended Grand Rounds at CHRISTUS Children’s. Dr. Ian Law from the University of Iowa spoke about sudden cardiac arrest in athletes, including hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and channelopathies. Lots of genetics! Amidst some discussion after the lecture was done, he cleverly said, “There’s a lot of genetic purgatory out there.”

Last weekend I attended the Writers’ League of Texas Agents and Editors Conference in Austin. We had slightly cooler weather in south-central Texas midweek, thanks to a gentle tropical storm, but the heat was on by Friday. I drove up from San Antonio on my favorite parking lot, also known as I-35, just a little nervous. The venue was at the Hyatt near South Congress Street. At dusk flotillas of kayaks paddled the lake, June-weedy, slowly drawn to the famous bat bridge. The local bat experts shined red lights onto the undercarriage of the structure. There was a big crowd on the south bank of Lady Bird Lake, waiting for the emergence of the colony. Seemed more like one colony vs another. I think bats come from all over just to get a glimpse of the Austinites. In the dark, you could listen to a mandolin and smell guano.

I had been to this conference about a dozen years ago and pitched a book of prescriptive nonfiction entitled “Ten Steps to Improve Your Genetic Health.” That didn’t work out, mostly because I was not ready. This year, I was, including a new title, a well-honed pitch, and a 50+ page book proposal.

The first talk I attended (Friday last) was a session on historical fiction, featuring Elizabeth Crook and David Wright Falade. David’s “Fire on the Beach,” set post-Civil War, will be a fine read and resource as I begin work on “South Mountain,” also set in the same era. I read Elizabeth’s “The Which Way Tree” last month and am now a total acolyte. On Sunday she was on another panel discussing the process of building a writing career. Afterwards, I shook her hand. Why is it she seems to resemble a regular person when clearly she’s a god? Interesting news – she and Stephen Harrigan have completed the screenplay for “The Which Way Tree.” I bought her book “The Madstone” – also featuring Benjamin Shreve, an instantly iconic voice and character –  and generously offered it to my wife Paula to read first. She better hurry!

Thanks to the WLT conference, I learned a lot and have interesting new ideas about my writing. As is probably typical for an ingenue writer, I obsess about all the great novels I have in me. There must be 18 or 20, even on a rainy day. Therefore, the prospect that I only get one lifetime to write them all has kept me anxious and somewhat morose. But an epiphany – why not short form fiction? Of course! This summer I plan to read and write short stories and maybe even shorty short stories. Writing first, figuring out their sub-genre second.

In Austin, I visited with my San Antonio friend, Monika Maeckle, whose book “The Monarch Butterfly Migration” will be published in August. Last Saturday I pitched the new and improved version of my prescriptive+practical nonfiction book, now entitled “First Steps to Improve Your Genetic Health.” I had practiced the pitch maybe 386 times, to myself, to Paula, to my writing group, and to lots of people at the WLT conference, like Reggie Tennison, James Miller, and Greg Neeley, who also pitched me their novels.  I had 10-minute meetings with two agents. They asked me to send them my proposal. Now we wait.

Unedited notes from the 2024 WLT A+E Conference:

Write a vomit draft first.

Outlines vs just writing? Get the first line and go.

Shrunken Head is a thing.

I will never read enough.

Lots of writers are slow readers and writers!

Clifford Garstang ranks literary magazines.

Memoir is not necessarily egotism. In fact typically not. Not even egoism. But sometimes yes.

A line can change a reader.