Goddess Fish Book Promotions Guest Post: R. Arundel

Balancing life and writing

Humans are social creatures. Writing is a solitary task. This is the push and pull every writer feels. As a surgeon with a family I have to carve out time to write. This is no different than a busy mother or parent or young teacher looking to write their first novel. Or any other of countless examples I could list.

Most writers write because some innate urge within them compels them to write. Writers don’t write because they like writing. Writers write because they need to write. Many writers are tortured as they compose their works. They worry if others will enjoy it. They wonder if what they have written is a load of garbage. Writing can be a very unpleasant, laborious experience. But writers continue to write. Understanding this unique dynamic is the most important point in creating write/life balance.

Writers have a compulsion to write. It’s nice to sit at a page and create. Everything is just as you wanted it, you control all. It’s not real life. Real life is messy, sometimes unfair, and often very hard. All writers need to step away from writing and spend time living life. For myself that means limiting my writing to very early mornings or very late at night.

I always schedule time for activities away from writing. If I sit at the computer andbe  nothing is working or I can’t figure out the plot, I just step away. Take some time off. You brain will still work at the problem in a day or two (or three or four) when you do return the problem may worked out.

Living and experiencing life will make your characters richer. Sometimes, when you’re trying to get your four year old to eat his vegetables or your partner to see that you’re right, it might seem that sitting in a quiet space and creating your next masterpiece is what you should be doing. But remember even in the hurly burly of life when you’re stuck doing the job you don’t really want because you want to be a fulltime writer, life is what gives you the raw materials to dream and to write.

The Face Transplant

by R. Arundel

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GENRE: Medical Suspense Thriller

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BLURB:

The Face Transplant

An epic journey of suspense, murder, and sacrifice

Dr. Matthew MacAulay is a facial transplant surgeon at a prestigious New York hospital. When his friend and mentor, Tom Grabowski, dies under mysterious circumstances, Matthew uncovers his friend’s secret: a new technique that allows perfect facial transplants. No incisions, no scars. Tom was able to accomplish this monumental feat with the help of Alice, a supercomputer robot with almost human abilities. While trying to find the people responsible for murdering Tom, Matthew realizes he is the prime suspect. He must flee for his life with the help of Dr. Sarah Larsson, a colleague and reluctant helper, who has a secret of her own, and Alice, who helps them make sense of a baffling series of seemingly unrelated events. The clues carry Matthew and Sarah around the world. They stumble onto a sinister plot of monumental proportions that leads Matthew all the way to the White House.

The Face Transplant is a powerful medical suspense thriller of the first order. The novel was written by a surgeon who weaves politics, medicine, and espionage into a tightly paced, intelligent thriller.

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Excerpt:

Guaarrr. It sounds like water draining from a very large bathtub, through a very large hole. I just killed myself. I just killed the patient. Dr. Matthew MacAulay looks down on the operating room table at the gaunt, graying man. Matthew quickly scans the operating theater. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the short wide man in

the observation area.

I just killed myself, Sarah, and Amanda.

They have been hijacked into performing a face transplant. The patient is unknown. Mr. Glock, the short wide man, hovers in the far end of the operating room. He made it clear that if the patient did not survive, the three of them would be following him in short order. The 9 mm Glock with a silencer on the end gave credence to his profanity-laced words of warning.

Matthew looks across the operating room table at Amanda Soto, forty-two, an American of Spanish ancestry. She has been his scrub nurse, assisting him in the operating room for the last three years. Divorced, one child.

It will take a few more seconds for the monitors to tell everybody what Matthew already knows. Amanda already knows. She is right across the table. She saw him use the robotic arm to dissect the vessel and mistakenly cut the large artery in the neck. An operating room nurse of Amanda’s experience has seen it all. When Matthew looks into her eyes, they flash ever so quickly an acknowledgement that it is all over. Instead of any words, she quietly unclamps the suction. Now a dull hiss fills the air. To the casual observer, or the short wide man holding a 9 mm Glock pistol in his fat stubby hands, nothing really has changed. Amanda, anesthetist Dr. Sarah Larsson, and Dr. Matthew MacAulay act as if all is going well.

Matthew cannot help but glance over to the man with the 9 mm Glock. In his mind he names him Mr. Glock. Adrenaline surges through Matthew’s body and time slows. The short wide man, Mr. Glock, has gray eyes. Pale, gray eyes. Very pale, almost tired. Matthew remembers reading somewhere that people with gray eyes have the best visual acuity. They make the best marksmen, the best assassins. He wonders if this was true.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

R. Arundel is a practising surgeon. This experience brings realism to the story. The novel asks what would happen if a surgeon were to develop the perfect face transplant. This would allow people to have a new face, in essence create a new identity. You can create the perfect double, the perfect Doppelganger.

Contact link: http://www.amazon.com/R-Arundel/e/B00EBCQVEC

FOR A CHANCE TO WIN AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF THE BOOK, go here: http://www.thefacetransplant.com/contact.html FILL OUT THE FEEDBACK AND MARK SUBSCRIBE.

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

Prizes for the tour are as follows:

• One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $50 Amazon/BN.com gift card.

• One randomly chosen host will receive a $25 Amazon/BN.com gift card.

a Rafflecopter giveaway