Finding time to put pen to paper

Bainbridge-based physician/author/mother of four aptly leads Fields End discussion on “How do we find time to write?” Aug. 19.

Writers — novelists in particular — have an extremely difficult, yet widely coveted and strangely incurable gig.

Behind the glamourous book tours and royalty checks of every author who is skilled (not to mention lucky) enough to get published — let alone make it big — there are hundreds of other scribes in basements or in corners of coffee shops rapping away at stories that might never even see the light of day.

Still, for most writers, there’s this incessant need to put the pen to paper.

For example — Bainbridge-based anesthesiologist and recently published novelist Carol Cassella, 51, wanted to be a writer long before she wanted to be a doctor.

She studied English literature at Duke University before going on to graduate from Baylor College of Medicine in 1986, which led to her career in anesthesiology. Her career eventually led her to the Pacific Northwest, where she lives on Bainbridge with her house-building husband and two sets of twins. That’s right, two sets of twins born a year apart.

Even amidst all that professional and familial chaos, the hankering for a literary creative outlet doesn’t just go away. Especially in the acutely author-inducing community of Bainbridge.

Looking to quell the need, Cassella found the time to combine her doctoral and literary interests, becoming a part-time freelance medical writer. But that trade only stoked her desire for creative writing even more.

So she, somehow, found the time to enroll in classes at Bainbridge’s famed writers’ community Fields End, which provided the support and guidance that led to the creation of her debut novel “Oxygen,” published by Simon and Schuster in June.

She, subsequently, found the time for a national book tour which has led to a slue of recent reviews in mainstream publications including USA Today, People Magazine and more.

And on top of all that, she still finds the time to work on her next novel. It comes “in clumps” she said in a recent interview with the Bainbridge Review.

Obviously qualified, Cassella will lead the next Field’s End Writers’ Roundtable discussion on the topic of “How do we find time to write?” at 7 p.m. Aug. 19, free and open to all writers, at the Bainbridge Library, 1270 Madison Ave. N on Bainbridge.

Info: www.fieldsend.org, www.carolcassella.com.

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