TamWiki

I wanted to be a writer long before I wanted to write about myself. I’ve been an enthusiastic reader since childhood, and at ten years old genre lines were very simple. Nonfiction meant reading biographies, or history books, or newspaper articles; fiction meant devouring the adventures of the Hardy Boys, or Sherlock Holmes, or Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. The latter was fun, and the former was not, and it’s no surprise that my earliest attempts at literary greatness mirrored what I enjoyed reading. I don’t remember being motivated by childhood dreams of fame and fortune. In the beginning I hoped I could get lost in my own writing as easily as that of others. Reading meant entering worlds I loved, and writing meant creating those worlds.

The worlds of my imagination needed people to live in them, of course, and a good deal of thought went into just how much of myself would find its way into my heroes. I could give one my first name, or maybe another would have blond hair and blue eyes. I could get my characters to act the way I wished I would act in dangerous situations, but there the similarities stopped. A hero had to be formed from just enough reality to feed my fantasy, and just enough fiction to transcend my limitations. My heroes were not to be short, or scared. They were not to be weak, and they certainly were not going to be disabled.

I don’t think I made a conscious effort to keep my cerebral palsy out of my writing. It would be more accurate to say that I didn’t see the point of including it. Why dwell on what limited me when a blank page offered the opportunity for so much more? I authored a detective story in elementary school, and in high school I was dabbling in tales of adventure, always with a protagonist who was a perfect, able-bodied version of me, always with a story involving a beautiful girl, some very bad guys and scenes that belonged in an action movie. It wasn’t until college that I was properly introduced to the personal essay and the term “creative nonfiction,” but even as I discovered some skill with the form, there was something preferable to me about the world of make-believe.

best/worst 404 page? from @thinkgeek

Where There Is No Doctor

This is the only book in the world that will really help you be your own doctor. It tells you how to suture a wound, heal burns, make your own contraception, diagnose tropical skin diseases, and thousands of other do-it-yourself medical procedures you won7t find elsewhere. Originally written (in Spanish) for para-medicals in the developing world, the medical instructions are clear, methodical, reliable, and helpful. Not all the content is emergency care; a lot is basic hygiene and preventative care.

This book is crammed with essential, life-saving knowledge for anyone living or traveling for long periods in undeveloped areas without doctors close by. It can be found in the packs of transcontinental bicyclists, arctic explorers, missionaries and Peace Corp folks. The book is too heavy to lug around in a tourist backpack, but it is also available as a free PDF. But even with access to modern medical facilities, I7ve found this book gives me an abbreviated medical school education. It offers very realistic first aid treatments (more than just bandages), and very easy-to-understand explanations of what doctors see in injuries. It can help you talk to doctors. Finally, when you are done traveling, leave this book behind with someone who can use it.

There is also a companion book, Where There Is No Dentist, equally good. -- KK   Where There Is No Doctor David Werner, Jane Maxwell, Carol Thuman 1992, 446 pages $20 Free PDF http://hesperian.org/ Available from Amazon