PeterHogenkampWrites

  We all want the pandemic to be over, don't we? <nod head> Well, we have a way out of this god-forsaken mess--it's called the Covid-19 vaccine. Want to find out more? <nod head>  Good, click on the arrow above. Wants the Reader's Digest version? <shake head> Good, click on the arrow above. But if you are in a tearing hurry (to go where? I ask you, as were in the middle of a pandemic) remember this. All the vaccines either currently approved or shortly to be approved offer near complete protection against serious disease, defined as either hospitalization and/or death. What does that mean? It means that, once vaccinated, the worst outcome for those few who might still catch Covid is a mild viral illness, which you have had many times previously in your lifetime. Don't get lost in the various numbers representing the different efficacy rates for the different vaccines to prevent all Covid disease. Frankly, I don't care if I get a cold, and likely ne...

I started my first novel when I was forty. My wife and I had three kids at the time (the fourth  came two years later) and we had just decided to start our own medical practice. I used to write  late at night on weekends and early in the morning before work, mostly because I had no other  time but also because I was trying to keep the whole thing a secret from my wife. She found out  a few months later, however, coming downstairs on a Saturday night catching me scribbling into  a green wire-bound notebook. She kissed me on the cheek and went back to bed, but I wished  she had told me the following four things, because it took me years to learn the hard way. 1) Writing is the biggest black hole of time ever created. Entire weekends can disappear at the keyboard. Ask yourself a question before you start a book: Do I have this kind of time? (And then do it anyway.) 2) It takes a long, long time to break through. I thought I knew this, but I really didn’t. Sit ...

I started writing when I was ten (46 years ago!) and in that time I have spent a lot of time thinking about how cool it would be to be interviewed about my craft as a writer. Well, bucket list check time.  Make sure to follow the blog, or click on this link,  Peter's Author Website , to check out my website. Please enter your e-mail when prompted to join my mailing list as well. If you would like to read one of my books (or gift one to a friend) click on the link to  Peter's Amazon Page  and you can order them right from there. And, as always, thanks for your support. Cheers, peter Peter Hogenkamp is a practicing physician, public speaker and author of fiction living in  Rutland, Vermont. Peter’s writing credits include  The Intern  (TouchPoint Press, April, 2020);  The Vatican Conspiracy  (Bookouture/HachetteUK, October, 2020), and  The Vatican Secret (Bookouture/HachetteUK, April 2021.) He can be found on his  Author Website ...

Americans spend 50 Billion Dollars on Vitamins and Supplements. Check out #YourHealthMatters to see if this is a wise investment. Just hit the Play arrow above.  If you enjoyed what I had to say, consider clicking on one of the following links to buy on one of my books and/or browse my website. Thanks for that; I truly appreciate the support: The Intern (TouchPoint Press, 4/2020) The Vatican Conspiracy (Bookouture/HachetteUK, 10/2020) Peter's Author Website Cheers, peter :) ,  Peter Hogenkamp is a practicing physician, public speaker and author living in Rutland, Vermont.  Peter's writing credits include  The Intern , TouchPoint Press, 4/2020;  The Vatican Conspiracy , the first book in the Marco Venetti thriller series, October 2020, Bookouture/HachetteUK; Doubt, Marco Venetti #2, April 2021;  and THE LAZARUS MANUSCRIPT, a stand-alone medical thriller;   Peter can be found on his  Author Website  as well as his personal   blog,...

I know what you're thinking. Why put up with all that rejection? Wouldn't I have been better off sometime after the first fifty rejections to just take up Canasta? After a hundred rejections try to fine tune my German pronunciation? Close to the two-hundred-and-fifty mark, shouldn't I have have attemtped to learn the didgeridoo, the King of Aboriginal instruments? (FYI, I haven't had 250 rejections, although I am getting close and it feels like a thousand.) The answer, of course, is Nein ; I wouldn't have been better off. And there is a simple reason why. My gut instinct is to tell you that if I had, then (insert shameless plug here) my first published novel,  The Intern , would never have been made it to print, (Insert another shameless plug here) nor would  The Vatican Conspiracy  have either. And while that is very good incentive for a guy that has been writing for a long time, it's not what I am getting at. I started my first manuscript fifteen years a...

It was 2015 by the time I sat down to write the book that would eventually become my first published novel ( The Intern , TouchPoint Press, April 13, 2020) a solid twenty years after meeting the twelve-year-old boy who inspired me to write his story. Maya Angelou said that “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel,” and she was dead on, because I can’t remember many of the things he said and did, but I can remember, with complete and absolute clarity, the way he made me feel, the punched-in-the-gut feeling that has stayed with me all these years. It was the spring of my internship, April, 1994, and the skies in Syracuse, New York were leaden and grey, doing nothing to improve my mood which had become dour with the long hours, lack of sleep and the never-ending scutwork. I was on Pediatric call for the weekend, meaning that the never-ending scutwork had now been multiplied by four, and I’d just...