Weston writer combines experience with fiction

WESTON – Heather Frimmer loves her job.

The Weston resident is a radiologist specializing in breast and emergency rooms at Main Street Radiology in Queens, NY. Frimmer, 47, loves changing people’s lives. She loves to look at pictures and use them to solve medical problems.

“I love that sense of purpose and the ability to solve a puzzle,” said Frimmer.

But as useful as her job may be, he doesn’t leave that much room for creativity. Hoping to train these muscles, she attended the Westport Writers’ Workshop. Her teacher saw potential and said Frimmer should try to write a novel. At first skeptical, Frimmer decided to try it out.

It turned out that much of what she loved about medicine was carried over into writing with a few variations.

“I think that writing a novel has that puzzling aspect to it (which radiology has),” said Frimmer. “But writing is much more creative. I have to make up my own story. I’ll start with a blank page. “

In 2018 she published her first book “Bedside Maners” about a woman suffering from breast cancer and her medical student daughter. “I was addicted,” said Frimmer. “I couldn’t stop writing.”

Her second book “Better to Trust” will be published on September 21st.

The new book was inspired by an acquaintance who successfully performed a small operation on a family member. But Frimmer’s book envisions a scenario in which an operation on a relative does not go as planned, and it reveals dark secrets.

Frimmer said she likes looking for creative inspiration in the medical field, and believes these types of books have a built-in appeal.

“I feel like people are so hungry to see the insides of the medical world because it can be kind of opaque,” she said.

She also likes to combine these medical stories with complex, chaotic family stories – stories about “family ties and how those ties get tangled,” Frimmer said. These are the kind of books she likes to read, she said, and she enjoys writing them just as much.

While Frimmer said that finding things to write about isn’t necessarily a barrier, finding the time to write about it can be. In addition to her work as a radiologist, Frimmer is the mother of two children aged 13 and 15.

On days when she is not working full-time, try to devote as much time as possible to writing.

“I write in small blocks of time all day,” said Frimmer.

She wakes up early, usually between 5:30 am and 6:00 am, and writes as much as she can in those early hours of the morning. She jots down ideas she gets while walking, driving, or reading other people’s books.

“I don’t watch television either, so I read, write or go in my free time,” says Frimmer.

With her second novel, which is about to be published, Frimmer is already working on a third. This is about an obstetrician and a patient who has a traumatic birth experience. Although she doesn’t plan on leaving medicine anytime soon (“Most writers have to have a side job because writing doesn’t pay as well,” explained Frimmer), she has moved on to the world of fiction.

“I don’t mind investing the time to immerse myself in a world and get to know the characters,” she said.

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