The Seven Lives of Craig A. Robertson
I am the answer to one of those corny riddles. You know the ones. “What has a face but can’t smile?” A clock. So: “What has seven lives and writes good science fiction?” Me.
Long before I even imagined I would write good fiction, I had so many incarnations that, to this day, they amaze even me. My career path has had more twists and turns than a roller coaster.
Life One: Shoes
Way back in my First Life, I was a shoe salesman. That’s how I got through college. Yeah, believe it or not, there was a time higher education was inexpensive enough that you could work your way through it.
I started at Kinney Shoes, then leveled up to Sears, Department 15 to be specific. I worked there for five years, but the most amazing part of that phase was that I met my now-wife of fifty-four years, Karen.
After a brief hiatus, I picked up my shoehorn again at Montgomery Ward and actually became shoe manager for the six months preceding medical school.
Now you, as a perceptive reader, might have noticed that all three of my First Life employers eventually went bankrupt and closed.
Not.
My.
Fault.
It was them, not me.
What I really loved about my final stint in petty management was that I was positively bulletproof. No matter how defiant I was or how badly I screwed up, a bad reference from Wards was going to affect my medical career exactly and precisely zero.
If only real life could be more like that. Ah well.
Life Two: The Physical Sciences
When I was still in grade school, I became enraptured by astronomy. I’d lie on the roof watching meteors, sketching each one in a journal. I was going to be an astronomer. Introduction to Astronomy in college? A+.
But as I advanced, I came to realize that astronomers like the one I would become spent countless nights on isolated mountaintops, far, far from loved ones and warmth. Back then, we sat at the telescope’s prime focus and actually looked at the sky.
As a sensible fellow, I switched my major at UC Berkeley to geophysics. But it didn’t matter which physical science I received a degree in. Along the way, I discovered I wanted to be a physician. I developed a passion that just wouldn’t quit.
Still got it, too.
Life Three: Medicine
Medical school and residency constituted my Third Life. In reality, it was less like an education and more like a sentence to a particularly abusive gulag.
But the two life-enhancing benefits I took from those nine years were worth earning.
One: nothing ever has or ever will be harder. I survived the universe’s best shot and walked away with a grin.
Two: I got to be a doctor.
That is an honor and a gift. To interact in a positive, loving manner with people at their lowest point, and to make a difference in that crisis—that’s a gift from Heaven on high itself. That’s what it is.
But I have to tell you, I was so ready for my Fourth Life to begin. I was mentally, physically, and spiritually exhausted.
So what path did I follow to get some respite?
Life Four: Emergency Medicine
I became a professor of Emergency Medicine at a Level One Trauma Center.
Apparently I didn’t read the memo they gave me about the impossible hours, the heartrending cases, and the drunks. I even developed a saying about the drunks: “When you’re stitching up a drunk who’s been hit in the head with a baseball bat, it doesn’t take you long to realize why someone hit them in the head with a baseball bat.”
Nuf said.
But I learned one hell of a lot about me, life, human nature, and what career choice not to be wedded to.
Life Five: Immunology
After the blob-on-the-floor ground meat I was following my professorship, I went straight into almost the exact opposite aspect of medical endeavor. At the same institution, the University of California, Davis, I became a research immunologist.
Yeah, who knew I had that skill in my portfolio?
Actually, it wasn’t spontaneous combustion or anything. Because I’d apparently come to crave punishment, I did an immunology fellowship while I was a professor in the ER.
But I have to say, being paid to delve into mysteries back when molecular genetics was really taking off was a trip and a half.
I worked on a project where our group had a cloned antibody against human melanoma cells. The goal was to use it as a treatment. I left that group before the trial failed—and no shoe-salesman comments, please.
The bulk of my research centered on the immunology of primary biliary cirrhosis, a very nasty disease indeed.
But you’ve probably realized already that I’m a ramblin’ man. When I reached the fork in my immunology road where my income would depend on a lifetime of grants, I opted out.
I decided to work for a living instead of begging for one.
Life Six: Internal Medicine
Life Six was the one I stuck with for thirty years.
Ups and downs? Absolutely.
Good times? For sure.
Overall rewarding? Yes.
Would I build a time machine just to tell myself not to do it?
Most likely.
I was an internal medicine doctor with a large medical group. I didn’t change. The patients didn’t change. But management style did.
Think of a gradual drift from Alfred E. Neuman to Miss Agatha Trunchbull.
At the end of the day, I retired with all my teeth. That’s all I can say.
Life Seven: Novelist
And, of course, you know all about Life Seven. My life as an artist—a novelist, to be specific.
When my daughter was in grade school, we enrolled her in a math tutoring program. That meant I had a few hours to kill waiting for her sessions each Saturday morning.
This was in the days—please, no one faint—before portable electronic anything. No surfing the web, texting, or Kindles. And I could only wander the local mall so much.
Then it occurred to me.
I could write a book.
No non sequitur there, right?
So I bought a yellow legal pad and started writing Anon Time, which became my very first indie-published book.
Now, if you haven’t read Anon Time—and I actually know you haven’t because like twelve copies sold—fair warning: ya probably shouldn’t.
I mean, I love it. But people who knit socks love their work enough to gift it to others.
Yeah, it’s kind of like that.
In 2014, I joined a local writers’ group. That’s where I learned how to write good prose. It’s also where The Forever Life was born.
After a couple of years of polishing, I published it to tepid success.
Then a new hired gun came to town.
Facebook Ads.
Let’s just say I was an early adopter.
And the rest, as they say, is history. I wrote the six-book Forever Series. Its popularity got me a contract with Podium for the audiobooks, and I presently have a smile on my face that will not come off.
You know what? Life is funny. There I was, a kid lying on the roof watching meteors, and I thought I’d spend my life studying the universe.
I took a few detours along the way and hit a few bumps.
And in the end, I got to invent the universe instead.
And the future?
What will Life Eight be?
Well, don’t tell anyone because it’s a secret. I’m thinking it’s between one of two things: professional baseball player or selling shoes at some store I really hate.
We’ll see.
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Twitter: Craig Robertson = @Craigr1971
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