A lot of people that I've known
down through the years have seen my transition from cancer researcher to
author. I guess in my environment, I’m like a fish out of water. That’s a strange statement coming from
an avid fisherman, but it’s true.
I pull a bass that I’ve caught onto the bank and I can see it gasping
for air and thinking, “Where the hell am I.” I’m into catch-and-release, except if it’s a large, in
season and a tasty type of fish. I
found that writing or creating a story is almost as fun as doing cancer
research. It’s a challenge to
think of something no one else has thought about. You have to take that thought, prove it, with controls, and
sit back and wait for the response from your peers about its originality and
worth. That’s a peek into the
research world, but writing is a bit different, but the same. The originality must be there, but the
proof lies within the reader and your peers, if you have any, and your lucky
they appreciate what you do, are supportive in a different way. So here I am, a different person as far
as what I do for a living, having stories go through my head instead of how T
lymphocytes go about killing cancer cells. That’s actually not true because the first book I published
had to do with that very subject and now I’m finagling another contract with a
textbook publisher (Springer) to publish a book about how the T cell immune
system restrains the T cells responsible for killing cancer cells. Ok, I’m not completely transitioned and
still a scientist. The cancer science
books are important to me for several of reasons. One of them is the effect they may have on students and
current scientists to pursue some of the concepts I discuss in those books. The other one is that I’d like cancer
patients to read them in order to think about which treatment options would be
best for them. This has to do with
immunotherapy, which is a new and possibly life-changing kind of cancer
treatment. Anyway, I’m here now
and that’s what I do.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
First Royalty Check
First Royalty Check
I really didn’t intend to start a
blog for new authors, but because this is a special moment in my life, I felt
that I needed one more thing to do before my head explodes. Of course I’m just kidding. It just feels like that, but I’m sure
you people, who are like me, and making a transition from what ever you’ve done
to being a writer, know what that feels like. It’s a monumental task. Transition means a change from one thing to another; one
life to another completely different life. Until we become successful, we’re told to keep our day jobs,
but what if you left you’re day job to change your career. For me, in order to make that change, I
had to leave my old life behind and start from scratch. It had to be a change in mindset. I spent 30 years unlocking the secrets
of cancer and then wanted to stay home and write books about it. I think that qualifies for a mental
re-sculpturing experience. The two
professions (cancer researcher and writer) do have some similarities. Two of them are writing and doing
mental research, which means developing an original hypothesis and developing a
way to prove it. The writing has
to do with grant and scientific paper writing, but I’m sure you’re probably
curious about the “mental research” part.
Recently I realized that the two were connected, I’d been doing them for
30 years, and that they would become my strengths as an author.
I
think as an effective writer you have to be organized, specific in what you
say, and above all, credible. This
part was gleaned from the research writing mentioned above. I also found that the “pure research”
that I did, which had to do with the relationship between the immune system and
cancer would (and did) help me be original in my writing both non-fiction and
narrative fiction books. In order
to have even one simple original thought you must do research. This research can be composed of facts
in that incredible database out there, or of concepts and ideas in your
mind. Sometimes there’s no need to
look at data, but other times you have to. Either way, the idea is to be original. This happened to me in the lab and in
the world of being a writer. It
took a major life change to realize that.
Have you ever had everything you own burn-up in a fire? Well that’s what it was like, but it
happened little by little.
Luckily, I’m not very materialistic, but you loose something else that’s
sort of important, and during that time you think about it. Most people never really understood me
in the first place, and that’s never really bothered me because I felt as long
as I understood me, everything was fine.
It still is, but the problem in situations like this is family and
friends not understanding you. It
took a while, but everyone’s now up to speed on what’s going on with me. That and having to give-up my pets was
my worry back then, but back to being a successful writer. I think it takes courage to go out and
say to the world, “I am now a writer.”
You have to be successful as a writer because you have to be successful
at being who you are now, which is a writer. We can talk about that later, but now I’m at that wacky
stage like the African dung beetle. I’m pushing that dung up a hill and I’m almost near the top,
ready to let it fall.
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