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.