The End of a Personal Era

Tomorrow marks the end of an era for me. After working for over twenty years at the university and over nineteen years with my current supervisor, my job is ending due to lack of research funds. It’s difficult financial times for funding currently, and many labs are downsizing in extreme ways. From a lab that consisted of twelve to fourteen staff and students for many years, mine will now be reduced to simply two.

There’s two ways to look at this opportunity. One is negative ― I’m out of a job, which was never part of my long term financial plan. But the other is twofold and purely positive: 1) this is an opportunity to try something new within my field, and 2) while I’m looking for a new position, I’ll have the luxury of being able to write full time.

If I’m honest, it’s the second option that gives me the most pleasure. Family responsibilities dictate that I go back to the working world, at least for now while I’m early in my writing career, but, if money wasn’t an issue, what I’d really love to do is write full time. The thought of being able to buckle down and work exclusively on my WIP brings me great joy. Instead of completing the first draft in three or four months, I could likely have it completed in six weeks, maybe less. I’d also like to spend more time cultivating my craft ― reading more widely, reading more craft books, and simply having the time to let the creativity flow instead of shoehorning it into free minutes and forcing its appearance. I think the quality of my writing will improve given more time to simply breathe. I’d also like to take some time for me and will use this opportunity to be more active, something I’ve had to sacrifice for my writing time for too long.

I’ve worked the same job for twenty years, so the thought of doing something different, while a little scary, is also refreshing. What will the future hold? I’m not sure. But there’s something to be said for an interesting and varied journey.

Photo credit: hpaich

Tools of the Trade - Scrivener

Up until a few weeks ago, I’ve always used Microsoft Word for both writing and editing. One of the things I like most about Word is the track changes function that allows me to incorporate edits from Ann, Nicole or my crit team with relative ease. I think Word will continue to be my go to program when it comes to late stage editing, but I’ve found something new that works much better in the drafting stage – Scrivener.

Scrivener is software specifically designed for writers by Literature & Latte. It comes with templates already set up for fiction, non-fiction and scriptwriting, or you can start with a blank project and build your own template. The program includes a very comprehensive tutorial to teach you in under an hour how to use every function in the program (it’s a self-lead tutorial, so if you just want the basics, you can cut the tutorial down to about 15 minutes).

While I was only a few chapters into my current WIP, I thought it would be a good time to try out the 30-day free trial. So I imported my .doc WIP file into Scrivener and then started to play with it. And I have to say, I really love it.

There are a lot of really great things about Scrivener, but, for me, the highlights of what makes it different from Word for drafting are:

• Having everything in one place: Scrivener allows you to import pictures, links, documents and papers right into the program so they are right at your fingertips. In subfolders under ‘Characters’ I have a detailed profile for each person; under ‘Research’ that same character has a folder with information on workplaces, houses, hobbies etc. complete with links and pictures. I don’t have to search through other Word or .pdf documents as I’ve always done before. It’s all right there. The below screen shot from my WIP is collapsed and only a portion of what it will look like by the end as I’m only a quarter of the way in, but it shows the organizational set-up. Another added feature is that you can drag and drop documents into the Document References section for each scene, so that relevant materials are right where you need them.

• Split screen: You can split the main desktop screen into two sections, either horizontally or vertically, keeping your writing window active in one section while displaying relevant research material (a document or picture) in the other. No more flipping between documents while you’re writing.

• Keywords for sorting: This is going to be a big one for me. As my series is written in the third person with two main points of view, I can catalogue each scene as I’m writing it for characters present, location, storyline aspect and POV. If I then need to evaluate how my split between the two POV’s is weighted, I can simply search for that keyword and those particular sections are selected. When I rewrote a good portion of Dead to balance out the POVs, determining who did what meant a lot of time-consuming flipping through pages in Word. This would have been MUCH easier.

• Use of the corkboard for quick review: One of the ways Scrivener allows you to view your document is as cards on a corkboard. From the Scrivener tutorial, we can see the first three ‘chapters’:

For the fiction writer, each card can be a chapter. If the icon in the top left corner of a card is clicked, that card will open into any cards lower on the hierarchy – i.e. scenes. For instance, under Part 1: Basics, are these three cards:

In a fiction document, these would be scenes within that particular chapter. At a quick glance, you can find any scene you’re looking for. The corkboard view is also very useful in synopsis writing because the corkboard is essentially a bullet point list of your plotline.

• Navigation is child’s play: In Word, if I wanted to get to the second scene in Chapter 7 from somewhere else in the document, I’d have to first find Chapter 7, and then scroll through to the second scene. In Scrivener, it’s a single click to the second scene in Chapter 7.

• The price: Scrivener is available for both Windows and Mac platforms for only $40 USD. For a program that a does so much from both a word processing and an organizational standpoint, this seems extremely reasonable to me.

For those who might be concerned about the fact that you don’t have your document in Word format to send to beta readers or your editor or agent, there is a very easy export function to export your document out to several different formats, Word included.

I know there are several writers in my circle that are just starting to use it or are thinking about trying it out. For those who haven’t tried it yet, I’d definitely recommend giving it a look. The thirty day trial period will certainly give you time to see if it suits your writing style. Setup can take a little while to get all your keywords set etc., but from that point on, you can really settle in and work on your word count. For those that are using it, what are your favourite aspects of the program?

*****

My apologies to anyone who had trouble with the commenting system last week. I had a few messages that readers were unable to post comments, and I also had intermittent problems with it. I've been working with Disqus and hopefully everything is back to normal now. If you have any issues, please don't hesitate to let me know.

One Scientist's View of 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks'

When I first started this blog, I have to admit that I never thought to do book reviews. While the material I tend to talk about has more to do with forensics, science and history, this particular review came as a suggestion by one of my crit team members. Following the post on the recovery of Tsar Nicolas II and his family, Jenny and I had a discussion about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the narrative non-fiction retelling of Henrietta Lacks’ life and the immortal cell line, HeLa, that arose from her cervical tumor. Jenny was curious about my impressions of this book, both from the standpoint of someone who writes science for the layperson, but also as someone who has personally worked with HeLa cells. I was happy to take up her challenge.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was one of the top non-fiction books of 2010 and was awarded the 2011 Best Book Award by the National Academies of Science. It tells the dual-track stories of Henrietta Lacks through the 1940s and 1950s, and her family through the 1990s and early 2000s, mostly through the experiences of Henrietta’s youngest daughter, Deborah.

Henrietta was born in 1920 to poor parents in Roanoke, Virginia. After her mother died in 1924 while giving birth to her tenth child, Henrietta and her siblings moved to Clover, Virginia, where they were split up amongst different members of the family. Henrietta was raised by her grandfather, alongside David Lacks, her first cousin. Henrietta and David had their first child together when Henrietta was 14 and they later married when she was 21. They had five children together, the last being born only four months before her diagnosis.

Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore when she was only 31 years old. She underwent the current cancer treatments of the day, but, in the end, they proved unsuccessful. Henrietta died on October 4, 1951, a scant eight and a half months later. An autopsy performed following her death showed that her very aggressive cancer had metastasized to practically every organ in her body.

The book documents a fascinating tale of historic doctor-patient relationships and ethics. While Henrietta was unconscious, about to undergo her first treatment where radioactive radium was packed into her vagina to deliver ionizing radiation directly to her cervix, two dime-sized slices of tissue were excised from the tumour and sent to the lab of Dr. George Gey. In the 1950s, patient consent was not required for sample collection or use, so it’s doubtful that Henrietta ever knew about the extra procedure.

From the point of view of a scientist, this is where the book really became interesting to me. I’ve worked with HeLa cells for twenty years; they’re a staple in any cellular biology lab. More than that, from a personal research standpoint, they played a crucial role in discovering how HIV infects human T-cells, opening up the possibility of treatments and vaccines based on that information. In a scientific world where everything arrives at the lab as sterile-packed and disposable plastic, the challenges of culturing cells in 1951 were fascinating. Up to that point, no one had been able to produce an immortal human cell line (cells that can live long-term outside the host; most died in only a few days), and all cell culture was done using autoclaved glass dishes and equipment. There weren’t even any commercially available culture media; Dr. Gey created his own, and had to regularly visit slaughterhouses to collect chicken serum for his homespun recipe.

Henrietta’s cells did something that no other human tissue cultures had done before ― they not only survived the culture process, but they grew and thrived. The cell line established from these cells was called HeLa, based on the first two letters of Henrietta’s first and last names (something that would never be done today as it violates patient confidentiality). In an effort to further scientific discovery, Dr. Gey sent samples of the cells to anyone who requested them. In very short order, HeLa was a worldwide phenomenon.  

HeLa has been used for some of the most important biological research of the past 60 years. In the 1950s, Dr. Jonas Salk used HeLa cells to test the first polio vaccine. Much later, HeLa cells were used in cancer research to discover telomeres, the repetitive sequences on the ends of chromosomes that in a normal cells shorten with each division and, when gone, signal cell death. Telomeres are maintained in cancer cells, allowing for out-of-control growth of those cells. HeLa cells have been used to determine the damaging effects of radiation, to establish procedures for in vitro fertilization, and were even sent into space to determine the effects of zero gravity on human cells. The HeLa cell line has been a crucial part of the scientific community since it was established, outliving Henrietta by twice her own life span so far.

Henrietta’s family was not aware that samples had been taken in 1951 and that her cells were still alive decades later. In 1976, after an article was published in Rolling Stone about the cells, they became aware that a part of Henrietta was still alive, 25 years after her death.

Ms. Skloot spends a large portion of the book detailing the family’s struggles with the existence of the cell line. While companies were selling the cells for hundreds of dollars a vial (current price is $279 USD from the ATCC), the Lacks family lived in poverty and couldn’t afford health insurance. It caused an immense amount of stress for the family once Henrietta’s name was released to the public, leading to ill health and finally a stroke in Deborah. To date, the family has received no compensation for any profits made from Henrietta’s cells.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating read. For me, the most interesting part of the book was the early days of cancer treatments, tissue culture, and the scientific progress that came from the cell line. In discussions with other scientists, I’ve seen a consensus of opinion ― that in long sections in the last third of the book, the storytelling dragged a bit when it centered around Henrietta’s family and their struggles. But I suspect for the non-science crowd that might be the part of the story they’d really connect with. Ms. Skloot does an excellent job of explaining the science of cell culture and research for the layperson, but kept the level advanced enough that those of us in the field stayed interested and involved.

There are some very complex issues that are brought to light in the book. Was it ethical to take Henrietta’s cells without her consent? Does the fact that these cells have been crucial in progressing scientific knowledge negate the fact the cells were taken without her knowledge or that her personal and family medical details were released as public information? Should the family receive compensation considering the current commercial value of the cells? It was many decades before consent was required for human sample collection, but ownership of those samples is now in question. So far, the courts have decided that once the sample is removed from a patient, it is simply medical waste and that a patient has no right to it or any monies that might arise from it. They are complicated issues in many shades of grey that even the highest courts still struggle with.

For those non-science based readers who have read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, what did you think? Were the scientific aspects of the book hard slogging and was the emotional struggle of the Lacks family the heart of the book for you? For any science-oriented readers, what was your favourite part of the book?

Photo credit: Nikon and the University of Arkansas

Forensic Case Files: Murder of a Colonial Servant

The Chesapeake Bay area was a hotspot of colonization in the 1600’s, giving rise to colonial settlements such as Jamestown, Virginia and Providence, Maryland. People journeyed from England in droves, leaving overcrowded Europe in hopes of a new life in the New World. Those who could afford it became landowners. Those who couldn't ― 70 to 85% of all immigrants ― were forced to take posts as indentured servants.

The life of an indentured servant in the colonies was hard. A contract was signed with a landowner, pledging seven years of service carrying out all the heavy work on the farm ― hauling, butchering, construction, harvesting and drying tobacco. In exchange for this labour, the landowner paid the servant’s way from Europe, and then provided food and shelter during the term of the indenture. At the end of the term, the servant was released from the agreement, given fresh clothes, several farm tools, three barrels of corn and the right to purchase fifty acres of their own land. For those that had nothing, indenture was the chance to become an independent landowner.

Archaeologist Dr. Al Luckenbach is the founder and director of the Lost Towns Project, a group dedicated to discovering and excavating lost Colonial towns of the 17^th century. In 2003, Luckenback’s project involved a small tobacco plantation owned by William Neale, built in 1662 and abandoned in 1677, following Neale's death. The footprint of the house still survives in the soil stains left from wooden posts driven into the ground, marking the foundation. But it was in the basement of this structure that the most startling discovery was made ― a carelessly and hastily dug grave.

The grave was dug using a broken pottery milk pan (a wide mouthed dish used to separate milk from cream in Colonial times), which was later discarded on top of the deceased and buried with him. Clearly no care was taken with the grave, not even ensuring the grave was long enough to lay out the body. Instead, the body was folded into the grave, bending the legs to fit it into the available space.

There were several possible explanations for the body in the basement. Funerals were expensive and landowners were poor. A law passed in 1661 prohibited the inappropriate burial of servants, so landowners were legally responsible to pay for a proper burial, and a clandestine burial would avoid those costs. However, another possible explanation for a secret burial is the concealment of a murder.

Luckenbach called in forensic anthropologist Dr. Doug Owsley to examine the remains. Those bones told the real story, a story of hardship and harsh abuse. The remains were those of a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy, so young that the epiphyseal fusion on his arms and legs was incomplete. The muscle attachment points in his arms and shoulders were very robust, indicating a life of hard manual labour with a lot of heavy lifting and carrying. There was a healed break in his right elbow. Multiple vertebrae in his spine were deformed by Schmorl’s nodes (depressions in the body of the vertebra, caused by compression trauma). His spine also showed signs of the early stages of tuberculosis. Nineteen of the boy’s thirty teeth had significant cavities, some large enough to obliterate the crowns of several molars; absesses from these cavities certainly caused severe pain and, likely, blood poisoning as well.

Worst of all, his right arm spoke of his death. One of his metacarpals, the narrow bones that connect the carpals in the wrist to the phalanges in the fingers, was fractured. A second fracture was found in the radius, one of the two bones in the lower arm. It was a longitudinal fracture that radiated down the shaft of the bone from the wrist, exactly lining up with the fractured metacarpal. Those combined breaks tell a sad tale of a sick and weakened servant who was likely beaten by his master, attempting to block a blow with his right arm, breaking both his hand and arm in the process. Owsley suspects that this altercation lead to directly to the boy’s death. In an attempt to hide the murder, the landowner buried the body in his basement, where the remains would lie for over three hundred years before coming to light.

This excavation, as well as many others from the Chesapeake Bay area, are currently on display at the Smithsonian Institution Natural History Museum as part of 'Written in Bone - Forensic Files of 17^th-Century Chesapeake', on display until January 6, 2013.

Photo credit: Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution

Ode To A Keyboard

Just before Christmas, my laptop keyboard died. For months leading up to December, my ‘s’, ‘e’ and ‘r’ keys would only work once the laptop had warmed up. But when other keys suddenly stopped working altogether, I suspected the end was near.

Before breaking down and ordering a new keyboard, my computer-guy husband wanted to take one last crack at this one. He took it completely apart and individually cleaned and reset every key (let’s not talk how dirty the inside of that keyboard was, okay?).

It was two hours of patient work with tweezers and isopropyl alcohol soaked Q-tips, picking off bits and cleaning off gunk. And when it was all snapped back into place... it still didn’t work. A+ for effort, but it was still dead in the water. I ordered a new keyboard that day.

But it made me a little nostalgic. I bought this laptop with my husband’s blessing at a time when he was in school upgrading his certifications and we were running our family of four on only my income from the lab. I’d been writing for about 15 months at that point, but was starting to get really serious about it. About that time, I received a 50% off coupon from Dell. I was ready to walk away from it, but my husband wouldn’t hear of it. We weren’t really in a place to afford a luxury like a dedicated laptop for me, but he encouraged me to make the leap because he understood my need to write and wanted me to have the tools to be successful. So I bought this laptop in July 2008.

Looking back over the 3 ½ years I’ve had it, it’s been the most important possession I own, and certainly the most used. I work on it in the morning before work, on my lunch hour, after work and in the evenings. It goes back and forth to work daily, and on every car or air trip I’ve taken since its arrival. It’s even been dropped twice when my laptop bag strap snapped, and, miraculously, never blinked at the abuse.

But when I consider my writing, its importance really shines. Ann and I were still writing casually when I bought it, but over the years, it’s been a critical tool as we’ve moved from writing for us and our readers to writing with an eye towards traditional publication. I’ve logged about 700,000 words of fiction on this keyboard, not including revisions or deleted scenes and chapters. I’ve written almost a year’s worth of blog posts and just over 25,000 emails. When I look at it that way, I think it’s time for this keyboard to retire gracefully. It’s certainly served me well!

My new keyboard arrived and I installed it right away, being happy to give up the external keyboard I’d been using until it arrived (an external keyboard on a laptop makes it a LOT less portable, let me tell you). And suddenly my dependable old laptop feels brand new again.

New year, new keyboard, new opportunities. Let the fun begin! 2012 is going to be awesome!