Reinventing Yourself for Success

I am soon to be a 54 year old blue collar worker hoping to be able to retire in a few years at 57 years of age when my pension peaks out. (Of course, there is no certainty that the pension will be there then either.) I have thought about what I could do if and when I decide to go through with retirement. I would like to retire straight out, but in this economy there is too much uncertainty. I have given some thought to what I could do. I have given thought to doing some of the things that I would like to try. One that sticks out is writing novels. I started writing a novel in my spare time (which is very limited) and had several of my co-workers read the first chapter to see if this was a viable proposition from the onset.

One co-worker gave me a critique which was helpful. He suggested that I make the first chapter very entertaining and attention grabbing. This sent me back to my first re-write of the story. I thought about what information I wanted to convey in that first chapter and began my edit. I was happy with my first chapter and decided to let him read it as a sort of litmus test. He was very impressed with the second version. I know that I can write, but it took a second try to give me my bearings on what I should do if I should continue to write. I had several co-workers say that they would purchase the book if I wrote it based on my second try of the first chapter. I have read books and try to remember the things which really impressed me about other authors' novels. If I can keep things interesting and give enough information about different facets of the story to grab the attention of different readers, I should be able to do this.

I can talk about technology to grab an engineer's attention by pointing out some of the specifics about some actual or fictional device that will give that audience something to ponder. I can write about topics that I already know about, or I can research about topics which I don't completely understand, or perhaps I can even ask about the subjects of some of my research here on CR4. (Hint hint)

This idea for me is to see if the option of writing is even one that would be viable if and when I decide to retire in the next three to fourteen years. It would be a lot easier to decide if I knew going into it that I can do it if I have already tried it. Now, the only obstacle is finding the time to actually write the book in the first place. (That would probably mean spending less time posting on the CR4 forum.)