IBMer to Author – How did that Happen??
I’ve always had the ability to “make stuff up”. My colleagues at IBM would say I have the gift of B.S. – not a great term, but I always took it positively. I could come up with new ideas and innovations to solve problems throughout my career.
Looking back, my wife and I always joke about how I helped her get through her creative writing class in college. She would struggle with coming up with a unique idea to demonstrate a writing style, so I would write a story that met the assignment need and then she would re-write it in her own style and ensure the format was what the professor was looking for. I’ve always claimed she wouldn’t have passed the class without me (she actually got an A), and she now points out that I’ve always needed an editor to complete my work!
I now say that retirement is the best job I’ve ever had — and add that “I’m really, really good at it.” For me, retirement has taken the tedium of 39 plus years of earning a living out of my life and has allowed me to just do the things that I enjoy. Golf and fishing and bird-watching are great activities to take time out of the day, but you can’t do them every day, all day. And while I still enjoy binge-watching TV now and then, even that gets old.
I happened onto this book writing thing by chance, and once I started, I’ve realized that I had been missing the opportunity to “make stuff up.” That’s satisfying and rewarding. It is similar to developing the ideas and innovations I created at work, when I was “working”, but now it seems especially more satisfying and rewarding.
After developing The Wonders of the Peculiar Parasol, I didn’t stop there. I wrote 3 more books with the same characters while we were pursuing getting the first book published. And now, I’m actually working on the outline of a 5th book in the same series.
I’m still retired and spend most of my free time golfing, fishing, or just watching movies and TV. My wife and I also travel as much as possible and spend time with our kids and grand-kids. But now, I’m also an author, and get to continue to be creative and to “make stuff up.”