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Subject:Re: Where do 'old' techwriters go to die? From:"Bill Sullivan" <bsullivan -at- powerware -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com, JEldard -at- vinca -dot- com Date:Mon, 06 Dec 1999 18:59:00 -0500
>For those of you who have been techwriting for over ten years, what are you doing for challenges? Especially those working in corporate America?
I think I try to reinvent myself every time another project winds down, and especially if there isn't another project in site. In addition to all of the usual things like learning new skills and attempting to make myself more useful to the company I work for, I turn to other gray heads in other fields for example. Seiji Ozawa, for example, is leaving the helm of the Boston Symphony to conduct opera in Vienna. Boy, how I'd love to be doing that! Jim Leyland has dropped out of managing baseball teams to become a baseball scout. I'd probably enjoy that, too. And I have this cartoon where an old geezer asks a job counselor: Is it too late to become a cowboy?
I believe Frank Sinatra once said something about how there are times in life where you look at where you are, and where you are going, or where you want to go. You re-evaluate. Perhaps you stay where you are. Perhaps you move on.
In my 40-some years as a working writer, I have had at least three careers. A moment comes when the party is over. It becomes time to move on to the life's next little stopping place.
So I guess it's what you are qualified to do, and perhaps what your education and experience have qualified you to do. In my case, it is also where my interests have taken me. Which is why I favor a general education for people, rather than a specialized one. But that's another question, I guess.
Keep yourself stimulated and stimulating. Discover Joy. I used to know a guy, a violist in a symphony orchestra. Only that, and nothing more. I guess it wasn't enough. Poor devil committed suicide.
