Showing posts with label retirement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label retirement. Show all posts

Monday, October 16, 2023

Retirement---More Time for Writing and Marketing


 By Thomas Kies

It's a little hard to tell from that photo, but that was a toast made in my honor at my retirement party. I’m retiring from my day job as president of our county’s chamber of commerce this week. Friday is officially my last day.  About a week ago, my board hosted a very nice, well attended happy hour in celebration of this event, so this week is a bit of an anti-climax.

That being said, this past week was extremely busy, and this coming week will be even more so.  My replacement has already started so she’s in my old office and I’m taking up space in the conference room, where, I swear, it’s cold enough to hang meat. 

In addition to helping acclimate the new president into her new role, I’ve volunteered to be the moderator at our League of Women Voters Candidate Forums---all five of them.  This year the interest in the municipal elections has been remarkable.  Each election has between seven and twelve candidates running for three seats each.

So I’ve been putting together questions for each forum pertinent to the municipality and trying to time the forums so they go the full two hours and not a minute longer.  The reason?  I’m standing the entire time behind a podium and my legs and feet are screaming at me by 8pm.  I really wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed for volunteering for twelve hour days during the last two weeks of my career. 

What that’s done is slowed down my work on my next Geneva Chase novel.  I have a manuscript submitted to my editor that isn’t a Geneva Chase mystery and I wasn’t sure if working on another book in the series was a good idea.

But I met with my agent while I was in San Diego for Bouchercon and she advised me to go ahead to write another Geneva Chase adventure.  I’m at the 230-page mark and this is where I tie up some loose ends but also lay some new clues.  All of it in the middle of a hurricane.  In the book, not here on my island...not right at this moment. 

It’s difficult to keep the writing momentum up while tying up my own loose ends.  

After Friday, October 20, I hope to have much more time to write and promote the books I’ve already had published.  I saw a post online the other day asking, “When did writers have to become social media influencers?” 

That’s a good question but that’s where most of the marketing takes place, isn’t it?  How many of your local newspapers carry book reviews?  Another question, in this day and age, how many of you have daily newspapers in your area?  There are fewer and fewer of them.

Trying to promote your books on any “old media” is problematic at best. 

It’s the internet that needs to be used and that takes time.  One more reason to look forward to retirement, in addition to being able to read more often, take walks on the beach, travel to locations on Cindy’s and my bucket list, and visit my family.  

Oh yes and write.  I love to write.  

Just got to get through the rest of this week.


Tuesday, July 05, 2016

Free at last!

by Rick Blechta

Up here north of the 49th parallel we have an insurance company with a very successful and long-running commercial touting their “Freedom 55” program, meaning that they can help you retire at 55. (Of course, they've taken a lot of ribbing since people now talk about “Freedom 75” (or even “Freedom 85”) as the economy and job markets flounder around and people of “a certain age” have to get jobs at Walmart or McDonalds to make ends meet.)

Anyway, to get to the point, I turned 65 at the beginning of the month. As I laboured in the coal mines of public education for 24 years, I did manage to build up some pension money (not the very lucrative teachers' pension fund since I was merely a lowly Music Itinerant), but enough that I might be able to drop a source of income (my main one) and begin accessing it.

In short, I can actually stop working. Well, that’s not completely accurate. Let’s put it this way: I can stop doing work I don’t want to do, and start spending more time working on things I do enjoy and actually want to work at!

And that, of course, means writing (and music).

Soon (I have to finish off three graphic design jobs before this all happens) I’ll be able to get up in the morning and not have to immediately sit down to field emails from clients, which invariably leads to getting right to work on their jobs, quite often with a gun to my head because a deadline has been announced. Believe me, that’s no fun.

So now I’ll be able to grab a cup of joe and start in on “playing with my imaginary friends”, something that’s been hard to find consistent time to do over the past few years – not that it was ever easy. I’ve currently got three novels (and two synopses) in various states of disrepair and I’ll be able to dig in on them with a clear conscience and the knowledge that I’m not leaving a client hanging. I’ll also be able to reboot my website with a complete redesign.

No…wait…that's graphic design again, and it’s what I’m trying to get away from!