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.
6 comments:
Congratulations, Thomas! I've been thinking hard about retiring from the university so that I can write full time. But I may go slowly after being advised by two now-retired colleagues not to retire until I have to do so. If I use that as my yardstick I could end up still being here when I'm in my 80s, as one of our most beloved and longest serving professors did.
So I'm going to ease out by reducing my teaching load, and try to get my life organized so that I will be more inclined to write every day than find a dozen or two chores and errands I need to do. In fact, I just passed on my list to my handyman in preparation. I had 21 tasks -- right down to fixing a squeak in the front. So you can see why I'm afraid to trust myself not to find busy work. I love to do research and write, but I'm easily distracted.
It sounds like you are much more disciplined.
Happy Days!
Thank you, Frankie. I waited until I turned seventy (actually I turn seventy next month, but what the heck).
Wonderful, Thomas. And beware of creeping obligations in other areas.
Congratulations, Tom!
Congratulations. Good job keeping your shoulder to the wheel. Hopefully I'll see you at the next BoucherCon.
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