I tell people I got two speeds - all out and full stop. And I’m back in all out mode for sure. And it feels pretty damned good.
Some months back I wrote a piece here describing my frustrations of not knowing which direction to go with all the projects I had already started or had bangin around in my head. I wrote about how tricky it can be in quasi-retirement to find meaning.
Life can be paralyzing when you have plenty of time and tons of ideas but no direction. My daughter says I’m still too tied to output. Maybe… but I know how to do output… I’m very good at it.
My friend Angelo and I talk about this on the golf course. He’s retired and like me he’s antsy and itching for meaningful things to do. He’s written a book about the industry he worked in. He also built an insane model of the New Jersey rollercoaster he rode as a kid.
Like me, he had a very successful professional career and now, like me, he looks at palm trees and sunshine every day and wonders what’s next…
I’m sure one of the major reasons I had big success in my career is that I was certain of the direction I was headed since I was a very young boy. Early career clarity is the greatest gift I could imagine.
It was my sincere intention when I left the Dallas Stars booth in 2015 to have at least one more pretty damned successful career in a different industry. I called a bunch more NHL games for years after I left. I consulted and helped give young, talented broadcasters a leg up, but I can’t be in a fearful and destructive office climate anymore. It’s not good for me. I taught, but teaching and working in academia isn’t for me either.
I’ve been onstage for live theatrical productions, and I’ve directed a play here too. That’s just for fun. Exercise. I haven’t been up there since I played Otto Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank (and won the Coachella Valley’s Desert Theater League Award for best actor in a drama) in 2019. It’s gonna be hard to top that experience, and casting parts and assigning directors are very much out of my control.
No, over the last ten years or so I have become acutely aware that whatever it is I’ll do to leave another mark - or at least try to - has to be on my own.
And I’m a full-time writer now. I make a few bucks here on SubStack - enough to count as part-time money. I enjoy writing these shorter essays but I wanted to try another book. I wrote a novel in 2016, and it’s not horrible but it is reflective of a newbie’s first go.
This time I hired help, Excellent help from Allison INK Smith, another SubStacker. She’s helping me beyond measure.
I’m on a tight writing schedule. And - it’s coming… I like it. I’m hoping you do too.
Here’s where I’m at now and what I’ve learned and am learning.
C’mon, lemme tell you how me and my editor INK are doing first draft/mid-book…
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